A Weird Combination: Mario Golf & Soulcalibur V?

 Good afternoon everybody,

Well last night's stream was a weird combination of golf and sword fighting...

We lead off with Mario Golf: Super Rush, and after re-learning how to play, I actually went and played some Ranked matches... and that was real fun, chilled and relaxing. Just three holes, no matter how well you did, you get points and the leader boards apparently resent every month... so we found a reason to actually maybe feature Mario Golf: Super Rush on a regular basis. I do intend to be a Daisy main in it, because Daisy is awesome... and you know this!

Now, I did say I was going to mess around with something in the PlayStation 3... and that ended up being Soulcalibur V, a game we explored a bit earlier in the year. After a successful arcade run as Siegfried, I dived into the story mode... and I see why, without knowing much at all about the lore, people didn't like it.

The main character of the story mode and of Soulcalibur V is named Patroklos, and he is an insufferable twerp... there isn't anything likeable about him as a character. Everything is about his goals, and thus he ends up being used and exploited pretty easily until he realizing that unless he actually makes things happen he won't save his sister, Pyrrha, who really should've been the start of the story mode, because of her tragic back story and her desire not to be alone. 

Now my run through the story mode wasn't seamless, and while I was able to brute force my way through most of its fights, I did find myself reducing the difficulty on a couple of fights in the late chapters. I do kind of wish more of was animated instead of looking at still pictures that didn't fill up more than a quarter of screen.

Following the stream, we just hosted Maximilian_DOOD who was messing around with the beta for King of Fighters XV. He is the largest Twitch streamer I follow because I enjoy his content over on YouTube. You can catch his live streams over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD!  

SoulCalibur V Trophies

1. Colorful Illusion: Creation: took a thumbnail by manually setting a decoration frame and background.
2. Purge of the Holy: Story: cleared episode 1.
3. Shields Come Together: Story: cleared episode 8.
4. Resurrection of Order: Story: cleared episode 16.
5. Home is Faraway: Story: cleared final episode.

Twitch Clip Links

• It was right there man!
• Into The Bunker
• Sweet Chip In!
• Perfection? 
• Caught Him!
• Perfect on Elysium 
  

Since I some times get unwanted calls, I've decided to screw around with the people on the other side by doing a few variations of implying they have reached 'Ghostbusters'... needless to say some folks don't know how to handle that. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #2, Front-Back Step Combo and Beginner Combo #1 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 431 kcal.

Found a copy of J-Stars Victory VS+ for the PlayStation 4, in many ways it's the game that inspired Jump Force, but it is more of a standard fighting game, that does have its own story and lot more characters from the history Shonen Jump than the game we've been featuring lately.

Also found volumes 5, 6 and 7 of Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. 2nd Gig to complete that set. Funny thing, the copies of Volume 5 and 6 I now have are the special edition versions which means where they sit on my bookcase with the rest of the series looks a little weird

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures was focused more on dungeons and raids, managing to get a few done. One certainly confused me as it appears to be some sort of tie in to Monster Hunter right down to the Palico. It is pretty cool, even if I've barely played Monster Hunter Rise. Still tonight does mean I have a bunch of stuff to randomly do on stream.

And speaking of which for tonight's stream we'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV with a big focus on dungeons, raids and trials... as doing the Main Story Quest on stream is a bit bland... plus there's a bunch of stuff I haven't done, so it could be a night of comedy and errors!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Lara Rises Again... Only To Fall In The Snow!

Good morning everybody,

Well a new day dawns on us, following a night where Lara Croft was stumbling around in the snow.

Yes, indeed we started up Rise of the Tomb Raider last night, a boy was it a bit confusing in regards to how some abilities were being unlocked and when, as the prologue certainly lasted longer than I thought and the big reveal a good portion of what I playing may be told from a flash back perspective. It seems that way at the very least. It seems Lara has kind of gone loony as she goes all-in following her father's foot steps which puts her in conflict with a fanatical religious group is look for the Divine Source, an relic that seems as if can grant immortality.

Gameplay wise, Rise of the Tomb Raider plays a lot like the first game, but we have the hindrance of snow and the added elements of swimming sections, which gives me flash backs to how swimming was a big deal in Tomb Raider II way back in the 90s. Collectables seems to be a lot easier to find, and there are some in-game perks to finding ancient coins to purchase various items.

I should talk about the micro-transactions Rise of the Tomb Raider has, because it's clear there were some pay to win mechanics going on, which I believe is part of the PVP mode... that sadly was a trend for a long time folks.

Anyway, in terms of where I am in the story, I figure I'm maybe one-third of the way through, if a list of chapters was any indications. With luck, this could be a three-nighter like the first game in the Survivor Trilogy... but I'm not counting on that!

Big thanks to Kalenal for the big raid after her stream of Stardew Valley! Kalenal streams over at twitch.tv/kalenal and plays a lot of Final Fantasy XIV!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to LifeWithStan who was playing Dark Souls III over at twitch.tv/lifewithstan!

Rise of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. Quite the Collector: Collect 150 cards
2. Reading the Past: Translate one Monolith
3. Following in Father's Footsteps: Enter the Syrian tomb of the Lost Prophet
4. Quite A Tumble: Survive the avalanche
5. Tougher Than She Looks: Survive a night in the Siberian wilderness
6. One-Sided Conversation: Stealth kill an enemy while he is having a conversation
7. Challenging: Complete any Challenge Tomb
8. Strange Acquaintance: Rescue Jacob from the gulag
9. Rapid Recovery: Heal yourself in combat 3 times
10. Twitch Clip Links

Twitch Clip Links

• The first oops of the game...
• It's a Bear!
• Ho Ho Ho I Got A Machine Gun!
  

My off-stream adventures of Final Fantasy XIV continued, first yesterday afternoon with the liberation of Doma and then seeing that Krile was captured by Zenos' goons... needless to say that jerk has a butt kicking coming his way! Also seeing Gosetsu go down was a big reminder of how Square Enix loves to create really likeable characters only to kill them off... I swear it's their revenge for those of us who found Aerith not worth a hill of beans in Final Fantasy VII. 

Of course the Final Fantasy XIV adventures continued after the stream, as I continued the Main Story Quest up through The Silence of the Gods which mean another Primal fight, in perhaps one the most confusing ones I've seen that used a new element where a shield of sorts needed to be trigger to avoid mega AOEs. I will have to ask Kalenal about that in the future before facing the 'Extreme' version of it.

Finally was able to get a lead on Volumes 4-7 of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig, so hopefully I'll be able to add them to the collection to complete that series.

Really excited to do another run of Gears of War 4 starting on Wednesday, as it was the first Xbox One game I finished last year when I got the console. To go through it with Iceman is gonna be a lot of fun I bet!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Sway Back Combo, Straight Combo #2 and Hip Shape Focus Combo as the exercises for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 456 kcal.

 I can confirm that I am off work next Thursday for Thanksgiving. Maybe we'll do a long stream that day. 

Saw the trailer for Dragon Ball: The Breakers, and thank goodness it's not another re-telling of the Dragon Ball Z and Super series. Sure it looks like Dragon Ball's version of Dead By Daylight, but at least it's something different!

If Kyle Rittenhouse is found Not Guilty I will not blame anyone for being pissed, because that piece of shit went to Kenosha looking for trouble. In addition the judge is clearly racist and a Trump support whose bias was on full display.

For tonight's stream we will be continuing Rise of the Tomb Raider, and the only thing I can say for sure is that Lara Croft will again be face down in the snow!

So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Today's Notes 6/22/21: The Reapers Have Arrived

Good morning everybody,

Yesterday things got interesting with a circuit breaker being tripped, certainly lead to me figuring out how to make things cool without stressing the wiring of the house! It lead to a slight delayed to the start of the stream, but not much of one.

Anyway, last night's stream saw the start up of Mass Effect 3: Legendary Edition, and I'm probably going to be taking my time with this one more sore than the first two games because of finding every damn item in space with the notes I used from the prior runs on PC. There are way too many awesome visuals in ME3 so I find myself stopping to see if something is screenshot worthy, and I posted a bunch over on Twitter.

In terms of the game itself, we basically did the intro, roamed the Citadel and Normandy and managed to pick up Garrus on the Turian moon. We also knocked out a bunch of achievements because I want to try and be as efficient as possible with everything being done on stream, so that meant one side quest plus going around the galaxy to find stuff and talking to everyone while exhausting conversation options!. Here's the list of what we accomplished:

1. Driven: ME3: Return to active duty
2. Focused: ME3: Evolve any of your powers to rank 6
3. Bringer of War: ME3: Chase down an assassin
4. Shopaholic: ME3: Visit a store on the Citadel
5. A Personal Touch: ME3: Modify a weapon
6. Untouchable: ME3: Escape a Reaper in the galaxy map
7. Lost and Found: ME3: Dispatch 10 probes to retrieve people or resources in Reaper territory
8. Eye of the Hurricane: ME3: Kill a brute while it's charging you
9. Mobilizer: ME3: Bring a veteran officer aboard

And of course we have a several clips from last night as well which I'll listed next:

Twitch Clip: Hello Legs

Twitch Clip: Shepard Meets The Press 3

Twitch Clip: Achievement: Untouchable

Twitch Clip: Battle on the Turrian Moon!

Twitch Clip: EDI Tells A Joke

In terms of where we'll be picking up, for Tuesday's night stream we're heading to Grissom Academy first to rescue Jack and then we'll do the mission to pick up Javik and see what various things we can knock out as well. 

Also I need to mess around with the Noise Gate in OBS to try and cut down on the noise caused by my fans.

Anyway we added four games to the collection yesterday: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex for the PS2, Ghostbusters (2016) for the PS4, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity for the Nintendo Switch and Final Fantasy Anthology for the PS1

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 session lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 539 kcal. The exercises were Intermediate Combo #1, Triple Combo #2 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo. Mistimed a few jabs and a couple of uppercuts but otherwise a solid workout effort I think. We are now up to 73 out of 100 for the Laura's Best Friend achievement. 

And on that note we'll see you later tonight for more Mass Effect fun over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!