A Night Devoted To The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream featured every single game of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Cowabunga Collection... which of course meant taking advantage of the online play involved for the two Arcade Games... which oddly enough didn't result in achievements for either game. The quality of the connection to other players was certainly all over the place. But still had fun going through them from start to finish.

As far as all the console games go... we didn't come close to beating any of them, but we did see how everything evolved in the late 80s and early 90s when it came to TMNT. Visually perhaps the game that impressed me the most with how it looked was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers. The sprite quality in that little game for the Game Boy was incredible.

So after the stream, and using the method featuring in the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection (watching a pre-recorded version, jumping in on near the defeat of the final boss, saving the game, quitting, loading that save and finishing the fight), I went through every game to get every single achievement that method would work for. However the SNES and Sega Genesis versions of Tournament Fighters required different methods. 

With the SNES version, that required going the Story Battle mode, and what I did was change the time limit to 30 seconds and rewind at key moments to avoid hits to ensure a time limit victory. With the Sega Genesis version, I enabled the 'hidden boss characters' feature to play as Kairi that involved setting the difficulty to level 8 (Hardest difficulty) setting the rounds to 1. No once I selected Kairi, I increased the power and speed to eight.. But since the Sega Genesis version didn't have a time limit adjustment, I used to rewind method to basically try and counter every attack the A.I. performed to stumble and bumble my way through everything.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection Achievements

• Shredding the Shredder: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (N)
• Pizza Party!: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (N)
• I Have Become Turtle, Eater of Pizzas: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project (N)
• N Tournament Champion: Defeated Shredder in TMNT: Tournament Fighters’ Story Mode (N)
• Waiting for the other Foot to Drop: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan (GB)
• Back Into Action: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers (GB)
• Gnarly Greatness: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue (GB)
• Heroes in a Half Shell: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade)
• Callback: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (Arcade)
• Totally Tubular Time Travel: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SN)
• S Tournament Champion: Defeated Karai in TMNT: Tournament Fighters’ Story Battle (SN)
• Sewer’s Four: Finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist (GEN)
• G Tournament Champion: Defeated the real Karai in TMNT: Tournament Fighters’ 1 Player Mode (GEN)

We also took a brief look at Nickelodeon All-Stars Brawl because a) it has TMNT characters in it and b) I wanted to hear the quality of the voice overs they finally added. And they are of a high quality, it was real cool to hear Cam Clarke as Leonardo once again. That said, Nick All-Star Brawl's controls are reversed from MultiVersus, so trying to remember what buttons did was was a pain in the but on a quick arcade run.

The Clip list is rather long as I pulled a clip for each game. Sorry not sorry. Of course we didn't play the SNES version of Turtles in Time... now that I think about it. Oh well

Twitch Clips

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time (Arcade)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SNES)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyper Stone Heist 
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SG)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (NES) 
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES)
  
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project 
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament FIghters (NES)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Fall of the Foot Clan 
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back From The Sewers
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Radical Rescue 
• Play Time's Finish!
  

For the raid we dropped in on Kalenal as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV Over on twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Uppercut Como, Advanced Combo #2 and Body Straight Combo for 31 minutes.

Xfinity Tech arrived at exactly 2 PM yesterday and was here till after 4 PM working on stuff, as they monitored the network connection, they figured that maybe the node on the tap my service drop line was attached too was shorting out, so they switched my line to an open node on the same tap. They also replaced the service drop line that runs from the tap to my house. They also detected interferance coming from the line devoted to the two cable boxes I had. They said it shouldn't be an issue but he checked the connections for them just to be on a safe side.

Why was the math teacher late to work? She took the rhombus.

I'm really excited for the next autopsy club. It's open Mike night! 

Song of the Day: Speechless by Dan + Shay

Finished writing the commission request for a story based around The Last of Us games, and I had a lot of fun writing Ellie. And keeping with the spooky season, I'm glad the next commission request is for a story based around Reisdent Evil 5 which featured Chris Redfield.

It's the start of a new week, so let's recap what we played last week which included: Overwatch, Murdered Soul Suspect, Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, Star Trek Online, Fall Guys, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, The Quarry, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; The Cowabunga Collection, & Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl!

If you're looking for tools to help with streaming or communicating from home with work, check out what Xsplit offers over at Xsplit.com, use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order! If you're looking for just general stuff, of course you can swing over to Amazon using my affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3L8N1Yj. 

For tonight's stream we're going to play Overwatch as the count down to Overwatch 2 continues!

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

The Street Fighter EX Trilogy

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream certainly took an interesting turn as we featured all three games of the Street Fighter EX trilogy. Let's first talk about the two games released on the original PlayStation

The first game, Street Fighter EX Plus was something I have played before 20+ years ago, but I traded my original copy in for something else way back and only recently acquired a 'new' used copy of the game. Playing it again certainly felt good as the game play was solid, the visual looked pretty good and with Sakura in the game, you know I was going to use her first and foremost. I got my ass wrecked by Shin Akuma for the 2nd time in a month, because I unknowingly fulfilled the requirements to face him just like I did with Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold. This game certainly has depth to it with a few different game modes, including Survival and Time Trial.

Next, was Street Fighter EX2 Plus... which I have never played before. It is a stunningly good looking game, and perhaps has the smoothest button inputs I have ever experienced, in fact I was able to do things with Chun Li in this game that I struggle to do with in other games she appears in. My only criticism of it, or rather of the Japan version of the game is the lack of game modes. Apparently the North American version had some sort of combo challenges associated with it, that are not in Japan release. That was a tad bit disappointing.

Because of that, I hooked up the PlayStation 2 to play Street Fighter EX3... this is a game I have played before... and boy was I rusty as hell at it, not remembering at all how to do any of the tag team combos that are in the game. The game play for EX3 can be considered weak in comparison to its two predecessors, but compared to other fighting games, it is pretty solid in terms of how it performs and how it looks. Plus it has arguably the best reason to beat the 'Original Mode', with the end credits sequence where you get to beat the crap out of a ton of jobbers.

Something I discovered during the stream is that the developer of the Street Fighter EX trilogy, ARIKA, owns all the original characters and they developed and released a sequel to these games last year called Fighting EX Layer, which I hope had a North America release.

Twitch Clip Links 

1. Getting My Stuff Wrecked By Shin Akuma
2. Taking Down Bison 
3. Trying Out Area
4. Defeating Sagat With Chun Li 
5. Well that worked out
6. Nice way to win 
   

For the raid, we dropped in on Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal, and we also joined in on a trail with Kal as well!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo #2, Double Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #1. And yes I am trying to do extra free trainings every day to knock out the Contender and Champion achievements as quickly as possible!

Continued by Xbox achievement streak via WWE 2K15 last night, and something that surprised me is that The Giant Killer achievement, which involves defeating Big Show using Rey Mysterio on Hard Difficulty was only accomplished by 2% of Xbox players. I mean. come on, it's a pretty standard thing  to do. How I did it, set up an Extreme Rules match with the two, which lead to getting two other achievements as well.

WWE 2K15 Achievements

• Now that's Hardcore!: Hit an opponent with a foreign object or put them through a table. (Single play)
• Redbox Big Moment: Put your opponent through the announce table via any means. (Single play/Exhibition)
• The Giant killer: Beat Big Show using Rey Mysterio on Hard difficulty. (Single play)
• You're so desperate!: Win a match using a Desperation Pin. (Single play)
• Tap! Tap! Tap!: Make an opponent tap out with a submission that is not a Finisher or Signature move. (Single Play)
• My path starts here: MyCAREER - Complete the tutorial.

It's the start of a new week, so let's look back at all the things we featured over the last seven days which includes Overwatch, Sonic Generations, SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, Paladins, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Street Fighter EX Plus, Street Fighter EX2 Plus and Street Fighter EX3!  

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday, which as you know means it's time for Overwatch!

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

A Night That Featured Some Old SNK Games

Good morning everyone,

As you know I was lightly messing around with the SNk 40th Anniversary Collection off stream, mostly to get the achievements out of the way, then last night we dedicated about half the stream to it, playing P.O.W. Prisoners of War, Paddle Mania, Baseball Stars and Beast Busters. Two of those game we are counting on the tour for this year in the same way we counted some of the Street Fighter Alpha games a few weeks ago. Just because they are part of a complication doesn't disqualify them from being on the tour. Besides I only counted  three of the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology games.

Now thoughts an impressions of the games we played... well P.O.W. Prisoners of War is your standard left to right beat 'em up... with some of the worst hit boxes possibles. The trading of hits certainly favor the a.i. which was designed to be a quarter muncher There was one bullshit moment involving a grenade exploding and yet somehow I took damage... even though I was out of its blast radius!

Paddle Mania was interesting, in that it is a tennis game... but each round has some gimmick to it. I made it round four... so I saw the standard tennis stage, the 1 vs 3 volley ball stage, and the tennis stage with the sliding wall and the sumo stage. It took me a few tries to figure out the mechanics of the game  but it was fun.

Now I'm no strangers Baseball Stars 2, in fact we have streamed that in the past. Baseball Stars is its predecessor which was originally released on the Nintendo Entertainment Systems. We did one game, winning a slug fest 12-10... and managed to hit a few home runs. This is the only game I used the collections rewind feature for because much like it's sequel, when I'm on defense I can't ever figure out who I have control of when the ball is hit by the opposing team!.

Beast Busters was a ton of fun, it's one of those old school rail shooters that used light guns in the arcades. It's a horror game so there were various monsters, but what made me chuckle is the zombies with guns and some of the in-between stage text.This is the one game I wished I had someone to play with because it's such a good game. The sprite work was top notch. I'm actually surprised this didn't have an achievement associated with it.

Of course we didn't stay with the SNK games the entire night, we switched over to Paladins and had a few good matches before ending with two matches where people intentionally left the match and never came back. Spent the majority of the time playing as Ying once again remembering how much I depend on tanks who focus on the objective..

Twitch Clip Links

1. I was no where near it!
2. Actually clearing the first round... 
3. It's Back... It's Back... It's Gone!
4. It's Vulnerable Spot Is Its Face! 
5. That's How You Take Charge
   

We did not do a raid last night, instead we just hosted Maximilian_dood who was discussing new content for Monster Hunter Rise before playing Elden Ring over at twitch.tv/maximilian_dood! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo. Worked in some extra time, which resulted in setting a new personal best with Beginner Combo #1 on No Mercy Difficulty!

There was a patch update to Overwatch and they removed the Paris and Horizon Lunar Colony maps... and I don't understand why? Both maps have the same mechanics as the Hamamura map in that they had two control points for the attacking team to capture and had some great places to set up defensive if one had the mind for it. The new Overwatch League skin for Sombra is rather neat looking.

Messed around a bit with Garfield Kart Furious Racing last night, it's a fine little kart game with the Garfield gimmick slapped on top of it. Seems like all of achievements can be gradually knocked out without any online play... which is good because I bet there is no community for this game. We might throw in on a stream next week just to mess around with it.

Garfield Kart Furious Racing Achievements

• Cat got your tongue: Win your 1st puzzle piece
• Cat out of hell: Win your 1st hat
• Cat's good with me: Complete a race in any mode or category
• The cat’s meow: Win your 1st unique hat

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon, and since I have Callie up to level 60, that means we'll probably see some game breaking stuff or so I'm told. Then after 9 PM, Gears of War Ultimate Edition resumes with Iceman!

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

Finally Streamed Sonic Generations

Good morning everyone,

Last year was the 30th Anniversary of Sonic the Hedgehog, but with Covid-19, the celebration was a quite one as the big game that was supposed to be for it, Sonic Frontiers, was delayed. Still, back in 2011, for the 20th Anniversary of the Blue Blur, Sonic Generations was released, highlighting every major Sonic the Hedgehog game up to that point... yes even Sonic '06, with some passing references to lesser known titles.

Sure it's a story that revolves around time travel that sees Sonic and Tails from the early 90s meet their modern day counter parts while on a quest to stop the Time Eater from ripping up all of time and space, rescue their friends and celebrate Sonic's birthday... but what matters is the game play, which is about as straight forward as possible. 

Admittedly, I have played this game twice before, briefly for the PlayStation 3 before my original PS3 broke down in 2013, while also playing the Steam version back in 2018. While I was streaming at that time, Sonic Generations wasn't a game I could stream because it did not support a Windowed mode, or even a border-less Windowed mode ... and since I only had one monitor at the time, I couldn't really go all in in splaying games that had a fixed full-screen display.

So playing the Xbox 360 version last night saw me slowly remembering a number of details, and my absolute hatred for the Planet Wisp stage, and I think I did alright got a few S ranks, didn't really have any major trouble until open pits were a lot more frequent in the latter stages. Hell the Egg-Dragon and Perfect Chaos fights were a lot easier than I remembered... while I did struggle against the Time Eater... it took me 5 attempts.

In terms of achievements I knocked out 29 out of 49 in about 5 hours, which is one more than I managed to do on the Steam version... in nearly 14 hours. I certainly had fun with it.

Sonic Generations Achievements

• The Opening Act: Completed the first stage.
• Bright Star: Got Rank S in an Act.
• GREEN HILL Restored!: Restored the GREEN HILL Stage Gate.
• CHEMICAL PLANT Restored!: Restored the CHEMICAL PLANT Stage Gate.
• Walk on Air: Cleared SKY SANCTUARY Act 1 without falling and losing a life.
• Shooting Star: Got Rank S in three Acts.
• Eradicator: Defeated 100 enemies.
• SKY SANCTUARY Restored!: Restored the SKY SANCTUARY Stage Gate.
• Scrap Metal: Defeated Metal Sonic.
• Sunny Side Up: Defeated Death Egg Robot.
• SPEED HIGHWAY Restored!: Restored the SPEED HIGHWAY Stage Gate.
• CITY ESCAPE Restored!: Restored the CITY ESCAPE Stage Gate.
• Action Hero: Performed all of Sonic's actions in Act 2.
• SEASIDE HILL Restored!: Restored the SEASIDE HILL Stage Gate.
• Shadow Boxing: Defeated Shadow.
• Perfect Punisher: Defeated Perfect Chaos.
• A 30-Second Test: Participated in a 30 Second Trial.
• Ring King: Reached the goal without dropping any of the rings you collected in GREEN HILL Act 1.
• Join the Ranks: Joined the rankings.
• Look Both Ways: Reached the goal in CRISIS CITY Act 2 without being hit by a tornado-carried cars or rocks.
• CRISIS CITY Restored!: Restored the CRISIS CITY Stage Gate.
• Trickstar: Pulled off a seven or more trick combo or six trick combo ending in a finishing trick.
• ROOFTOP RUN Restored!: Restored the ROOFTOP RUN Stage Gate.
• PLANET WISP Restored!: Restored the PLANET WISP Stage Gate.
• Silver Got Served: Defeated Silver.
• Boom Boom Dragoon: Defeated Egg Dragoon.
• Treasure Hunter: Collected all the Chaos Emeralds.
• All Stages Cleared!: Cleared Sonic Generations.
• Walkie Talkie: Chatted with all of Sonic's friends you saved.

Twitch Clip Links

1.  Scrapping Metal Sonic
2.  Look Both Ways
3.  By Our Power Combine....
   

During the stream we had a big raid from Kalenal who was playing Pokemon: Brilliant Diamond, and cleared victory road! Hopefully they will have an easier time getting through the elite four and Cynthia than I did! Kalenal streams over at twitch.tv/kalenal!

For our raid, we dropped in on RoseMaryShorn who was playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance over at twitch.tv/rosemaryshorn!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Straight Combo #1, Weaving Combo #2 and Beginner Combo #2.

Wrestling icon Scott Hall passed away yesterday at the age of 63, dude certainly had a lot of good matches, and was probably one of the bigger big guys in pro wrestling when his head was on right. Most say that ladder match at WrestleMania X was his best match, but I'd say it was the match he had with Rick Martel on RAW for the Intercontinental title. 

Cheesed out the remaining achievements in the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, now most people do this all in like 25 minutes, but I did try to play some of these so my completion time is way off on comparison to everyone else. Completing this achievements also extended my streak through today

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Achievements

• Athena, I Will Go: Beat Psycho Soldier.
• Street Smarts: Beat Street Smart.
• A Full Tank: Beat TNK III.
• On Guard: Finished the second level of Vanguard.

For tonight's stream we're going to feature the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, so we'll give the collection it's due. This should be a night of many deaths and game hoping! But there is a slight problem the collection itself is not listed on Twitch, so we'll open with Just Chatting and then manual select each game we play. Chances are the entire stream won't be focused around this, and we'll work in some other things I have on the Xbox One as well.

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

Well That Was A Night Of Overwatch

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was interesting... everything felt a little off, in terms of people either trying to make stuff happened and then just bailing. More than once I just put myself in 'preservation' mode and just phoned in the last 30-40 seconds of a few matches because of the stupidity I was seeing. Here's a tip to Reinhardt players... if a Moira is on your team using her ultimate, don't walk backward... GO FORWARD WITH YOUR HAMMER SWINGING SINCE MORIA'S ULTIMATE WILL HEAL YOU!

That said, I did nab one Play of the Game as D.va in match where we were just on the back foot the entire time and I managed to get behind the other team to take out nearly everyone in the span of 30 seconds. Too bad the team I was on didn't do anything to ensure we kept the advantage. We also got in several mayhem matches, and I dedicated a lot of time playing as Sombra, someone who I normally don't play as because of how her 'teleport' gimmick does often lead to being out of position.

Now the question becomes, do I want to sign up for the Overwatch 2 PVP Beta... and the answer is not really because I'm more interested in the PVE aspect of Overwatch 2, that is what was promised and that is what I'm expecting.

Twitch Clip Links

1. Doing everything I can 
2. Ultimates Were Ready 
3. Well Bob Did Something 

We didn't do a raid last night, instead we just dropped a host for LadyPanicPants over at twitch.tv/ladypanicpants. They were playing Goose Goose Duck, which seemed to be an Among Us clone.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Weaving Combo #1, Advanced Combo #1 and Intermediate Combo #2.

 

We've added Street Fighter EX2 Plus for the Playstation to the collection, this is the Japanese version of the game because the North American version is impossible to find. Also added a physical copy of WWE 2K18 for the Xbox One, I believe it's DLC is still obtainable so maybe we'll go after that... probably not any time soon.

The speculation that the Phillies will bring back Odubel Herrera is going over like a wet fart with the local fan base. He's a below average center fielder who is still upset that his own personal actions derailed what could have been an okay career. 

Knocked out two more achievements in the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, now off the games in the collection the one I can safely say I played before was P.O.W., in fact I can remember exactly where I first played it. It was at a laundrymat on Federal Street here in Camden, New Jersey. It used to be on a corner, but that was about 25+ years ago.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Achievements

• No Escaping the Fun: Beat the Arcade version of P.O.W.
• Pterodactylized: Beat Prehistoric Isle.

Saw that the WWE is putting Queen Sharmell into their Hall of Fame... and I have to wonder how many women told the WWE to fuck off when asked if they would be willing to go into the Hall of Fame this year before they settled on Sharmell, who lets face it checks off two boxes as it relates to the 'quota mark' in terms of representation. If you think I'm kidding about that, look at that the past decade of hall of fame ceremonies, and you'll see the pattern.

Found some really well done Super Mario / Ghostbuster animations over on YouTube yesterday,, you can check one out at this link: Super Mario Busters 3 - Extra Life.  I do have a question, if Sonic the Hedgehog is clearly Winston, does that make him the sex appeal? Yes that is a Ghostbusters Afterlife reference.

And speaking of Sonic the Hedgehog, the next game we're going to start up to mostly be seen on Mondays and Tuesdays is Sonic Generations. We'll be playing the Xbox 360 version of it tonight!

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

So We Played Teen Titans For The PS2 Last Night

Good morning everyone,

There's a good reason for this being posted before 7 AM... I'll explain when I talk about the Fitness Boxing 2 workout.

Anyway, last night, randomly I decided to play Teen Titans for the PlayStation 2. Released after season four of the original show that aired on Cartoon Network (Since there was promos for a DVD and Season 5), the game itself has the story where the Titans (Raven, Robin, Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire) slowly realizing they are within a video game,  It is a 'dungeon crawler' style beat-em-up, similar in some regards to Marvel Ultimate Alliance in that you clear out an area of enemies and move onto the next. Boss battles typically involve a few different mechanics, but most end up having to set up for a 'team super attack', which is just silly because Beast Boy doesn't have a beam attack.

You are not locked into just one character, you can between all five titans, but I found myself mostly using Starfire towards the end for two reasons, her charge attacks are a lot easier to position than the others and two, her projectiles have the best range. Now there are 'screen clear' attacks, and Raven has the best one on the grounds that she screams 'Azarath Metrion Zinthos!'. Beast Boy, for me is the worst character simply because his combo inputs are not as fluid as the others.

In terms of how it looks, it looks fine for a game from 2006, the character models are nice 3D renders of what was seen on the show, and all the voice actors who worked on the show were featured in the game. The music is pretty generic outside of the Teen Titans theme performed by Puffy AmiYumi. Controls are pretty good as well. I do like how the game breaks the fourth wall fully once you beat the final boss, it's something that was also seen at the end of The Simpsons game with Ralph Wiggum. 

Beyond the main game there is a 'Master of Games' mode which is basically a fighting game, inspired byt the episode 'Winner Takes All', and I'm not sure the main game mechanics works for a fighting game format, but I bet it is meant to be played with four people instead of one on one against the A.I. .

I will say that that Teen Titans joins Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise as games that surprised me for being a completely fun experience. That is what I look for in most games I play.

Twitch Clip Links

1. The battle against Gizmo 
2. Where is that little (bleep) at! 
3. I didn't do a damn thing! 

For last night's raid we dropped in on Kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal! 

It's Sunday which means, time to take a look back at all the games we played last which with a highlight reel! Last week we featured Overwatch, Paladins, SSX, What Remains of Edith Finch, WWF SmackDown 2: Know Your Role, Gears of War: Ultimate Editions, Ugly American Apocalysegeddon, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal and Teen Titans!

My Xbox achievement streak continued with two more achievement knocked out in the SNK 40th Anniversary collection. The streak stand at 31 days. Yes I am aware I could easily have cheesed out all the achievements for this game in less than an hour, but by spreading them out we extend the streak.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Achievements

• Rescue Me: Beat the Arcade version of Ikari III.
• Tread on Them: Beat Iron Tank.

I totally spaced out that today was the day we set our clocks forward... so I went ahead and did my daily workout before dawn because when I thought it was 5 AM it was actually 6 AM and I said fuck it, let me do it before going to bed. It still counts! Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Straight Combo, Uppercut Combo #1 and Triple Combo #1. I also set a new personal best with Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 on No Mercy difficulty, out of 704 actions, 698 were perfect and 6 were okay.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Overwatch, and you know it'll be the usual quick play nonsense!

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

So about the Ann being a decoy scene in Persona 5

Good afternoon everyone,

Yeah I'm not even going to pretend stepping around this, as I remember an episode of Outside Xbox where Luke talked about this particular scene in Persona 5. So the story progress saw us discover the next big bad of the game, an artist named Madarame, who actually plagiarizes the art of those he has taken under his wing... and part of the investigation involves Yusuke, his last pupil who is apparently blind to his master's actions. Now Yusuke happens to get a look at Ann and wants to paint her... in the buff as it were.

Yes I am aware of the ages of the characters in Persona 5... and I know Japan has a much different approach to things than the United States, but for fuck sakes the entire scene where he declares his intentions was just cringe worthy. Now I get it, it sets up a bit of comedy with Ann being a decoy and allows for a way to get Yusuke into the Metaverse to unlock his Persona so he becomes the 5th member of the team... but c'mon man, that entire portion was just... nutty. Particularly when afterward, you can tell Yusuke 'no nude paintings' and he says he still intends to paint Ann in the buff.

It also doesn't help that Yusuke has a voice deeper than a good portion of the male characters seen so far in the game.

So outside of that, I do feel like I screwed up a few things, as I took a trip into Mementos long before I should have  which threw off the pacing of a few things, but since I'm not playing for 100% completion just to make sure I'm ahead of the curve on things, But this did mean I didn't get any trophies unlocked because of it... oh well.

I should be fine as long as I remember what things I neglected to do. The Museum Palace itself has a nice layout too it and seems far less intimidating than the Castle Palace with its layout. Still if all goes to plan next Friday's Persona 5 stream will see a nice even split of mostly story and palace stuff next week if all goes right.

Twitch Clip Links

1. Well that was my reaction to that scene 
2. Give me the power
3. Yusuke is real quick on the uptake... 
   

For last night's raid we dropped in on Flint_locke who was doing some VRChat over at twitch.tv/flint_locke!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo and Advanced Combo #2! Beyond the daily, I've set a new personal best for Difficult Challenge Combo #2 on No Mercy Difficulty 894 Perfect Action + 1 Okay Action out of a possible 896 Actions

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise Stats For 36 to 3/12/2022

• Punches Thrown: 12,803
• Estimated Calorie Burn 5255.98 kcal
• 17 out of 30 hours trained for Evan's Contender
  

We're expecting below freezing temperatures today and snow... keep in mind this is the middle of March, but also keep in mind that I have seen snow as late as April here in South Jersey.

My current Xbox achievement streak is up to a solid 30 days as we once again did the exploit with the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, then put in the level up grind in Ugly Americans which resulted in getting the kill count achievements for Manbirds and Demons. I haven't played any additional levels that are not DLC related yet, so next time we feature it on stream, it will resume with stage 5... but with characters leveled up quite a bit. I got Callie up to level 60 and boy does it have a bit of lag to it.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Achievements

• The Warrior Within: Beat the Arcade version of Ikari Warriors.
• Showed Some Guts: Beat the Arcade version of Victory Road.

Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon Achievements

• Put Your Cheeks Into It!: Kill 1000 Manbirds.
• No Loitering!: Kill 5000 Demons.

We've officially added Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha for the PlayStation to the collection, I may have had a copy 20 years ago, but I don't fully recall. Still it will be interesting to show case it at some point!

For tonight's stream, I'm not 100% sure yet what we're going to do, but we'll be up to something or other!

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

Hunting For Blue Mage Spells Is Not Easy

 Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV was interesting as we did the Pandemonium and got steps closer to getting the best gear I can get on the standard difficulty (Just need the upper body and weapon based on the post raid rewards), did some Fishing (got the Level 45 job quests done) and then there was the Blue Mage stuff. Now I did some basic finding of some spell out in the field, and even did a solo dungeon non-synced , bit then just when I was going to end I had the dumb idea to start trying to do the trial ones... and boy did I miss being able to attack on the run as a bard! But on the plus side I did try the party finder for the first time ever, and that helped things along.

It does amaze me how many spells are locked behind gimmicks like trying to get an enemy to spawn or hoping to do a dungeon to get the spell that is needed. Hopefully I'll be able to find more spells associated with Fates that will be real useful but I doubt it. Also finally tried to do some stuff as a Dancer, I think it's going to take me a while to figure that out in comparison to being a Bard.

Twitch Clip Links

1. First Spell From A Dungeon :) 
2. A Song About Minnie
3. Trying Out Dancer 
   

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing We Were Here Together over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x! I'm starting to wonder how many games are in that series. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Uppercut Combo #2, Body Hook Combo and Body Uppercut Combo

Found out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection will be available on the Xbox side of things. Sweet!

Added WWE 2K16 and The Walking Dead Complete Telltale Series to the Xbox One collection. Why the Walking Dead? Because it has a different set of achievements when compared to the Definitive Collection.

Did some off-stream achievement grinding in both SNK 40th Anniversary Collection (using the Watch exploit) and Ugly Americans, which was mostly to level up Callie to max out her stats. Had a weird issue where the Xbox 360 sign in wasn't working correctly, which seems to happen every couple of weeks for whatever reason.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Achievements

• God Slayer: Beat Crystalis.
• Rebels with a Cause: Beat the Arcade version of Guerrilla War.

Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon Achievements

• Repeat, Repeat, Repeat: Use any special attack 100 times.

I am not one to defend Disney, but the Parents Television Council really stuck their foot in their mouths by saying that Disney has always been family friendly... and that's not true. This come about because Disney is adding the Netflix series Daredevil, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and the Defenders to Disney Plus... all shows that have an TV-MA rating. Thing is, Disney owns a lot of things that can't be described as family friendly. Who Framed Roger Rabbit doesn't fall into that category, neither does Sister Act or Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, or the Alien franchise, or the Die Hard franchise.

For tonight's stream we'll be resuming Persona 5 Royal, and I think it maybe more of the story and lore as we work our way towards doing the next Palace. Should have a lot of stuff for us to react to!

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

Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon Is A Fun Little Game

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream was fully of surprises... with the first one being that Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon is a fun little game. Now I remember watching series on Comedy Central, and I thought it was a good show, the surreal premise certainly was interesting... but I'll admit I never really went out of my way to watch it when it was airing, and that is probably true for a lot of folks.

Anyway, the game, Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon is a twin stick shooter, meaning you use the left analog stick to move and the left analog stick to fire your weapon. RB is to pick up items to switch weapons and RT is the screen clearing move. Y (on an Xbox controller) is to revive teammates if you happen to be playing online or locally with someone. Gameplay wise, it's basically just clear the screen of enemies to move forward, you gain XP which means upgrades, so you can focus on one character (in my case Callie) to max out their stats.

That particular aspect of the game came in really handy as I was looking to clear the first boss of the game, and granted i came close a couple of times, but once I realize I can use the harder DLC levels as a way to give myself an XP boost, getting Callie's damage output maxed out and super move recovery up a few levels meant I had a much easier time. On a side note, depending on the character, they may get buffs or debuffs depending on the weapon they are using, in Callie's case, using the propane tanks and rockets plays to her strength.

I think I'm going to try and actually finish this game, as my expectations were pretty low and I want to see if I can accomplish that. And it appears the online multiplayer still works so maybe we'll get some help along the way! Who knows! 

We also played Gears of War Ultimate Edition, and we were of course joined by Iceman, and we took our time making sure I found all of the COG tags in the first two acts. I was the only one killed because of a in-game story event involving an NPC fucking with the lights... it was hilarious. But seriously, I see why they want to do a remaster of the other Gears of Wars games from the 360 era, because Gears of War Ultimate Edition looks pretty damn good... and I noticed a few things that were clearly used in Gears of War 4, such as the various textures and sky patterns.

Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon Achievements

• My New Favorite Number: Defeat 50 enemies in a row without getting hit.
• Keep These Bad Boys Comin’: Rack up a 20 score multiplier.
• Dirty Leg Draggers...: Kill 300 Zombies.

Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Achievements

• Prison Breakout: Completed tutorial path on any difficulty
• Welcome to Delta Squad: Escaped from the Slab
• Dom-curious: Completed 1 co-op chapter in co-op
• Zen and the Art Part 2: Performed 5 perfect active reloads in a row
• Whack-A-Grub: Closed all 4 e-holes around the fountain in Fish in a Barrel without any Locust fully emerging
• Cole? As in Cole Train?: Rescued Augustus Cole in the House of Sovereigns
• Zen and the Art of Reloading: Performed 25 perfect active reloads
• Yeah, yeah, Group Hug: Rescued Damon Baird from the Tomb of the Unknown
• Time to Remember: Recovered 11 COG tags
• My Love for You Is Like a Truck: Killed the Berserker in the Tomb of the Unknown
• Domination: Completed 10 different chapters in co-op
• No More Favors: Made a Deal with Franklin
• Lights, Action!: Used the spotlight as protection from the Kryll
• Taking Laverne for a Ride: Got the Junker at Chap's gas station
• The Biggest E-hole: Defended Stranded Settlement and headed to Lethia Imulsion Factory
• G-reader: Read one full comic

Twitch Clip Links

1. Keep These Bad Boys Coming! 
2. Light 'Em Up
3. Defeating Bethany! 
4. Roasted
5. Lights still on... nope.... 
6. Walk it off....
   

We did not do a raid last night, instead we hosted Maximilian_DOOD who was playing Elden Ring over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD.

For today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout, the exercises were Beginner Combo #1, Front-Back Step Combo and Hook Combo #2.  Of course you can tell I did more than just the daily exercises. 

 Messed around some with the SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, just to get a feel for some of the games while also using its save state exploit of knocking out achievements. I think once all of the achievements are done, we'll dedicate part of a stream to checking things out from this collection. Of course we would have to label each segment for each game, since the collection's own title isn't found on Twitch.

SNK 40th Anniversary Collection Achievements

1. Vertically Challenged: Beat the Arcade version of Alpha Mission.
2. A Wise Choice: Beat the Arcade version of Athena

I did actually take a look at the PlayStation State of Play to see what may peek my interested. Exoprimal looks like a fun chaotic co-op shooter that is clearly set in the same universe as the Dino Crisis games... best part is that its not a PlayStation exclusive. Square-Enix's Forspoken looks like it's their answer to the Horizon games just based on the game play footage. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R looks cool, even thought my only experience with that franchise is through Jump Force

But what really got my attention is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cowabunga Collection that looks like is going to included every TMNT game from the 80s and early 90s, including the arcade games. I'm really hoping that its not a PlayStation exclusive, because I would love to play that just for the two arcade games alone, and maybe the first NES games. Tournament Fighters could also be cool, since I never played either the SNES or Genesis versions. 

Successfully tracked down a copy of WWE 2K16, so again something to use to get a few easy achievements.

For tonight's stream we'll be playing Final Fantasy XIV, doing some raids and then focusing on Fishing and Blue Mage leveling! 

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

Today's Notes 7/18/21: Let Go With Eevee!

Good afternoon everybody,

Last night we started up Pokemon Let's Go Eevee on the Nintendo Switch, and if I remember right it was about a year ago we were playing Pokemon Shield, so the timing is kind of perfect! First off, the battles mechanics are the same as they are in every Pokemon game, so nothing knew there in terms of how give commands, use items and so forth. 

The biggest challenge with the Pokemon Let's Go games is the fact for streaming purposes I have to use the joy cons, because this game was designed to be similiar to the Pokemon Go app in terms of catching Pokemon, so we have to do a throwing motion. The best thing I figure is to just try to get it in the middle, because I don't exactly have the best set up to do a throwing motion. It's really tough to figure out what counts a solid throw or a weak one. This does remind me of a detail of Pokemon Shield where you had hte option of trying to capture first or battling against wild Pokemon... and I do wish this was the case here, because leveling is up is tied to both catching wild Pokemon and doing battles against trainers, which as far as I know is the only way to get Poke-dollars to buy Pokeballs... so it's possible to screw oneself over in this game.

So it's safe to say the majority of streams will involve me badly missing throws, even if I manage to catch 39 Pokemon with 20 of them being unique. 

Anyway here are some clips from last night!

Twitch Clip: Eevee Versus Pikachu... Eevee Wins By Knock Out!

Twitch Clip: Playing with Eevee

Twitch Clip: Vine Whip Them Good!

Twitch Clip: A Mankey versus My Eevee

Twitch Clip: Buzzy Buzz! It was Super Effective

It's the start of a new week which means let's recap what we did last week with the weekly highlight reel. This week's video includes clips from all the games played on stream: Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise, Overwatch, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Power Rangers; Battle for the Grid, Tom Clancy's The Division, Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium, Cartoon Network Racing, George of the Jungle & The Search For The Secret, Space Jam, Star Trek Online, God of War & Pokemon Let's Go Eevee!

Per the recommendation of long time friend of the channel Mezmerrizer, we added Wild 9 for the  the original PlayStation to the collection. I know nothing about the game, so it will be interesting to check it out on stream at some point!.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 505 kcal. Since I didn't wake up till mid-afternoon, I elected not to do this session on Twitch, which means I'll try to do tomorrows for a stream or maybe Saturday's. We are now up to 77 out of 100 for the Evan's Best Friend achievement.

It's Sunday which means Overwatch is on tap for tonight. I know Mayhem matches were available yesterday cause I played a few yesterday afternoon off-stream, so if it cycles back around to be an option for tonight that's the way we'll roll! Otherwise, just standard quick play matches and I will work on keeping a list of match results!

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