Abzu is the 60th we finished this year

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream opened with Abzu, a game that is more of an experience because of how gorgeous it is and how incredible the musical score is. I did try to find everything for a 'possible' 100% completion run, but some areas are just too difficult to see where some things are  Still, it does give me an excuse to play it again on stream to try and get the other achievements.

I hope to have the highlight reel featuring all 60 games we finished for this years tour ready by New Years Eve

We did play Smite, and there were two quests that tied into one another, play as a Warrior and play as a Chinese God... so with that I ended up playing as Mulan for the first time, picking up one of her two achievements and coming painfully close in picking up the other, which involved leveling up her weapons. She kind of feels like a less dive heavy version of Nike.

We loaded up Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 to try and get an S-Rank achievement... never got hire than an A-Rank. There has to be a trick to it.

Lastly we closed out with SoulCalibur II HD Online, and I totally forgot that earlier in the year I was messing around with it to try and get several achievements done. Was surprised to pick up one achievement for defeating 50 male warriors. Did do an arcade run as Heihachi, and I have to giggle at his ending basically coming across as it was all a dream.

ABZÛ Achievements

• Breach: Leap from the water.
• Jetstream: Burst 15 fish schools in the jetstream.
• Food Chain: Witness predation while meditating.
• Ballet: Perform a flip while riding a creature.
• Connection: Ride the Great White Shark.
• Leviathan: Breach the water on the back of a blue whale.
• Reflection: Complete the adventure.

SMITE Achievements

• Two For One: Unlock the SMITE Award "Two For One."

SoulCalibur II HD Online Achievements

• Exemplary Fortitude: Defeated 50 Male Characters

Stream Clips

• Achievement: Leviathan
• Achievement: Two For One 
• WakkaWakkaWakka 
• Is that all you got
  

By the way, here is the full list of every game we finished this year.

01/07 - Pokemon Shining Pearl
01/17 - Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise
01/20 - Life of Fly
01/24 - Battletoads
01/25 - Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
01/26 - Gears 5
01/29 - Disney-Pixar Brave
02/08 - Life is Strange: Remastered
02/13 - Life is Strange - Before the Storm: Remastered
02/15 - Kingdom Hearts III
02/19 - Life of Fly 2
02/22 - Tell Me Why
02/26 - Mortal Kombat IX
02/28 - Light Fairytale Episode 1
03/01 - Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold
03/01 - Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper
03/01 - Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix
03/07 - What Remains Of Edith Finch
03/09 - WWF SmackDown 2: Know Your Role
03/12 - Teen Titans
03/14 - Sonic Generations
03/15 - P.O.W. Prisoners of War
03/15 - Beast Busters
03/16 - Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
03/21 - Contrast
03/23 - Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
04/02 - Apocalypse
04/19 - Mass Effect 2
04/23 - Dragon Ball Z: Budokai
05/17 - Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition
05/22 - Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes EX Edition
05/30 - Lego Batman: The Video Game
06/02 - Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Xbox 360 Version)
06/11- Capcom Fighting Evolution
06/18 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge
06/21 - Persona 5 Royal
07/11 - Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins
07/18 - Persona 4: Arena
07/23 - Tekken Tag Tournament 2
07/25 - Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse
07/30 - Persona 5: Strikers
08/06 - Stray
08/12 - My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure
08/22 - Mass Effect 3
09/02 - Under Night In-Birth Exe:Late[cl-r]
09/05 - LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
09/12 - Murdered: Soul Suspect
09/16 - The Quarry
09/20 - Tekken 7
10/03 - Overwatch
10/10 - The Last of Us Remastered
10/14 - Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight
10/28 - Until Dawn
11/18 - Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight
11/21- Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova
11/22 - Dragon Ball FighterZ
11/23 - Fallout 76
12/09 - Persona 4: Dancing All Night
12/13 - Games of Thrones: A Telltale Series
12/20 - Abzu

For the raid we dropped in on FelKimchi as they were playing Genshin Impact over on twitch.tv/felkimchi! 

Found out that mom will probably start getting radiation treatments on my birthday, and the major areas of concern are in her hip and right shoulder. If anyone wants to help with my mom's medical expenses, you can donate to her gofundme at https://gofund.me/6adf8354

The streak of Mass Effect shorty commissions request is now up to four, and I should have guessed that there was a possibility of including Matriarch Benezia. Will have to ponder how to make that work.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Sway Back Combo, Hip Shape Focus Combo and Intermediate Combo #2

What's the best way to carve wood? Whittle by whittle.

Song of the Day: Rocket Man (I think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time) by Elton John

For tonight's stream, the plan is to play Fall Guys and Fallout 76, so silliness and action is expected. 

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

Another massive night of Persona 5 Royal

Good afternoon everyone,

Well last night was another massive stream based around Persona 5 Royal, caused mostly because when I know I don't have to get up the next day and I get raided, I will extended the stream, thus the stream got extended multiple times. Now we did have to go through all the time to git towards the battle with Sae which was on November 18th, and we spent a lot of time pushing to build up numerous confidants to get them maxed out. At this moment the only two that need work are The Hanged Man and Tower. This also means, I spent a lot of time on looking up all the fusion combinations to build up the Strength confidant... and needless to say, a lot of sites some wrong combinations listed.

I do love the fact that following the battle with Shadow Sae, the game catches up to the initial prologue and we got to experience it all again this time with context, With that said...let's talk about that near two hours of plot development between Sae's interrogation of Ren is completed and the big bad dude of the base game is Shido. I mean a lot of ground is certainly covered to explain everything as how the Phantom Thieves thwarted the Akechi's assassination attempt on Ren. Now I'm fully able to suspend my disbelief, but a lot of things certainly had to go right for the plan to go off without a hitch. Clearly numerous things could have and should have gone wrong, but all is well that ends well.  

Next time we play Persona 5 Royal, which will be on Friday, we are picking up on November 24th, just after the initial visit to the Cruise Ship Palace. So we got that to look forward too. And in case anyone is wondering, we have put in 105 hours into Persona 5 Royal up to this point.

Twitch Clips

• That Broke Her Heart
• Too Late To Be Sorry 
• Off With Their Heads!
  

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• A Night in Kichijoji: Attended the jazz club.
• Casino of Jealousy: Bankrupted: Completed the casino Palace.
  

As mentioned before we had a few raids last night, the first was from just_press_next who was playing Undertale over at twitch.tv/just_press_next.

The second raid was from Oldish22 who was playing Path of Exile over at twitch.tv/oldish22!

The third raid raid was from YrGamerBunni who was playing Crusader Kings III over at twitch.tv/YrGamerBunni! They also gifted a sub and dropped a few bits which is always appreciated!

For our raid at the end of my stream, we dropped in on DimakTV who was also playing Persona 5 Royal, they were also dealing with the Shadow Sae boss battle. They stream over at twitch.tv/dimakTV! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Intermediate Combo #1, Triple Combo #2, Biceps Shape Focus Combo and Difficult Challenge Combo #1

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise Stats For May 22 to 28, 2022

• Punches Thrown: 10,809
  
• Estimated Calories Burned: 4465.88 kcal
  
• Sophie's Contender Progress: 16/30 hours (53%)
  

Got a lead to track down two PlayStation 2 era games, the original Legends of Wrestling and X-Men: Next Dimension. The first game I had years ago, and at some point I must have traded it in back in the early 2000s, while the second game is one of the earliest console fighting games to have an allegedly solid story mode.

SoulCalibur II HD Online has been delisted on the Xbox side of things... which makes me glad I snapped up the game when I did and featured it fairly recently on one of my streams.

For tonight's stream I really have no clue what I shall be doing, but I'll be up to something random. So we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

What Did We Do Last Night... Plus My List Of the 20th Greatest Fighting Games Of All Time

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream was a lot of fun as we featured three games, the first being Super Night Riders, a game I've messed around with off-stream during my latest achievement streak run. We knocked out two achievements, both of which required multiple runs of the Valley and Hanami stages to accomplish. I did make an on-stream attempt at the Course 1 to 6 achievement, and only made it to the 15th lap out of 36. We might occasionally make on stream attempts at it in the future. A phrase that folks heard me say a lot was 'the runs have to be perfect' because the margin for era is very slim.

The second game we featured was SoulCalibur II HD Online, as we messed around with it's Arcade and Team Battle modes. I am going to count this as a game finished on this years tour we actually got the achievement for clearing the Arcade mode on stream. We did try using Tekken's Heihachi Mishima, and it's just surreal because he doesn't use weapons, he uses his iron fists! 

We were joined by PandaSweet when we jumped over to play some Paladins, and thinks started off on a hot streak, I believe we started with 5 or 6 wins in row! Things got a little more iffy as the night went along. I ended up using the following characters of Ying, Viktor, Tyra, Ashe, Inara, & Cassie. Big thanks to Panda for being apart of the fun

 Super Night Riders Achievements

• Valley Stage Cleared: Cleared the valley stage.
• Hanami Stage Cleared: Cleared the hanami stage.

SoulCalibur II HD Online Achievements

• Flame Wielder: Victorious over Inferno in Arcade
• Comrade in Arms: Team Battle Cleared

Twitch Clip Links

• We can do this! 
• We did it! (Barely)
• Beating Inferno! 
• That got close!
• That worked! 
• Frantic Action
  

For the raid, we dropped in on Kalenal during their Birthday stream as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Speaking of Final Fantasy XIV, I did a few Main Story Quests, and it really seems like a lot of the post-Endwalker content is going to be about setting up traveling between the Source and the First more common place for the NPCs considering the deep ties the Scions have with the other world based on what happened in Shadowbringers. 

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

Recently WatchMojo put out a list of the 20 greatest fighting games of all time, but it was clear they were trying to make sure franchises were represented in some way, so I figure I'd do my own list. Using the rule of one game per franchise, I list my personal top 20 fighting games of all time, with the stipulation being that I actually have played it, not based on its reputation. 

1. Street Fighter Alpha 2
   
2. Virtua Fighter 2
3. Skullgirls 2nd Encore
4. Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes
5. Tekken 3
6. Mortal Kombat X
7. Dead or Alive 5 Last Round
8. BlazBlue:Central Fiction
9. Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
10. Rival Schools: United By Fate
11. Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
12. SoulCalibur V
13. Guilty Gear Xrd -Sign- 
14. Injustice 2
15. King of Fighters XIII
16. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2
17. WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game
18. Jump Force
19. Under Night In-Birth 
20. Super Smash Bros: Ultimate 
    

Keep in mind, I play fighting games very casually, so what I look for is something that sticks with me and that I enjoy the game play of it to consider playing again if I have the means to do so. Also WWF WrestleMania The Arcade Game is without question a fighting game... I actually consider it the 'improved' version of what Pitfighter was.  Actually, the biggest problem people will have with my list is that Killer Instinct (2013) isn't on it... and the reason is simple, I've never played it.

Putting that list together does make me consider getting a wired control for the PC again, since a few fighters I have only through STEAM. I'm actually surprised Skullgirls 2nd Encore is not on the Xbox side of things... I know the original version is.

It's the start of a new week, so lets look back at all the games from the past seven days which featured Overwatch, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Paladins, SoulCalibur II HD Online & Super Night Riders!

The 76ers blew out the Raptors last night... and one wonders if that success can be found three more times, considering some key members of the 76ers roster can't enter Canada due to not being fully vaccinated against COVID.

For tonight's stream, we're playing Overwatch, as we'll see what what archive options are being featured, but mostly focus on Quick Play.

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

Five Plays Of The Game In One Night

Good afternoon everyone,

Well last night's stream of Overwatch started off rocky, a few back fill matches as well as a lot of folks not choosing to push the attack, leading to me phoning in some matches. But once PandaSweet joined, things really picked up, hell we ended the night on a big six match win streak when we stopped trying to carry as Tanks and Supports and focused on playing Damage characters. Huge thanks to Panda as always for being apart of the fun!

I ended up with with five plays of the game last night, two as D.va, two as Cassidy and one as Reinhardt, so I certainly went all out when the opportunity was there. Actually, come on to think of it, those were the first POTG's I earned for Cassidy and Reinhardt  this year. Also obviously, managed to keep my personal streak of getting at least one POTG per stream which is always awesome. In addition to those characters listed, we also got in matches as Ana. Mercy & Mei during last night's stream, hence why the screenshot is from Ana's perspective.

In preparation for Overwatch 2, I also raised the settings of Overwatch back up to near top level, because I'm not really expecting Overwatch 2 to be that much more demanding on the hardware. 

Twitch Clip Links

1. Just going in as Mercy!
2. Things Happen! 
3. Panda Approves The Perfect Timing!
   

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x!   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Triple Combo #1, Body Straight Combo and Uppercut Combo #1. During Free Training, I set a new personal best for Waist Shape Focus Combo on No Mercy, with 580 perfectly performed actions out of 588... the other 8 were rated as OK. 

So apparently Persona 5 Strikers is a sequel to Persona 5 Royal... well, might well track that down, which means Fridays can be a long standing night dedicated to the that franchise. 

Did a quite skim through WrestleMania nights 1 and 2 to see if anything really stood out to me, and well it's clear that the results for every match needed to be reversed with the lone exception being of Austin vs Owens. And by a logic stand point, if Seth Rollins was being fed to Cody Rhodes, then Becky Lynch should have retained over Bianca 'Can't Cut A Promo' Belair.

Managed to figure out some cheat tactics in the Weapons Master campaign for SoulCalibur II HD, by using Nightmare instead of Ivy, his forward-foward-Y attack seems to work pretty well to just punish the A.I.

SoulCalibur II HD Online Achievements

• Skilled Shopper: Purchased New Weapon in Weapon Master Shop
• Incessant Swordsman: Became Lv 6 "Platinum Neophyte" in Weapon Master

It took a few months with all the focus on smaller games, but we're going to be settling back into the old routine of Mondays & Tuesdays dedicated to one game, in this case Mass Effect 2, Wednesdays either being exclusively Fallout 76 or continuing to split that night with other games (Really depends on my mood), Thursdays being for Final Fantasy XIV, Friday for Persona 5 Royal, Saturday being some randomness and Sunday's for Overwatch 

So obviously for tonight's stream, we're back to Mass Effect 2, as we'll be doing as much as possible before the plot advances! We might just go about getting Project Overlord out of the way

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

Well we played Apocalypse last night

Good afternoon everyone,

Well last night's stream featured Apocalypse, and it wasn't until I want to say the third level where the platforming starting to become more of a hindrance forced me to go to the good old cheat code, but that actually just enhanced the experience. Sure it made the combat easier, but the platforming is what kills me, particularly when in some battles you're having to run towards the camera (such as during the famous Sonic / Kill Whale segments in the Sonic Adventure games) .

That said, I thought the game looked and sounded great, the inclusion of a few licensed songs were injected quite nicely into the game where you didn't really noticed they were there and they only show up in one part of the game.  Bruce Willis' performance, while limited did more than serviceable job of keeping things moving, like Duke Nukem. Also the controls were really tight, with the use of the analog sticks and being able to shoot in eight different directions it certainly helped prevent getting surrounded. And since this game was a twin stick shooter, the use of the two bumper and two trigger buttons was really well done when it came to selecting weapons, using smart bombs, dodging and jumping.

I will admit I was not a fan of the ending, but it does make sense when it comes to the entire Apocalypse prophecy, since before every level there is a quote that basically tells you the 'theme' of what you're going to be experiencing . So I have to give kudos on making things fit together in a nice little package.

We also messed around with Die Hard Trilogy, in particular the Die Harder (aka Die Hard 2) portion of it, which had the theme of a 'light gun' shooter. We went through the whole campaign and it was a nice look back at what was the best part of the Die Hard Trilogy game. Now my question is this, how come there were so many civilians around?! Maybe we'lll go back and do the Die Hard and With A Vengeance sections at some point

As revealed the start of the stream, we do have a new item in the collection, the jumbo sized Ranch plush based on MasakoX's Dragon Ball What If Raditz Turned Good series. The oversized head does make it a bit hard to place to have it sitting without something else propping it up, but hey, there were only 238 made, so I'm glad I contributed to the campaign!

Twitch Clip Links:

• Oh I am liking this! 
• It's Time To Jam
• Die Harder 
• Only 238 Made...
  

For the raid last night we dropped in on CirceCroft who was playing Silent Hill 2 over on twitch.tv/circecroft! We actually found them over on Hover. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #2, Advanced Combo #2 and Left-Right Step Combo. The daily workout was perfect as in all 1492 actions were done without one OK or one miss. Of course I did put in some extra Free Training as well.

Since Friday night's stream went so long, yesterday afternoon, I messed around with the Xbox 360 version of SoulCalibur II HD Online, to knock out a couple of easy achievements to extended my daily streak to 51 days.

SoulCalibur II HD Online Achievements

• First Trial: First Trial Point Cleared in Weapon Master
• Comeback Kid: Ten Successful Counter Hits 

Now as for today is concerned, I used Gears 5 to keep the streak going for 52 days by picking up a few multiplayer achievements.You know what's funny is that I had to use the LAN party method to get the Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship achievement to pop, despite playing a match of arcade several weeks ago!

Gears 5 Achievements

• Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: Played a match of Arcade
• Ring Leader: Won a Match of Arcade Blitz with the most Points earned in a Ring
• Sampler: Completed a Match of Free For All, Arcade Blitz and Gridiron

A new week begins, but here is a recap of last week which featured Overwatch, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Apocalypse, Die Hard Trilogy and some Just Chatting Moments.

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday, which means Overwatch is on deck to kick off the new week!

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

Light Fairytale Episode 1 Is A Great Start

Good morning everyone,

Light Fairytale Episode 1 was featured last night and it certainly was a charming little game that is clearly inspired by Final Fantasy VII... and unlike Final Fantasy VII, Light Fairytale's clear opening act isn't bogged down with a half dozen plot elements. We get introduced to Haru and Kuroko, we get a clear understanding that they live towards the bottom of an underground complex... and Haru has a dream about 'the sky', something he has never seen.

The battle mechanics are very straight forward, as it is a traditional turn-base style and it was made really clear to me that there would be a limit on healing items. Good news is our heroes have 'Fury' moves, or what is basically the equivalent of Limit Breaks, Haru's is a group heal while Kuroko's is a 5 hit combo on one enemy. The music and artwork are actually quite good, as everything seems to gel quite nicely for a nice casual experience.

Perhaps the best part of Light Fairytale Episode 1 is that we can see the story from both Haru and Kuroko's perspectives, which really helps with the game's cliffhanger ending, that clearly makes me eager to make arrangements to play Episode 2. But before I do that, I would want to take care of the remaining achievements in Episode 1. On a blind play-thru I was able to get 19 of the 29 achievements, but the remaining 10 were not very obvious or straight forward. 

Of course that does mean I did start a third play-thru following the stream to go after many of the achievements I missed, picking up 5 more. The remaining ones I need are focused a round doing 250+ attack and dealing with the stealth mini-game.

Now we did two play-thrus of Light Fairtyale last night, so I do count the game as being finished, and so we messed around some with SoulCalibur on stream to get some footage of that. Did an Arcade run as Ivy, got to 16 with Taki in Extreme Survival and 31 with Maxi in normal Survival. A pretty solid exhibition of a good game.

For the raid we dropped in on SeverOmega who was playing Rock Band 4 over at twitch.tv/severomega!

Light Fairytale Episode 1 Achievements

• Sneaky: Talked to some NPCs from behind.
• Childhood friends: Checked the gray duck at the park with Kuroko.
• Welcome home!: Rested at Haru's place before the fortune teller event.
• There you are!: Found hiding Kuroko.
• Ruled by these guys?!: Overheard the station soldiers talking.
• Out of my way!: Talked to the sprinting scavenger.
• Scary smile...: Talked to angry Kuroko.
• 1st win!: Won your 1st battle.
• Fizzle maniac: Checked the fizzle vending machine before the fortune teller event.
• Night rider!: Did better than Kuroko's high score.
• That was close!: Slipped near the cliff.
• Don't anger me: Reached the fury status during a battle.
• 100+ HP damage: Did a 100+ single HP damage to an enemy.
• "Haru? Haru! Haruuu!": Got caught during the stealth minigame.
• Materialist: Went to the corridor with Miyu's materials.
• The journey begins: Completed Haru's story.
• B-bomb?!: Got a bomb from the hiding cat girl.
• My precious...: Checked the class 3 A.R. goggles before talking to Daisuke.
• Alternate journey: Completed Kuroko's story. 
• Dreamer boy: Tried to return to the cliff just after the opening cutscene.
• A.R beginner: Got used to your A.R. goggles before the 1st battle.
• Freebie: Rested during the spiders battles.
• Calculating guy: Got the ground credits in level 1 or 2 after the fortune teller event.
• Glasses...: Gave back Emiko's credits.
  

Twitch Clip Links

1. Scary Smile... that's an achievement
2. The Heavy Crusher
3. The Spider Tank!
4. Ivy vs Inferno
5. Can we get to 30 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Double Combo #2, Advanced Combo #2 and Left-Right Step Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 551 kcal.

Did a quick raid, Deltascape 3.0 last night in Final Fantasy XIV, I've only done it once because, but it's mechancis are so straight forward. Someday I may even try the savage version but yesterday was not that day!

My current XBox achievement streak is now at 19 days, I'm thinking we can get it 21 days with getting any achievements on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

For tonight's stream, at the time I'm writing this I'm not 100% sure of what we're going to do, but you know I'll be up to something!

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

Six Plays Of The Game In One Night? Madness!

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was of course focused around getting the matches and wins needed for the Reaper's Code of Violence awards, which we were able to pull off in the first three hours of the stream. Big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of all the fun!

Now I'm trying really hard to think of if I ever had a stream where I had six plays of the game as I did last night. I've had four in a night a couple of times, but never six. And I was using my usual characters, D.va as a Tank and Moira as Support, but for the few Damage role matches I used Mei. So it was a crazy night in that regard. Probably my favorite moment was dropping a D.va bomb right at the spawn point of the enemy team that got a triple kill... but then there was also getting resurrected as Mei and popping her ultimate to get a few eliminations

As far as the new Reaper skin goes, it looks decent enough and I'm surprise they are calling it as a Legendary skin for him, because I doubt it will become available at any point via Loot Box. The whole event being based around him meant I could sub out the word Violence and replace with with Violins, because if you say both words they sound almost the same.

For the raid we dropped in on PradoxGamerAU over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerAU who was doing a Dungeon and Dragons stream!

Twitch Clip Links

1.  Double... no TRIPLE KILL!
2.  Right at their door step!
3.  I die... I get rez... I freeze!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with Uppercut Combo #2, Body Hook Combo and Body Uppercut Combo for an estimated calorie burn of 441 kcal. In terms of the extra exercises, I set a new personal best for Double Combo #2 on No Mercy difficulty. Also as of today we're up to 45 out of 50 hours trained for the Hiro's Champion achievement.

Fitness Boxing 2 Rhythm & Exercise February 2022

• Punches Thrown: 43,475 (37,359 in 2021)
  
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 17,904.25 kcal (16,413.35 in 2021)
  

Messed around some more with SoulCalibur last night, going through the arcade mode with every character I haven't yet to earn the Edge Master achievement. There are four achievements left in the game, two related to Time Attack, one for beating arcade mode on its hardest difficult and the last is for defeating 25 straight opponents in Extra Survival (one hit sudden death). That last one I've hit a streak of 20 a few times as Taki, but man its frustrating to get so close but then to start over!.

SoulCalibur Achievements

• Edge Master: You have mastered all characters and defeated every opponent in Arcade Mode.

A lot of folks are making a big deal about Nintendo saying that Super Smash Bros will not be featured at EVO this year. Let's keep in mind a few things, Nintendo never wanted Smash to be included at EVO in the first place, that was something they reluctantly did to get some good will from those who play it competitively. Second, Nintendo announced a while back that they are going to work with someone else when it comes to coordinating an actual competitive scene for Smash. Besides, as

Fans of Asuka are rather pissed this morning when it has come out that the WWE has no creative plans for her after it was speculated she was supposed to return to TV. Here's the reason why there are no creative plans for Asuka: Becky Lynch is being wasted in an attempt to get Bianca Belair over and Charlotte Flair is being wasted as cannon fodder for Ronda Rousey. So when the top two match ups that are possible for Asuka are off the table, any thing else is really just a waste of time. 

For tonight's stream, we're going to mess around with Light Fairytale Episode 1, which is apparently a short little RPG, that should only take a few hours to finish. Knowing me it will take two or three nights! Anyway, we'll be using the Xbox Series console for it.

Anyway on that bombshell we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

 

Far From A Flawless Victory

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream featured the story mode of Mortal Kombat IX, which of course is just known as Mortal Kombat because it was a reboot of the franchise and a re-telling of the story of the first three Mortal Kombat games, introducing a new generations to all the characters... and killing a quarter of them!

I'm not kidding, for all the good that comes with the story of Mortal Kombat IX, they really went out of their way to kill off a good chunk of the 'good aligned' characters. Sure many were brought back in Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, but the infamous moment when Sindel one shots everyone but Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage in chapter 15 really is a way of saying 'none of these characters matter'. And then there were some of the fights and how wonky the game can be with how block heavy some can be, and Shao Khan can be an absolute monster unless one is spamming certain special moves, but that is what it is. 

Some of the character model designs still look good for a decade old game, while others certainly didn't age that well. The controls are still pretty damn responsive by modern standards, and the impact of every attack sounds really damn good. That said, some of the audio was mixed oddly to suppress the stage music, but Mortal Kombat has never been a franchise known for having good music

Now we also went ahead an unlocked 50% of the Krypt during the stream, getting a good portion of the alternate costumes. And I am considering doing more Mortal Kombat IX stuff associated with Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on Wednesdays, since we'll be using the Xbox One console for the later when teaming up with Iceman.  The big thing I do want to accomplish with Mortal Kombat IX is 'mastery' of one character, and that would require 24 hours of play time using one character, 100 victories, 100 finisher, 10,000 pints of blood and 100 X-ray attacks done

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

Mortal Kombat Achievements

• Halfway There!: Complete Story Mode 50%
• There Will Be Blood!: Spill 10000 pints of blood
• Cold Fusion: Unlock Hidden Fighter "Cyber Sub-Zero"
• Quan-Tease: Unlock Hidden Fighter "Quan Chi"
• Back In Time...: Complete Story Mode 100%
• Undertaker: Unlock 50% of the Krypt 

Twitch Clip Links

1. Jax has been disarmed
2. Ah his is in the air 
3. Lucky... 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 28 minutes with Front-Back Step Combo, Beginner Combo #1 and Hook Combo #2 for an estimated calorie burn of 441 kcal. But as you can tell with the screenshot we did some extra, which I always try to squeeze in even if I don't documented here on the daily blogs!

Messed around with SoulCalibur again last night trying to bang out some more achievements and noticed that one that was unlocked a few days ago was finally credited to me (Close Call). Anyway, for as barebones as the game is the achievements are possible to some degree. Anyway with the 'Guardian' achievement that does extent my current streak of Xbox achievements another day, so woo-hoo!

SoulCalibur Achievements

• Close Call: You have triumphed over extreme adversity and defeated an enemy with very little health.
• Guardian: You have learned to counterattack your opponents' repels and parries.

A new week is here, but let's look back at what games we featured on Twitch last week, which were Overwatch, Tell Me Why, NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal and Mortal Kombat IX! 

If you think Donald Trump was a good leader, then you are a fucking idiot and you should move to Moscow and kiss the feet of Vladimir Putin you misanthropic nutball.

For tonight's stream, well you know what day it is, it's Sunday, which means Overwatch. Currently there is a mini-event called Reaper’s Code of Violence, which is to unlock a new skin, icon and spray for Reaper. So that is our goal for the evening!

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

What did we do in FFXIV last night?

Good morning everyone,

The crazy weather of let February in South Jersey popped up as last night we got some snow... well that was surprising.

Anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw a few things getting done, we did a few dailies, and a couple of raids, included two of the Pandaemonium raids (Second & Third Circle). I can imagine how much more of a pain in the ass these would be on Savage difficulty, which I would eventually have to do to try and get gear that's level 600+. That will be a torture for sure.

Still I did do some level up grinding for both Blue Mage and Fishing, and those are progressing quite nicely with gaining about two levels each. Mostly used Fates for Blue Mage and found a few quests that gave some XP as well, which worked out nicely.

There was one quest, The Greatest Story Never Told, which proved to be really pointless since the rewards was only 10 gil. I think in terms of an actual quest , it is probably the worst one when it comes to presenting lore, and assumes everyone will know who every ones is within the game world when unscrambling letters.

No raid last night, but we did host Maximillian_dood who was playing Elden Ring over at twitch.tv/Maximilian_DOOD! Now, do I have any interest in playing Elden Ring myself? Are you kidding, I could not make it very far in Bloodborne, do you really think I'm going to mess around with something even harder?!

Twitch Clip Links

1. This is going to happen a lot
2. I'm just a fool like that.... 
3. Ressurected and knocked out in an instant
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with Biceps Shape Focus Combo, Triple Combo #2 and Intermediate Combo #1 for an estimated calorie burn result of 525 kcal. Now if I was to guess, I would say we would hit the 50 hour mark for Hiro's Champion around March 12th, not factoring in the little extra sets I do each day on top of the daily sessions.

Microsoft announced that as of March 1, 2022 Party Chat will no longer be available in the Xbox Console Companion app on Windows Devices, which means I'll have to finally start using the Xbox app itself in order to have voice communication with those who join in on games I play using both Xbox consoles. Thing is, I have found the Console Companion app to be superior to the Xbox app in terms of layout and ease of use. Still we must evolve with the times since we have Gears of War: Ultimate Edition on the horizon.

Messed around with SoulCalibur, the Xbox 360 port, and managed to knock out a few achievements to keep my current streak going at 15 days. I will say this, the sound mix for SoulCalibur is loud as hell, even at 50% volume for back ground music and sound effects! In terms of how it looks, I'd say for a game that was once in the arcades that was ported to several consoles, SoulCalibur, the character models still look good, but some aspects such as the backgrounds have not aged well. Controls pretty decently too.

SoulCalibur Achievements

• Zen Warrior: Concentration and practice have led you to perfect your skills and obtain a perfect victory.
• Summon Suffering: Ivy is graceful but deadly and you have mastered her signature throw, the Summon Suffering.
• Warrior: Your skills have shown improvement now that you have defeated Arcade Mode.
• Art Connoisseur: You truly appreciate fine art and have viewed all the different areas in the Museum Mode.
• Apprentice: You have begun your journey by playing 3 different characters.

Really excited for Persona 5 tonight, mostly because the visual novel aspect of the game gives me so much to react to in terms of the story, but also I'm looking forward to really seeing what the dungeon experience is really like to some extent.

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

A Night of Raids In Final Fantasy XIV

Good afternoon everybody,

You know when you think something might be a good idea and it turns out to be better than you thought it would? That was kind of last night...

You see, for Saturday night's stream I focused mostly on doing Raids in Final Fantasy XIV. What Raids are are 8 (or 24) people either facing a monster (or series of monsters) in a timed trial that could take up to two hours to beat. Needless to say we got through several of them last night, including two huge Alliance Raids (these are the 24 person ones), which easily eats up a lot of time. Needless to say, since I was seeing a lot of these for the first time, I had no clue what I was doing, so I died... a lot. But I do feel I came to understand a few things on everything we've done.

That said, I did had to blacklist someone for the first time within Final Fantasy XIV... apparently, there are some people who think everyone should just know what to do at all times, but when I clearly stated it was my first time doing a particular run, he got so irritating that the entire party kicked him from it. Considering I've been playing FFXIV daily, that was actually my first out right purely negative experience with another player in game.

I do want to continue focus on the raids that I've discovered, particularly the Omega ones since they seem very similar to the Alexander ones I did on stream a few weeks ago, so expect me to talk about those over the next few days with any success or failures I happen to have.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Spofie who often features Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/Spofie!    

Twitch Clip Links

• Don't Stop Make It Pop!
• I am the Delta... I am The Omega! 
• I told you to have a beer sir!
  

Not sure what caused the momentary dropped frames during the stream, everything I checked seemed okay. 

Yesterday was one of those weird days where I felt very very hungry... certainly cleared out a lot of left overs (lol). Now today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Hook Combo, Body Uppercut Combo and Uppercut Combo #2 for a duration of 28 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 430 kcal... but considering how much I ate yesterday not sure if that balances out

It's Sunday, which means it's time for this weeks Twitch Bits. This week we played Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War 4, Nickelodeon Kart Racers: Grand Prix, Jump Force, Mario Golf Super Rush, Soulcalibur V and Final Fantasy XIV!

For tonight's stream we're of course kicking off the new week with Overwatch! 

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

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!

Another night of Life is Strange 2

 Good afternoon everyone,

Last night we continued Life is Strange 2 with Episodes 3 and 4, and boy did the bad and lazy writing of it really rear its ugly head tonight, particularly in Episode 4... but we'll get to that.

First Episode 3, which sees Sean and Daniel wearing on a Pot Farm in California where they meet up with Cassidy and Finn from Episode 2... and it's really the only time in LIS2 where you're not fully meeting characters for the first time, you actually have some things that carry over from the previous episode, like if you found Cassidy's guitar pick, Sean will say he found it. Think about it in comparison to the other Life is Strange games where you have so many characters to interact with to where you can see how they react to things or previous conversation. Hell everything about the scene and the folks that we see through out the episode feels like it could have been a lot more than what it was. 

The big problems of Episode 3 come down to Daniel who is just intolerable as it's said real early that he's going to screw the entire situation up for everyone. I get why that was done, but clearly it was something that could have been avoided with him wanting to help Finn and his idiotic plan of breaking into a safe... which results in Finn being killed, Sean and Cassidy being badly injured and Daniel being taken to a cult for Episode 4.

And Episode 4 is wear things really hit the fan, where Sean breaks out of a Hospital, steals a car and when he pulls over for a break he is confronted by two dudes, one being yet another stereotypical representation of White Men (Joining the Cop and Station Attendant from Episode 1 and the Christmas Tree market dude from episode 2), and you're given a choice of either Sean having some pride and not complying with them, resulting in him getting beaten up or embarrassing himself  (and if I remember right, still getting beaten up... can't quite remember what happened in my original play through back in 2019)

Fast forward to when Sean reaches Haven point and we see that Daniel is the focus of a cult-like representation of the Christian faith and that his head is so fare up his own ass that it takes the sight of seeing his own brother being beaten in a burning church just for him to say 'I'm not staying here'/ And don't get me started on the whole 'He wants to repent' bullshit, because Daniel does not come across that way at all, it's just his bratty nature. Throw in there the shoe horned in Conversion Therapy' bits for when Sean and Jacob are looking for a file, that feels nothing more than a tacked on reason to split some money with Jacob while giving him some depth at the last second.

Now let's talk about the Karen & Sean subplot... here you have a confrontation between the mother who walked out on her family and her oldest son... and the developers at DONTNOD thought it was best to have Sean act like a complete dick to her, even when we the players are hoping for maybe a chance to smooth over some hurt feelings or open the door for some reconciliation. Maybe it's because I had a point in my life where one of my parents wasn't around for different reasons, but the entire Karen & Sean Motel conversation feels like it was half-way to where it should have been.

I know... believe me... I KNOW there are people who love Life is Strange 2, but since the other three games are very fresh in my memory, it's really hard to over look the very noticeable issues with this game. Hell this isn't even going into the fact that walkie-talkie  Sean has in Episode 4 is clipping through his hand for every second of the final act, even when he's not supposed to be holding it!

That said, we got one more episode to go, and we'll tackle Episode 5 on Monday's stream... and we'll probably do some Forza Horizon 4 as well on the back end.  

Of course who did we raid after the stream? Well sent the fun over to TaterSalad21 who was Tales of Arise and Phasmophobia. Tater doesn't stream often, but he's a good dude you should check out over on twitch.tv/tatersalad21!

 Life is Strange 2: Achievements

1. The Dharma Bums: Find optional collectible #1 in Episode 3
2. American Graffiti: Start any drawing in Episode 3
3. Train Of Thought: Find optional collectible #2 in Episode 3
4. Zero Hugs Given: Find optional collectible #3 in Episode 3
5. Green Thumbs: Find optional collectible #4 in Episode 3
6. Dancing Days: Find optional collectible #5 in Episode 3
7. One Of Us: Find optional collectible #6 in Episode 3
8. Lost Boys Chronicles: Find all optional collectibles in Episode 3
9. Adrift: Finish Episode 3
10. Chiaroscuro: Start any drawing in Episode 4
11. A New Perspective: Find optional collectible #1 in Episode 4
12. Lone Wolf: Find optional collectible #2 in Episode 4
13. Amazing Grace: Find optional collectible #3 in Episode 4
14. Promised Land: Find optional collectible #4 in Episode 4
15. All Sinners: Find optional collectible #5 in Episode 4
16. Archivist: Find all optional collectibles in Episode 4
17. Heaven & Hell: Find optional collectible #6 in Episode 4
18. Romans 3:23: Finish Episode 4 

Twitch Clip Links

• We picked up the stick!
• No We Will Not Go Along With Finn's Plan
• A Kiss In The Lake
• A Stairway To Heaven
• Hospital Escape Simulator 3000
• We found the thing!
• I Said Lost Wages Not Las Vegas
• Ooo yeah Dig it! 
• The Walkie Talkie Glitching Ruins The Scene! 
  

And it's Sunday which means we have a Twitch Bits Highlight reel featuring the best clips of the week! This week we played Overwatch, The Wolf Among Us, Smite, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Gears of War 3, Star Trek Online, SoulCalibur V and of course Life is Strange 2! 

You know it's never easy going though the clips after the Saturday night streams to pick out stuff, but hey there are a few moments of me being a complete idiot... including the 'Bend and Snap' moment.

The false hopes for the Philadelphia Phillies are rising as they have won four in a row and are now a game behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League East while remaining 2.5 games back in the Wild Card race. Well at the very least they are trying to make it interesting I guess.  

Probably going to stop trying to document all the Overwatch matches I play, because I don't feel like I can present a clear enough of a picture without having individual match statistics, and the game doesn't have a way to review stats for matches, just on a 'life time' or 'Season' basis.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes, with today's exercises being Weaving Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Advanced Combo #. The estimated calorie burn was 476 kcal. Achievement progress update is that we're up to 282 out of 300 for the Ten Months' Hard Work and Transcendent Stamper, 395257 out of 405000 for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 3 and 23 out of 30 for Hiro's Contender. There is a chance we could knock out the Monster Weight Puncher by the end of the week.

For tonight's stream, well it's Sunday, which means Overwatch is on deck! Of course we'll mostly be playing Quick Play matches and having a good time!

See you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!