From Sunday To Monday

 Good afternoon everyone,

A new week begins and we'll be featuring some new stuff over on my Twitch Channel this week.

But first, last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun, as we finished with sevens wins in the last ten matches that were played. I ended up with three plays of the game, two as D.va and one as Junkrat. Big thanks to PandaSweet and SpeedyGamer for joining in on matches from the start of the stream! 

Now let's address the title of today's blog, when you really think about it, Blizzard's BattleNet name filter to prevent obscene and offensive handles for players has never really been good. In fact, the only way it works is if people actually reports the handles that clearly break Terms of Service along. Folks have gotten around it by using specific fonts and alternate spellings, but one has to think the fact this has been the way it has for so long is because of how clearly backwater the corporate officials at Blizzard are. 

This is starting to concern be a bit as I wonder on if I should start taking time on stream to report those players who breaks Blizzard's own TOS when it comes to BattleNet name. Hell maybe I should leave it to a vote for the viewing audience.

Anyway following the stream we sent the fun over to Daemonsw0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over on twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Twitch Clip Links

• 1... 2... 3.... We win!
• Aw you shouldn't have! 
• Give Me All The Beer 

I have decided that Jump Force is going to hang around to be featured on Wednesday's to feature my chase for some of the on-line achievements that I feel I could get. With the long load times, I'm sure time will fly by to the second half of the stream where we are often teaming with Iceman in something.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Biceps Shape Focus Combo, Triple Combo #2 and Intermediate Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes an a estimated calorie burn of 517 kcal

Progress Update on Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm and Exercise Achievements

• 353/365 Consecutive Days For One Year's Hard Work
• 29/30 hours for Karen's Contender
• 353/400 STamps for Honored Stamper
• 483,595/495,000 HITs for Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5
• 81/100 Percent for King EX Fighter

More than likely we'll hit the Karen's Contender achievement on Wednesday, and it looks like Monster Weight Puncher Lv. 5 and One Year's Hard Work will both be reached towards the end of next week.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw a big focus on the Four Lords side-story which takes place in the aftermath of Stormblood where four long lived animal spirits seek help to reinforce the bindings on the fifth of their kind. This side story was quite notable for the fact that it features a battle where Tataru fights along side the player... granted she doesn't do much, but it stands out as something really different! 

The main story was also continued as Yotsuyu's brother has shown up, and considering what I know of Yotsuyu's back story, and how her brother was acting it just means something majorly bad is going to happen... and I suspect her lost memory is going to end in some sort of tragic event. Also finally got an in-game apartment in Kugane of all places because it took a long time to figure out how to get one. So at the very least I have a little in game space to store little things I happen to find!

Big congrats to Kalenal (twitch.tv/Kalenal) for clearing the Ultima Weapson: Ultimate late last night. Kal has been working on that particular raid endlessly for the past month, and I know they were super determined to get it done.

For tonight's stream, we will be featuring a game I have not played before in Shadows of the Tomb Raider, the third game in what is called the Survivor Trilogy. As indicated before, Rise of the Tomb Raider will be revisited down the line to chase other achievements and stuff!

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

A Gentlemanly Stream

Good morning everybody,

You know that happy feeling you get when you have that last slice of pumpkin pie... that is a good feeling right?

Anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV mostly focused around the Even Further Hildibrand Adventures Quests, which takes place after the events of Stormblood, and certainly is an interesting adventure that involves stolen goods, mind control and gentleman like behavior! I've enjoy going through the these little side stories as it adds more flavor and comedy to the at times rather dark and brooding world that is Final Fantasy XIV.

I am a bit sad though, because of COVID-19, a lot stuff that was expected for Shadowbringers post-story that takes place before Endwalker ended up getting cut... and among that content were the next set of Hildibrand adventures. I'm hoping they will be worked into Endwalkers post-story content.

Now once we wrapped up the adventures with Hildi, I started back work on the Main Story Quest, where Gosetsu and Yotsuyu are being reintroduced as their status of being alive is not intersecting with the story, and thus we're having to track them down. Again, I was surprised when I first saw that they were alive via cut scene, so it's nice to see that even with my side questing that they are not being left in the wind as far as the main story goes. The interesting thing about this, is that Yotsuyu has apparently lost her memory, and a lot of the story involves people from her past that drove her to be the mega bitch overseeing Doma. Some want to be as far a way from her as possible while others want to kill her.

But this does bring up something regarding Final Fantasy XIV that I think I mentioned before, in that there does seem to be a pattern of villains being redeemed in someway if they happen to survive a major battle, Nero and Fordola both come to mind here.

Also did a couple of dungeons and trials as well during the stream last night, a couple of which were from the Alexander series, so it was nice to replay them and this time knowing whats involved instead of going in blind! 

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal who was also playing Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal!  

Twitch Clip Links

• Finished Kugane Ohashi
• A Gentlemanly Clip 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Difficult Challenge Combo #2, Difficult Challenge Combo #1 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 for a duration of 34 minutes an estimated calorie burn of 643 kcal.

It's Sunday which meas it's time for this week's Twitch Bits! This past week we played Overwatch, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Jump Force, Mario Golf Super Rush, Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix, Smite, Tom Clancy's The Division 2, Pokemon Shining Pearl and Final Fantasy XIV! 

For tonight's stream we will be playing Overwatch as we do every Sunday night. I know most folks think the game is dead in the water, but I do enjoy it as some of my best moments for any given week involved playing it! And of course, I get to play with members of my community! So that is always a plus!

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

I See Why So Few People Finished Jump Force's Story

Good afternoon everybody,

If you ever want to know what its like to slam your head into a brick wall, just go and play the story mode for Jump Force folks...

Now last night's stream ended up being all about Jump Force, and thankfully no game freezes or crashes on the X-Box One... there were a few rendering issues, such as Hancock's head being missing in a cut scene in Chapter 8... but the biggest problem with the story mode for Jump Force, aside from the loading times and reliance on cheap tactics towards the end... is the jobber fights.

Much like Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, Jump Force is a fun game that has some interesting mechanics... but the story mode gets bogged down to the repetitive nature of fighting the Venoms... the minions of the villains. I get it, you don't want the limited (at launch) characters constantly fighting one another, but considering the story line gimmick that replicas are being created by the villains, and you fight a handful of them in the middle chapters... that would have been a hell of a lot more preferable than facing randomly generated opponents that have some very wonky combinations of moves that could make some way over powered and others barley anything.

Then there is the other issue of the story mode, and that is the 'where the hell are they' factor when it comes to characters who were in the game at launch having little or no impact or involvement in the story. Two that spring to mind are Cell from Dragon Ball and Yugi from Yu-gi-oh. I get that you can't get screen time to everyone, but Cell isn't introduced until the back end of the story and you only have one direct fight with him.

Now yes, probably these are explored more in the side stories, but just because the side stories are there to add further color to the world of Jump Force, it doesn't excuse the fact that some characters got way too much screen... Frieza and Blackbeard in particular as the most prominent villains in the game that were franchise related . 

I stand by what I said before two weeks ago that if Jump Force was more of a action adventure that had a fighting game element included like Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 and 2, then it would've done a lot better, because hell, people are still playing Xenoverse 2 to this day! Hell it would justify the constant battles against the Venoms much like how in the Xenoverse games facing the Sabiamen and Cell Juniors was reoccurring.

Also for those wondering how I beat the Keyman / Prometheous in Chapter 9... basically spammed B for grabbing and throwing him while dashing, rinse and repeat. 

I can safely say I will never replay the story mode of Jump Force ever again, the game does have some filler qualities in terms of chase-able achievements, particularly off-line. Hell ast he title says, less than 2.5% of X-Box players finished the story mode, and a lot of the other achievement that do-able but require grinding can be accomplished.... so don't be surprised if Jump Force pops up as filler on future streams! Actually come to think of it, we'll need to figure out what is going to replace Jump Force in the line up, since it's being regulated to filler... that will take some pondering!

Following the stream we sent the fun over to DaemonsW0lf who was playing Hunt: Showdown over at twitch.tv/daemonsw0lf! 

Jump Force Achievements

1. Replicas: Cleared Chapter 5
2. The Twisted Entourage: Cleared Chapter 6.
3. Ability Master: Obtained 50 or more abilities.
4. Creation: Cleared Chapter 7.
5. The Puppetmaster: Cleared Chapter 8.
6. Darkness & Light: Cleared Chapter 9.
7. Building an Army: Registered characters in all preset team slots.

Twitch Clip Links

• Did it catch him?
• What happened to her head?! 
• Finishing off the story mode for Jump Force

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Straight Combo #2, Sway Back Combo and Hip Shape Focus Combo for 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 454 kcal.

Someone posted a shaky cam bootleg video the final battle in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, safe to say it really makes me excited to see it... when it hits digital release (as well as DVD). 

My Final Fantasy XIV off-stream adventures were mostly focused on the additional Hildibrand side stories with not much done in the way of dungeons, raids and stuff as I found these comedy side-quest series to be a lot of fun! At the time of this posting, I'm about a quarter of the way into Even Further Hildibrand Adventures Quests, which is the most recent sent.

Of course for tonight's stream, I will be playing Final Fantasy XIV, and I'll most certainly be focused on Dungeons, Raids and Trials, as I don't want to dive further into the Main Story Quest until I fully wrapped up any 'featured' side stories I've missed that doesn't involve unlocking another 'class' within the game. Plus the big patch to prep the game for Endwalker is this week, so holding off on main story stuff seems logical

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

A New Pokemon Journey Begins

Good afternoon everybody,

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday...

Last night stream featured Pokemon Shining Pearl, and needless to say, there is something about it that bugs me and that is the apparent day / night dynamic that may prevent me from putting together a well rounded team of Pokemon... which also is making me regret picking Piplup as the starter, as a water type, because I have read that fire types are few and far between in this game. I've also noticed some weird balance issues where the game will make the final Pokemon of major encounters a lot tougher than it probably should be to deal with.

I think one of the most divisive things I've read about Pokemon Shining Pearl (and it's counterpart Brilliant Diamond) is the art style is the chibi format for mostly everything except battles and major cut scenes. I get why this is the case, as it resembles the original release... but when you look at Pokemon Shield and Let's Go Eevee where there was an uniformed look from world to cut scenes to battles, the Chibi art style can look very jarring 

That said, I am intrigued by what the hell Team Galactic is up too of capturing Pokemon, creating energy and having their sights set on the stars and on ruling the world (or region). Of the 43 Pokemon I've seen, I've caught about 22 of them, the biggest missed opportunity was an Abra. But I did discover that since I've played both Pokemon Shield and Let's Go Eevee, I was able to get two Pokemon, them being Mew and Jirachi, which means having two Psychic type early could make things a lot more straight forward.

Also leveling up a low level Pokemon is a lot more accommodating in Shining Pearl than it was  in both Shield and Eevee, once I had Mew and Jirachi, I put Mew in the party, and it didn't take too long to get it caught up to the rest of my squad... where as in Shield it would take a while to get a new Pokemon caught up and in Eevee it was just better to catch a higher level version of something that fit into the party.

How fare did we get in the first night? Well we cleared the first two gyms as well as had the first two major encounters with Team Galactic... and I believe my usual approach to Pokemon games of over level every one to compensate for match-up difficulties should be able to carry me through to the end of the game... which means a lot of grinding in terms of battling wild Pokemon in addition to trainer battles on the way to the next gym. Which I suspect would be around level 30... and my team at the moment is like 20-25. 

Now when will Pokemon Shining Pearl be featured, well at the moment I believe it will settle in to the Friday night slot starting next week. So that will shake out the rest of the week like this.... Saturday for Final Fantasy XIV... Sunday Night with Overwatch... Monday & Tuesday for Shadow of the Tomb Raider... Wednesday split between Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2 & Gears of War 4... Thursday for Jump Force. Seems like a logical lineup!

Anyway, following the stream we sent he fun over to Hawleigh who was playing Kingdom Hearts III over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

Twitch Clip Links

1. We win the rematch!
2. Let's Hope It Stays In The Ball 
3. It's Super Effective! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hook Combo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of479 kcal.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

1. Unparalleled Stamper: Acquire 350 Stamps
   

As indicated the Unparalleled Stamper achievement is apart of the EX set in Fitness Boxing 2, which becomes available once you unlock all of the normal achievements within the game. It does bring forward a new achievement to chase, which is Honored Stamper, which is to  Acquire 400 stamps.

My Final Fantasy XIV adventures following last night's stream was focused on the Manderville quests... and without question, it was the most gentlemanly adventure within Final Fantasy XIV. With it's own unique trials and a hilarious mystery that involves revenges, sisters and zombies, it certainly is worth checking out. But now I find out there are two more quests lines associated with the most gentlemanly of investigators for both Heavansward and Stormblood... I'm eager to track those down!

Grabbed a few things on-sale for Black Friday: Garfield Kart Racing, Fight Night Champions, The Witcher 2 & 3. Figure we can pair up the first two games on a special double header to look at, while The Witcher games would be for larger campaigns.

For tonight's stream, well we're going to try and make it a Jump Force stream to continue it's story, if it gets bogged down with the issues from Tuesday then we'll do some random stuff! 

Either way see ya over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Smite, The Division and a long Weekend

Good afternoon and Happy Thanksgiving,

Well I now have a long weekend because of the Thanksgiving holiday... so this means we'll have early streams today and tomorrow!

Last night's lead off with Smite, nothing major, as we stuck to the arena modes and got in several matches as a few different characters. I kind of figured out a little something with using Nox and Medusa that I feel could be effective with if I ever put in a lot of practice. Didn't get many wins last night, and we ran into quite a lot of people leaving matches.

Also, we did play The Division 2, with Iceman and PowerThumbz, to tackle stuff associated with the Reanimated Event. Which was I think fourth time that event was done this year, I know it was done in February and May, and I want to say sometime in the summer but I'm not to sure on the last one. Still it was fun and hilarious.

Still not sure how much more I personally can get out of The Division 2, its next expansion would need to have some sort of story content to really justify me keeping it on my X-Box One at this point. 

Following the stream we sent the fun over to Kalenal over at twitch.tv/kalenal who was playing Final Fantasy XIV! 

SMITE Achievements

1. Where Did I Go?: Unlock the Smite Award "Where Did I Go?"

Twitch Clip Links

• Where Did I Go?
• STRIKE! 
• Everyone is on fire...
  

Today's daily Fitness Boxing 2 workout featured Beginner Combo #1, Straight Combo #1 and Weaving Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimate calorie burn of 445 kcal. For sure we'll knock out one more of the EX Achievements with tomorrow's session

If you got a dark and twisted sense of humor, then look up Dark Simpsons on YouTube, you will never look at the characters on that show again the same way.

How do I know it's going to be a very cold winter... simple, it's the end of November and I have to put sweat pants on! Normally I'm in shorts in my office space.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures was very straight forward, as I did the Battle of the Bridge trail that is apart of the hilarious Manderville series of quests, as well as knocked out the First, Third and Fourth Binding Coils of Bahamut via the un-synced method, which meant for me to do them solo. The third is a very weird jumping puzzle in figuring out which triggers leading to getting down further... and the fourth was a bit tough solo, but I succeed and now I never want to see those trials again!

For tonight's stream, I believe we are going to start up Pokemon Shining Pearl, which recently came out. I am not at all familiar with the Generation five era of Pokemon, so this will be a new experience... I don't even know which start I'm going to go with! 

So we'll find out later today over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

The Night Jump Force Crashed

Good afternoon everybody,

You know I've seen some wonky things happen with both my X-Box Consoles (a One S and a Series S), but I've never seen a game crash at the exact same instant multiple times on either console

That was until last night when I was playing Jump Force, the plan was to get through a few chapters in its story, but then after a particular fight to start Chapter 5, called Another Crisis, now if i lose the fight, I get the option for a rematch as per usual. If I win the fight, the game freezes and crashes to the Xbox Desktop. I did try a full power cycle, that did not resolve the issues. 

Following the stream I did a full uninstall and re-install of Jump Force and knocked out the 'Another Crisis' fight, and everything seemed okay. So we're not giving up on this game yet! 

So with Jump Force out the window, I went to play Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Gran Prix, using the same console as I was using for Jump Force, the One S, and it was pretty much smoothly sailing. We got several achievements knocked out along the way. Because of how screwy the game's AI can be, I don't think I'll go for 100% completion the way I did with the first Nickelodeon Kart Racers game.

We also played Mario Golf Super Rush, focusing on doing ranked matches and got myself to the A-ranking, as well as realized that some things unlock based on play time instead of having to deal with the game's story mode. Hell I even won a couple of ranked matches last night, so woo-hoo! Of course I'm still using Daisy as my main! Also was cool to see some free updates, resulting in Shy Guy and Wiggler being added as characters, plus new courses like Shelltop Sanctuary and All-Star Summit. Mario Golf Super Rush has certainly found its way into being something I would throw to on a night where there are no plans or if something goes wrong.

Following the stream we sent the fun over to sw33ts_gaming over at twitch.tv/sw33ts_gaming as they were playing APEX: Legends

Jump Force Achievements

1. An Insidious Plot :Cleared Chapter 4.

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix Achievements

1. Fire Nation: Perform 500 drifts across any game mode
2. Penny Pincher: Finish every race of a single cup with at least 10 Slime tokens
3. Ghost with the Most: Perform 25 Slime stunts in a single race

Twitch Clip Links

•  Where do you think you're looking?
•  The Gnome Invasion!
•  That works to my advantage... for the Eagle! 
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Advance Combo #1, Intermediate Combo #2 and Weaving Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 468 kcal. Today's session was also flawless, no misses or OK rated movements.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progress saw the successful complete of the 5th trial in the Binding Coil of Bahamut series, but I still need to tackle the 1st, 3rd and 4th... nearly got into one of those as I waited 90 minutes. Hopefully I'll have better luck later on. On the plus side I started the Hildibrand Manderville saga, which are a series of stories involving said character who is a bit of a loony investigator. The comedy is really well done, and Manderville has some of the best facial expressions in all of Final Fantasy XIV.

In case you're wondering, why today's entry was posted in the afternoon instead of the morning, it's because I was told there was no work today... so I slept in.

For tonight's stream for sure we're going to feature Tom Clancy's The Division for Re-animator event,with Iceman and PowerThumbz. Gears of War 4 will be back next week. This was a last minute change, since they both want to complete all the stuff for that particular event, and I figure I'll tag along for a bit and watch Thumbz get downed... repeatedly.

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

Rise of the Tomb Raider Finished!

Good morning everybody,

You know that feeling when you check in on what's happening at your job on your day off only to see a decision that was made which makes you shake my head? That was me yesterday afternoon!

Anyway last night's stream, we finished Rise of the Tomb Raider... we did start early to give us a good chance to knock it out and we needed that extra time to do it... between me going off the beaten path and falling to my death over and over again. I certainly found myself using some of the special ammo for arrows a lot more as the Deathless Ones certainly proved to be a pain to deal with. Couldn't quite get the achievement for beating one in a duel with only using melee attacks. 

In terms of the a story, there is a very loose reference to the first game implying that Trinity went to the island of the first game after Lara left it, but that connection is so 'blink and you miss it' that it was almost not worth mentioning. I did enjoy the overall story of Rise of the Tomb Raider, but because there is clearly so much to do in in terms of finding collectables and getting certain things done that it's really not in my interest to play the game again.

Of course, this brings me to the question of when will I try to do the Baba Yaga and Croft Manor content? Well, much like with Dragon Age: Inquisition, it might be worth revisiting for a later time to mess around with the DLC in 2022. Think of it as a way to bring a game back without having to replay the entire thing... at least that's my point of view. 

So when will I start Shadow of the Tomb Raider then? Well the plan for that is for next Monday, it'll be interesting if the pattern holds true of me finishing these games in three nights.

Following the stream, we sent the fun over to Hawleigh who was playing Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

Rise of the Tomb Raider Achievements

1. The Key To It All: Recover the Atlas
2. Glub Glub Glub: Drown 3 enemies using a water finisher
3. Paying Respects: Attend a funeral
4. Zipper: Perform a manual zip line transfer
5. Whatever It Takes: Rescue Jonah from Konstantin
6. The Road Less Travelled: Unlock the path to Kitezh
7. Renegade: Melee 5 enemies off a ledge
8. The Price of Truth: Finish the game on any difficulty

Twitch Clip Links

• He fell off the ledge?!
• Wait... what?! 
• There we go! Chopper Down!
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Body Straight Combo, Triple Combo #1 and Uppercut Combo #1 for a duration of 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of422 kcal.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw the completion of the Omega Raids, and the rather heat-warming, tear jerking evolution of Alpha the Chocobo into a creature into a soul that I hope see again within the game. That said, the Alpha series of the raids were some mind numbing nonsense in terms of realizing where to go to avoid getting hit or knocked off the edge of the battle area. I still want try and the Bahamut raids done that were apart of a Realm Reborn, I sitll need to do the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th of it.

Still this just means  I was back to the Main Story Quest, knocking out the content called 'The Legend Returns', which sees Raubahn returning to Ala Mhigo as the city-state begins its long road to being a force to be reckoned with. This story was a nice wrap up, and it does introduce an interesting monkey wrench for the future in terms of Fordola, who now has the power of the Echo which is giving her visions of all the pain and suffering she put on to others. Seeing as how a lot of Final Fantasy XIV seems to deal with redemption to some degree, it wouldn't surprise me.

I also notice there are some side-story quests that unlock dungeons and trials that I missed in Ul'dah, including the Golden Saucer, so I will work on knocking those out before resuming the Main Story Quest.

There are times I do worry about my dad... normally it involves some random nonsense in my email that makes the The Babylon Bee seem like a legit news source. .

For tonight's stream we're going to move Jump Force up to tonight to continue it's story and missions, hopefully we can knock out a few chapters tonight! 

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