A Strong Start To The Week

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was the usual mix of fun with friends in matches that end up either being really good or really wonky. Big shoutouts to PandaSweet, BangBangBang and BloodyClown for being apart of the team-ups. Now while we mostly stuck with Quick Play matches, we did get in a few trips to Junkenstein's Revenge, as it appears that will be on Sundays for Volume Two of the Remix event. Characters I used were Mercy, Moira, D.va, Reinhard, Tracer, Torbjourn, Ashe and Widowmaker. Plays of the Game were picked up when I was Tracer, Torb, Moira, D.va and Reinhardt. One of the more hilarious moments of the night was me sneaking behind the defending team to push the payload.

Twitch Clips

•  Well someone has to deal with the Widowmaker and the Mercy
•  Run Zenyatta!
•  The back push
  

For the raid last night we dropped in on Dr_JB_Jovi who was playing Evil Dead: The Game over at twitch.tv/dr_jb_jovi!

Played some more Smite last night, and I've focused on playing as Isis, who I remember using a lot back when I was playing the Steam version of the game. Finally got her 2nd character achievement which was pretty cool.

SMITE Achievements

• Stay In the Circle: "Unlock the Smite Award "Stay In the Circle"!

In a bit of cool news, Kalenal (twitch.tv/kalenal) was live over on twitch.tv/thecharitybraves channel, raising money for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital while playing Final Fantasy XIV, and they raised well over $5,500! Also of note, it was rather funny to watch Kal flail about when they had to play the Role of a Black Mage. 

Finished the Commission Request for a Star Wars fic yesterday afternoon, and I think it turned out alright considering my lack of familiarity with the Clone Wars and Rebels TV series.

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

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 start up the Xbox 360 version of Lego Batman: The Video Game, mostly because I want to be have some chill streams, and things don't get more chill than the Lego video games. Plus we get achievements to unlock too. Also, the music will be off because of DMCA issues.

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

Mavel vs Capcom, Black and the Rage of Paladins

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream lead off with Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes EX Edition on the original PlayStation. Part of the reason why because of Maxamillion_Dood (twitch.tv/maximilian_dood) posting a video claiming how it was a version of MvC that no one played... which is not true because I intetionally went out of my way to track it down to put together a collection of Japanese exclusive Capcom fighting games on the PlayStation. We went through the Arcade mode twice as Morrigan and Gambit, messed around with the Cross Over mode which actually saw Shadow Lady being used because the A.I. selected them. We also figure out a few things involving use of the 'Special Characters', who can act as counters and compensating for some of the main roster's limits. This game will be counted on this years tour as well.

We also played Black on the PlayStation 2, and it is still a good looking game from 2006, thankfully it has multiple difficulty settings... but I found it a bit odd with some of the control layouts, no sprinting (that I could figure out), and no reason sense of direction. Action sequences can be pretty epic from what I saw. Maybe we'll give it a dedicated attempt of finishing it at some point. Black does have one of the dumber starts up to a game I have ever seen with a start screen followed by a near 5 minute movie style intro of a black screen with text displaying who was involved with the music and live action sequences before the main menu is displayed.

Then we jumped to the Xbox One to play some Paladins, and we were joined by PandaSweet.... we did not exactly run into the smartest group of randoms, who were either disconnecting from matches, intentionally making selections of characters that did fit the need of the team. You don't see me get angry often, but Paladins was a bad way to end things last night.

Twitch Clips

• That was cool!
• Good use of a Grenade 
• Viva La This!
  

For last night's raid we dropped in on TracyDoll who was playing Friday the 13th: The Game and Evil Dead: The Game over on twitch.tv/tracydoll!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Left-Right-Step Combo, Triple Combo #1, Double Combo #2 and Body Straight Combo.

With how badly Paladins went during the stream, I felt motivated to play some Smite. mostly Arena matches. More losses than wins, but at least it nothing was sabotaged by stupidity.

SMITE Achievements

• Combo Breaker: Shut down 10 killing sprees in qualifying matches.

It's the start of a new week, which means we shall recap what we did last week which included Overwatch, Chrono Cross; The Radical Dreamers Edition, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, Black, Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes EX Edition and Paladins!

For some reason the Mariners are taking a chance on Justin Upton in a desperate attempt to add some life to their line up. What is it with teams trying to squeeze anything out of guys who are clearly at the end of their careers these days in Baseball? 

Finished another commission story request yesterday afternoon and I get another one this morning, this time to be set in the Star Wars universe. This is going to involve some very loose interpretations of the lore.

Happy Birthday to the late Doreen Mulman, who ran the Ghostbusters Fan Forum 20 years ago. They were the first site to ever host artwork and fiction that I wrote, obviously related to Ghostbusters.

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

The Casino Palace Was Confusing

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Persona 5 Royal started off with Sae's Palace and boy was it pretty nutty with how it was spread over two in-game days, and I think it was to make sure for Sae in the normal world saw who the Phantom Thieves were. That said, I found the Casino Palace to be confusing in terms of some of the gimmicks involved, not to mention the enemy match up types really were not favorable at times. I'm also not to keen on having to wait to do the Calling Card, but knowing its to set up Akechi's betrayal that was seen at the start of the game it just means I can try and catch up on so many other things, like Confidant progress and covering Mementos. Also at this point, I've covered 71% of the trophies, so we have an outside chance of getting full completion... I need to get Kasumi's to rank 5... luckily we were able to get Rank 4 tonight. Also, I did get Akechi and Maruki to both Rank 8 and 9. So that pressure is off as well..  On a side note I did love Haru and Makoto's tag team wrestling Showtime, I thought that was a bit clever.

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• Intensive Training: Used Incense on a Persona in Lockdown.
• The Search for Power: Completely changed the cognition of Mementos.

Twitch Clips

• We'll put him to use
• Makoto & Haru's Showtime! 
• Good... we don't like you either 
  

We had two raids during the stream, the first was from Oldish22 who was playing Path of Exile over at twitch.tv/oldish22!

The second raid was from YrGamerBunni who was playing Crusader Kings III over at twitch.tv/yrgamerbunni!

For our end of stream raid, we dropped in on Sheepfuzz who was doing some community gaming with the Jackbox Party Packs over at twitch.tv/sheepfuzz!

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Front-Back Step Combo, Beginner Combo #1, Body Uppercut Combo and Body Hook Combo.

Fitness Boxing 2 Stats For May 15 to 21, 2022

• Punches Thrown:11, 233
  
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 4,427.24 kcal
  
• 26 Hours Trained Out of 30 For Laura's Contender Achievement (86%)
  

I got a good start on the latest commission request, even if the plot is paper thin at best, so having to rely more on 'action' than anything else. Hopefully I can knock it out before tonight's stream, or maybe right after. Some asked me why I don't post the commissioned fics here on blogger, well it's mostly because these requests fall under the NSFW category. 

I can say with confidents this has been a losing week for my Fantasy Baseball team, mostly due to Bryce Harper not being in the Phillies lineup at all. For the week, my team is .267 (44/165), with 20 runs scored, 4 home runs, 20 RBI and 2 stolen bases... and on the pitching side in 30 innings, 4 wins, 2 saves, 25 strike outs with an ERA of 3.60 and a WHIP of 1.13. Yes the Fantasy League I'm in doesn't tally up stats until after Sunday's games, but I know a losing week when I see it.

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 may check out something random, maybe hook up the PlayStation to mess around with some of my Japanese imports of Capcom fighting games like Marvel vs Capcom, X-Men vs Street Fighter, etc. Or we'll just play Paladins and Riff Trax again... or maybe do all of that. We'll see what I figure out.

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

Trying to Remember what I wrote originally for today!

Good morning everyone,

Well I'm a bit annoyed, because as some may now, I write the majority of these blogs before I go to bed, and when I thought it saved as per normal. Turn out it didn't when I went to check the preview. So here I am trying to remember everything I wrote before 3 AM last night.

So anyway, last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw the usual antics, a few raid, trial and PVP fun as my character in their Bard gear, plus some leveling up as a Lancer, Botanist and Fisherman, plus a little bit of Red Mage action. I also, finally learned how to get the higher tier script gear, turns out there was a series of Featured Quests I did not come across originally. I also picked up the third piece of the new Alliance Raid gear, and it really drives home the fact that the whole story for the latest Alliance Raid is based on the Greek Myths.

Twitch Clips

• The balls are dropping!
• Red Mage vs Roc of Ages 
• That's one... and that's two!
  

For last night's raid we dropped in on YRGamerBunni who just became a Twitch affiliate , and were playing a montage of the games that helped them get to that point including Halo: Infitine and Elden Ring. They stream over at twitch.tv/YRGamerBunni!  

Plasyed some Smite last night after the stream, and I managed to extend my daily Xbox Achievement streak an extra day, by getting the second of Chang'e's achievements that involved sending her rabbit back to get items. Since I often just go with the 'Auto Buy' option for matches, I actually had to turn it off to get it to work.

SMITE Achievements

• Jade, Go!: "Unlock the Smite Award "Jade, Go!"

Finished the latest commissioned story request based around old WWE plot lines yesterday afternoon, and I'm surprised some folks are enjoying them beyond the client. Which has lead to another commission request based around TNA/Impact.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Work out featured Double Combo #1, Hooke Combo #2 and Uppercut Combo #2.

Added a handful of cheap options to the Xbox digital library to consider for future streams, I Am Alive, Zombi, Mars: War Logs, and Record of Lodoss War - Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth. That last one caught my attention just for the fact I have the anime series on DVD and it's been a long time since I sat down and watched it. Could be an idea for my YouTube channel.

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 are getting back to Persona 5 Royal, and it will be an action packed stream with the big focus being on Sae's Palace, which we reached last week. This is going to be interesting because we are now at the point of the story that catches up to the prologue.And from what I read, the best team to use would be Akechi (ugh...), Makoto and Ann.

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

Whole lot of roaming around in Fallout 76

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Fallout 76 saw a fair amount  of things done, a lot of roaming around to get various stuff done, including killing the 6 different enemies with Grant's Sword. Iceman has that same quest, but he joined us late so he still has a few to get on that quest. Other things done was the Top of the World quest that sees the players meet Rose, plus various lore related stuff such as the Overseer notes. I do think the enemies get tougher when in a group. Another theory I have is that Fallout 76 is built around going every damn play, but the tying of Fast Travel to the Bottle Caps will make some quests a real slog to get through. Still we had fun!

You Can't Tell Nukes Landed Here

Fallout 76 Achievements

• Personal Matters: Complete "Personal Matters"
• Ain't He the Cutest?: Collect a Bobblehead
• Pioneer Scout: Discover 100 Locations

Twitch Clips 

• Exploded!
• The shoot out on top of the world 
• It's Big And Bad and Ugly
  

For last night's raid we dropped in on FnDanteSavage who was playing Gears of War 3 over on twitch.tv/fndantesavage!

May 19, 2022

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Difficulty Challenge Combo #1, Defensive Combo #2 and Defensive Combo #1.

Part way finished the latest fic commission request, getting a good chunk done. I feel like I'm getting back into a groove of writing again to some degree.

Messed around some more with Smite, only playing Assault matches to see if I can figure out anything with Gods that I never played before that were randomly selected. Of note Gilgamesh and Cthulhu were interesting. With Gilgamesh I figure being able to dive in and do a lot of damage is key, or to at least set things up, he did have one of the easiest achievements to get which just involved going to a specific point of the playing field. Cthulhu is pretty tanky, but really seems all about setting up things for the team, but his related achievements involving trying to stack passives which is not my strong suit.

SMITE Achievements

• Quick Turn-In: Unlock the Smite Award "Quick Turn-In"

Looks like Bryce Harper is going to be sidelined for a few days, which just hurts my Fantasy Baseball team considering the hot stretch he was on.

Looking at the footage for the She-Hulk TV show I have to say... visually it looks awful, as the look for She-Hulk herself looks like it' straight out of the uncanny valley of PlayStation 3 video game cut scenes. 

Headline I didn't think I see 'Kathy Griffin shows of her sexy body'... I get it, there's the trend of a lot of the older celebrities who had their prime in the 90s showing off how great they look, but c'mon, this is reaching a little bit.

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'll be doing a casual night of Final Fantasy XIV, you know the drill, a couple of raids, some leveling and fishing. So on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

 

We Finished Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition

 Good morning everyone,

Well we finished Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition last night... and three achievements based on story points where not unlocked, two of which should have popped last night. Then there was the fact we did the set up for the good ending twice, sitting through the credits completely both time with that achievement not popping. Of course the poor optimization of this remaster certainly had me on the 'just get it done' way of doing things, as we used the battle boost and the fast forward options just to tear through major battles. Considering this is the second remaster from SquareEnix released this year that has had issues, I do hope that they are actually going to be more serious about things from their history being remade or remastered in the future considering how they sold most of their non-Japan based studios early this year. But you know what is great, since we did a play through of the original Chrono Cross last year, I went and looked that clip from August 31, 2021 of the final battle, and man my body language was completely different, as I looked completely done with the Radical Dreamers edition

I was not going to leave this alone, so off-stream, I uninstalled and reinstalled Chrono Cross The Radical Dreamers Edition, changed the appearance settings to classic and and re-ran the final boss battle again to get the good ending, and the achievement popped on the third attempt... then I went and got the bad ending. So that's two achievements knocked off the list.

Of course now I get to ponder about what will replace Chrono Cross in the weekly lineup, there are a few contenders, like the classic version of Mass Effect 3 for example, or maybe we can do something odd like revisit a TellTale Series game like Game of  Thrones.

Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition Achievements

• The Defiant: Defeat FATE, the mother computer of Chronopolis.
• Lucca's Legacy: Use Kid's unique level 7 tech, Hot Shot.
• The Long-Lost Element: Obtain Chrono Cross, the rainbow-aligned Element.
• The Devourer Undone: Defeat the evolved form of the Time Devourer.
• A New Future: See the good ending.
• An Unchanging Future: See the bad ending.
  

Twitch Clips 

• Its dead after all that
• Up from the depths... 40 stories high... 
• There we go, we cheesed it... worth it
  

For the raid last night, we dropped in on RoseMaryShorn who was playing Dragon Age: Inquisition over at twitch.tv/rosemaryshorn!This is of course a reminder to me to reinstall it and play the DLC quests.

Played a handful of matches of Smite last night, and focused on playing as Hera and I think I figured out a few things in Arena using her. Seems like I can use her from the back line a fair bit. Her shield is real useful. Also, Hera's achievements were part of the "A Necessary Darkness" expansion at this time both were still diamond level achievements.

SMITE Achievements

• Royal Assault: Unlock the SMITE Award "Royal Assault."
• Argus to the Rescue: Unlock the SMITE Award "Argus to the Rescue."

I managed to build up another decently long Xbox achievement streak of 19 days and 116 achievements going back to April 30th. It is my fourth longest streak to date. 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Intermediate Combo #1, Triple Combo #2 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo. Woke up a bit late so kept the basic workout streak going.

Have yet another commission fan fic request based around old WWE storylines, this time involving The Miz's dressing down of Daniel Bryan back in 2016. I got two ideas of how I want to approach it that could be interesting.

The new skins for the Anniversary Remix Event Volume 2 in Overwatch clearly had some thought put into what alternate color schemes would work. Probably the best one is Sombra's Neon Cat.

People are complaining about the Phillies being shut out for the fourth time in thirty-six games, to which I say... when all you have is the offense to carry a team, then shut outs are going to happen very frequently.

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 back to Fallout 76, as we'll most likely will be joined by Iceman as we work our way through West Virginia in our quest to do stuff.

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

Finding Them Level 7 Tech Skills

Good morning everyone, and let it be known I woke up at like 6 AM for some no reason.

Anyway last night's stream of Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers edition saw a big focus on side questing after I dealt with defeating all of the dragon gods, which meant finding nearly every ones level 7 tech skills, and dealing with Dario and Criosphinx . Thankfully the Battle Boost meant these encounters were a lot more less worry-some than my play through of the original version of Chrono Cross last year. We also recruited the final characters that can be picked up in a single play through (Orlha and Turnip), which leaves seven characters that require two additional runs of the game to get (Nikki, Kid, Korcha, Razzly, Mel in the 2nd run, while using the 3rd for Pierre and Harle. Yes for those who don't know there is a way to finish the game with Harle in the party, it just require going after one of the other endings after Serge and Lynx trade bodies.

Of course last night's stream wasn't without its issues as we had two stream resets, which resulted in 5 minutes of loss footage, so there will be two VODs in the YouTube archive added for last night... with one being 25 minutes long and the other being over 4 hours long. Near as I can tell the issue was not with Xfinity.. at least with the first interruption.

Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition Achievements

• Call of the Void: Use Lynx's unique level 7 tech, Forever Zero.
• The Second Coming: Defeat Dario and reforge Serge's Sea Swallow into the Mastermune.
• The Enemy of the World: Defeat Dark Serge at Fort Dragonia.
• Flight of the Swallow: Use Serge's unique level 7 tech, Flying Arrow.
• The Ultimate Armor: Create a piece of rainbow armor.
• The Ultimate Weapon: Create a rainbow weapon.

Twitch Clip Links

• She Just Spits On Them!
• Dramatic Music Is Dramatic 
• Luccia's Level 7 Does A Fair Amount of Damage 
  

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

Clippy turned out to be quite useful for my stream in terms of both doing shout outs and being a way to have clips play when I take a break. 

Played some Smite last night, getting three wins all as Discordia in Arena mode. The reason for playing only as Discordia for a bit was because of the weekly challenge of playing three matches as a Roman god. 

It's speculated the 76ers will not offer James Harden a max contract deal... and considering how he's played, that's the smart move. If he wants to continue his career as a big money earner in the NBA, Harden needs to prove himself.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Straight Combo #2, Hip Shape Focus Combo, Difficult Challenge Combo #2 and Difficult Challenge Combo #3. Also since today's workout went 45 minutes you can kind of guess what isn't happening today.

But since I got yet another WWE fic commission request to work on, this time based around the feud between Randy Orton and Alexa Bliss in early 2021. I certainly was not watching during that time period, but I have a wicked idea that could be quite interesting.  

Speaking of WWE... I'm wondering if the whole Sasha Banks and Naomi 'walk out' is a shoot or not, because lets be honest, Sasha has a history of throwing temper tantrums if she didn't get her way, and Naomi has basically been protected because she was on Total Divas and married into the Anoa'i wrestling family.

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 shall continue Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers as we're just going to try and blitz as much of the game as possible with the battle boost on. We're heading for the Sea of Eden