First Impressions Of Personal 3 Portable

 Good morning everyone,

The majority of CD collection is now in various binders, I have a few loose ones that I need to break down, but I have a bunch of sampler albums that were used as glorified promotional items, so I might just throw those out to make sure all my actual albums are stored correctly.

Last night we started up Persona 3 Portable, getting to the 16th floor of Tartarus putting us where we need to be for a major story point from what I understand. I really don't mind the visual novel aspect of P3P as it actually does save time in trying to get everywhere, as a lot of time during my Persona 5 Royal play through was spent walking from place to place within that game.

The music of P3P is of course what I expected based on my play time playing Persona 3 Dancing in Moonlight. I know a lot of people complained about the sound mixing, but I didn't notice any issues regarding sound effects or dialog, then again, I turned the voice dialog up to max to make sure I hear all everything that is being said.

Roaming around Tartarus does have one draw back and that is trying to ambush panicked enemies, as they tend to be result in chasing  them down. The Shuffle Time gimmick is probably will involve more paying attention than it deserves, particular when it comes to trying to get new Personas. 

Despite the nitpicking, we shall continue P3P tonight!

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• The Other Self: Awaken as a Persona-user.
• Advantage Mine: Enter a battle with Player Advantage.
• Fashion Plate: Fight a battle in costume.
• Displaying Adaptability: Switch Personas 5 times in 1 battle.

For the raid we dropped in on PowerThumbz who was playing Dead By Daylight over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Started work on the latest Mass Effect commission request, and picked up another WWE related one, so there are two stories in the commission queue, meaning the Persona 5 story I was intending to write will be delayed.

The video of my Plays of the Games in Overwatch 2 for April 2023 is now up on my YouTube channel

The fact that the United States Supreme Court is saying they should not beheld to a high ethical standard shows just how corrupt its members are.

Speaking of corrupt, the GOP once again blocked gun reform as we continue to have incidents all over the United States such as a massive amount of gunfire was unleashed near a Little League game. So fare here in 2023 we've had had 184 mass shootings.... keep in mind there's only been 121 days.

Needless to say, I'm tired of these things happening.... so if you're a 2nd Amendment support, an NRA card carrying member... you can go FUCK YOURSELVES!

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

Dragon Bal Super Hero: Super Hero Is Just Meh...

Good morning everyone,

Finally got around to watching Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, and considering all the praise it's got, I was rather underwhelmed, mostly because the pacing was just not good. The extended sequence on Beerus' planet as justification to make sure Goku and Vegeta were shown really took away quite a bit of screen time that could've been used towards furthering Gohan's character arc actually being worth pay off of him going into that transformation he got. The real bright spots of the film are of course Piccolo, Pan, Dr. Hedo and the Gammas, and the over overall visuals were impressive.

That all said, I am curious on if the Manga version will fix the pacing problems, and if I was in a better position, I would be interested in checking it out to see the story fleshed out more. Oh well. 

Also what the hell was up with Beerus apparently having an interest in Cheelai. As someone who does some light fan fic writing, as a shipping pairing, Beerus & Cheelai makes zero sense.

Yesterday I made a mistake, or rather the previous night, I forgot to defrost what I wanted for dinner last night, so I had to order our. Ended up getting a Baconator from Wendy's... and that was a damn good burger.

Last night's stream of Overwatch 2 was real rough, a lot more losses than wins, with random teammates making questionable choices from the very start of the night. Still we had fun, big thanks to PandaSweet for being apart of the fun. I picked up one last Play of the Game for April as Orissa, other characters used were Junker Queen, Ana, Moira, Reinhardt, Wrecking Ball, Tracer, Bastion and a few others.

Even picked up another achievement during the stream, and it says a lot of my confidence playing as Tracer in matches where I'm mostly facing PC players via cross play. And with that achievement, I now have 55% of the currently obtainable achievements in the game on the Xbox side of things!

Overwatch 2 Achievements

• Total Recall: Recover 400 health using Tracer's Recall without dying in Quick or Competitive Play.

For the raid we dropped in on FelKimChi while they were playing World of Warcraft over on twitch.tv/felkimchi

The plan for tonight's stream is to start up Persona 3 Portable, I've found a decent guide which should allow for us to have a very complete and long play through. 

Finished the WWE Short Story commission, which turned out okay at about 2100 words. Picked up another commission request for another Mass Effect tale.

Had a weird DNS issue yesterday that totally freaked me out, sometimes one must simply turn things off and on again it seems.

The job hunt continues to go poorly as I hope for work to pick back up with my current job. Taking a short at applying for a job at Cooper Hospital again.

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

An HD Link Cable For PlayStation Consoles That Works!

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was just weird as I wanted to watch a movie around noon, and I feel asleep, didn't wake back up until 5 PM.. So I lost the whole afternoon. Oh and the movie I was intending to watch was Face/Off. Did end up watching Highlander II: The Quickening after last night's stream... and I unironically enjoy that movie, if for anything Michael Ironside's over the top performance

Striker wasn't available, so instead I finally made the decision to test the POUND HD Link Cable for PlayStation 2, and too my surprise, it actually works. It outputs the PS2 at a 4:3 display, but everything is upscaled from 480 to 720, which meant games like Capcom vs SNK and Aeon Flux looked surprisingly good. We also tested Die Hard Trilogy as well to see what games from the PSOne era look like, and it looked surprisingly crisp. So you can bet we'll get back to playing games from the 90s and early 00s in the future.

We also did some Rock Band 4 on stream last night, belting out songs from Huey Lewis, The Killers, Van Halen and more. Didn't get any achievements, but all the possible ones for singing I've already earned. I certainly do not have the vocal rang I did back in the Twitch Sings era, but it made for a fun half stream of nonsense!

For the raid we dropped in on Kalenal  during their stream of Final Fantasy XIV over on twitch.tv/kalenal

It's Sunday which means tonight we're playing Overwatch 2, I expect wins and losses to take place! HA!

Apparently the new Star Wars Jedi Survivor game has gotten off to a Cyperpunk level rough start, being a completely broken mess depending on the version. To which I say, I am not surprised at all as EA tends to interfere a lot in development of game sequels.

I know there is some concern regarding Persona 3 Portable being on Mondays & Tuesdays, and with it being a game I would play on the Xbox Series console, but here's the thing. Chances are I'll end up putting it on Friday nights. Plus I found a guide that should make the play through go by fairly smooth to try and get as many achievements as possible.

Did some writing, and nearly have the latest commission request for a WWE short story finished. I should be able to finish writing it before tonight's stream to be up on my SubscribeStar pagel

Messed around with the console version of Diablo III last night, just casually playing, nothing major, but did pick up a couple of achievements.

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition Achievements

• A Mystical Meeting: Acquire the Mystic.
• Breaking Not So Bad: Use a merchant to repair an item.

Happy birthday to my uncle Abraham, who turns 61 today!

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

Rock Band, Spider-Man and Pizza

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was kind of a rough day on several fronts, feeling less than motivated to day anything at all. As I said, when I'm given extra time to think, I get so inside my own head that I just feel depressed. So instead of using what I had to make dinner, I ordered a Pizza from Francello's (a local Pizza joint located in Pennsauken). For those wondering it was a Philly Steak Pizza, and it was delicious.

Last night's stream of Spider-Man saw us started and complete The City That Never Sleeps Part 1, and by complete I mean unlock every single trophy for it. As a follow up story, it works with Miles wanting to learn, The Black Cat being a part of the adventure, the big reveal that her father was also in the city, plus setting up the loose ends that is Sable International's goons canonically still being in New York following the ending of the main game.

I do feel like I have an opportunity to get all of the Challenge Tokens I need to unlock the remaining three Spider-Suits, but now the concern is Base Tokens,which appears to be only possible in the main story portion of the game. I know I'm going to need 5 more tokens, so I need to figure out which challenges I can do of the remaining bases that I've cleared before.

Marvel's Spider-Man Trophies

• The Cat Came Back: Complete "The Maria" mission
• Disorganized Crime: Complete all Crimes in a district
• The Long Con: Complete the "Like a Fiddle" mission
• Here Kitty-Kitty: Complete the Black Cat chase
• Screwy: Get Spectacular or better in all Screwball Challenges
• Bye Felicia: Complete the "Follow the Money" mission
• Seduced by the City: 100% Complete CTNS: The Heist

We didn't do a raid last night, as I was not sure who would be a good person to drop in on, but I did hang out on BestiBunni's stream of Stellaris over on twitch.tv/bestibunni

Not completely sure what's on the agenda for tonight's stream as Striker said he may not be available, so we'll see

Did quite a bit of singing in Rock Band 4 Rivals, and knocked out quite a few achievements, using some very obvious exploits. Since I'm not going to bother getting any of the actual instruments, I shall treat Rock Band 4 as I did Twitch Sings, as a fun way to spend some times.

On a positive note, I earned enough points through Bing and Microsoft to earn a couple of gift cards, so that was a pleasant surprise for sure.

Was so cold yesterday between the rain and the surprisingly low temperature that I had to turn the heater back on. I was less than thrilled with having to do that.

Saw that Doctor Who: The Edge of Reality now has a non-VR version of on the Xbox side of things, so we'll be checking that out sometime soon. And with the DLC additions to Vampire Survivors we could revisit that on stream as well

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

Reaffirmed My Believe That Disney Speedstorm is

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Disney Speedstorm certainly proved the Pay to Win aspect of the game, as to get various things accomplished is certain game modes you need level up characters, but the only way to level up characters is to get character shards... and the majority of folks are paying for those the lock boxes to try and get the shards. This becomes Pay to Win because those upgrades carry over to the Ranked Races. Yes, you can earn those upgrades in-game, but it's quite clear the real drive is to frustrate players into purchasing the upgrades to try and keep pace.

Anyway, I did win a single Regulated Ranked Race as Donald in dominating fashion,  and banged out quite a few levels in the Season Pass, along with unlocking a few characters (Mike & Sully from Monsters Inc, and Megara from Hercules). I think I'm going to consider Disney Speedstorm a throw too game, like on a night I'm just bounce from game to game or if I need to change plans, it's something to do.

Disney Speedstorm Achievements

• EXTRA BOOST: Boost for a total of 3,600 seconds
• ROOKIE: Collect 50 Medals from the Maps

For the raid we dropped in on averagesharkgaming who was also playing Disney Speedstorm over at twitch.tv/averagesharkgaming

For tonight's stream, we're starting the City Never Sleeps's DLC for Spider-Man on the PS4, seeing how things have changed, and hopefully putting us in a position to try and unlocked the remaining costumes in game.

Looking ahead, here's what I have planned for upcoming streams:

4/28/23 - Marvel's Spider-Man The City Never Sleeps DLC
4/29/23 - Elder Scrolls Online Or Something Random
4/30/23 - Overwatch 2
5/1/23 - Persona 3 Portable
5/2/23 - Persona 3 Portable
5/3/23 - Fall Guys & Resident Evil 5
5/4/23 - My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure & Disney Speedstorm 

Obviously the big news is that I'm finally going to play Persona 3 Portable, outside of Persona 3 Dancing In Moonlight and the two Persona 4 Arena games, I have no knowledge of the story of Persona 3, so this is going to be cool.

Now why bring back My Little Pony: A Maretime Bay Adventure? Simple, easy completion on the Xbox side of things, plus it does give me an excuse to do part of a stream focused on Disney Speedstorm. Also I did say we would play it again because the first stream was hampered by internet issues.

Found an old snow sled in a closet, I think it belonged to my dad, I'll have to dust it off to make sure.

Got about 200 CDs broken down from their jewel cases and put into binders, and I still need to get another binder, biggest issue is multi-disc box sets, plus I'm keeping the liner notes for a lot of these CDs so that takes up extra space. 

Did do some more Rock Band stuff, the default song list is, not exactly sure what achievements are exactly possible on just the singing side of things

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Don't Even Need It: Finished a song with a full Overdrive bar.

I FINALLY got the finally got the final achievement in Hades this morning! Took 96 hours to do, but this was due to the fact I was waiting for Megara to appear in certain places between runs.

Hades Achievements

• Complete Set: Earn all Chthonic Companions

Work has... slowed down to a crawl, and the down time has allowed me to try and find another job, but also has given way to much time to think and feel depressed about not having mom around.

I have gained weight, I'm back up to to about 242 pounds... ugh.

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

 

Fall Guys, Singing On Twitch and RE5

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream opened with Fall Guys, and we ran into the old problem of being put on teams that only have three members, which was really annoying. But we did win back to back shows, in one instance I had a dude pinned near the ledge and needed a teammate's help to push them off for the win, and in the other myself and a teammate were the final two in Jump Club, so that was awesome.

For the first time since the end of Twitch Sings we did some singing on Twitch via Let's Sing2023, which is available on several platforms. Picked up a cheap USB mic to plug into the back of the Xbox One, and it was fun to belt out some songs. It's too back Let's Sing has such a small song library and none of the features Twitch Sings had in terms of putting together parties online, but it is what it is.  On top of that, the game itself is poorly programmed in terms of picking up notes of what is singing (more on this below when I talk about Rock Band 4)

Iceman and I cleared Chapters 5-3 and 6-1 of Resident Evil 5 tonight, putting us in a great spot to finish the game next Wednesday. We got several achievements along the way, and for the most part stayed on our feet the entire time. I am convinced that if RE5 was given a remake with controls similar to Gears of War, it would be incredible fun.

Let's Sing 2023 Achievements

• Early evening: You got a bronze record
• The family is growing: You won 3 avatars
• Internet talent: You won 5 matches in WORLD CONTEST
• Eclectic: You sang 15 different songs
• Early days: You got 5 gold records

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

• Egg Hunt: Find all 4 types of eggs.
• Masters of Removing: Work together to save someone special.
• Completed Chapter 5 - 3: Complete Chapter 5 - 3 on any difficulty setting.
• Completed Chapter 6 - 1: Complete Chapter 6 - 1 on any difficulty setting.

For the raid we dropped in on DR_JB_JOVI who was playing Resident Evil 4 over at twitch.tv//DR_JB_JOVI, the raid was recommended by BangBangBang713 who redeemed the guide the raid reward!

The plan for tonight's stream is doing another session of Disney Speedstorm, mostly to see what the game is liked after people exploit the pay to win mechanics. 

I was told (after the stream) that Rock Band 4 is a much better singing option than Let's Sing 2023, so I did give that whirl this morning, and I can safely say it is far superior to Let's Sing 2023 in regards to being able to sing without having to push my vocal beyond reason. It will take a long time to actually build up a decent list of songs however.

Rock Band 4 Achievements

• Give It a Rest: As a Singer, used Overdrive at least 4 times in a single song.
• Seeing Stars: Earned 5 Stars on a song in Quickplay mode.
• One More Song: Played an encore in "Play a Show" mode.
• Tune Up: Calibrated your audio/video setup.

My fantasy baseball team is doing well this week, problems my opponents team is doing better.

Still need to come up with a way to get the television and what's left of another TV taken away.

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

American McGee's Alice Needs A Remake

Good morning everyone,

Today got off to a good start as a local junk collector came and asked if they could take some of the things I was looking to get rid of. Paid them a little extra to take a lot more than what they were wanting. But hey it's one less thing I have to worry about.

Last night's stream of American McGee's Alice went right up to midnight because the platform jumping and two boss fights took a while and multiple attempts to deal with. The Jabberwocky fight was just a nightmare to get through because of how it just stayed on me with its fire breath. Then there was the Demon Queen boss fight, in which I could barely see a damn thing. I did make liberal and frequent uses of the quick save options, which kind of spoiled the pace of the fight, but when I have doubt that I was actually making progress, I had to make sure things fell into place.

All that said, American McGee's Alice does deserve a remake, if it had the game play of it's sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, it certainly would have made things a lot more fun. At the very least it implement a better weapon switch option, because cycling through the weapons in tough situations really got old,I did find that the Ice wand to be the best overall weapon, as it can be used on a group of enemies. 

Some other notes, I enjoyed seeing the originals of the March Hare and Dormouse's appearances, not to mention their justified hatred towards The Mad Hater. The swimming sections were awful. For the most part I didn't need a guide to find my way, but I did end up using one because some things were exactly clear on what to do late in the game. 

Would I play it again? Probably not, since I got all of the achievements associated with it, and there is no incentive for wanting to go through it again at a harder difficulty setting

American McGee's Alice Achievements

• Dead Hatter: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Behind the Looking Glass
• Royal Approach: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete Queen of Heartsland
• Full Recovery: In American McGee’s Alice, Complete the Game

For the raid we dropped in on pradoxgamerau as they were playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Fall Guys and Resident Evil 5, with the goal in RE5 to get through chapters 5-3 and 6-1. Hopefully Iceman and I have some good luck.

Got some writing done on the latest WWE commission short story request. I figure it's about 25% finished.

Still plugging along with Hades to get Megara's story to progress in order to get the final achievement.

I'm seriously looking into a way to do a karaoke stream, it's been a while since I've done any singing on stream. Would mean that stream could not be archived however... and would probably involve two microphones.

Recorded the 9th video in my series of vlogs going through my DVD collection, and goes over about 95% of my wrestling collection. It will be on my YouTube channel on May 17.

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