Four Random Games On A Saturday

Good afternoon everyone,

God damn did it get cold! Last night following the stream it was 15 degrees! And I didn't get up till like 3 PM Eastern today... so anyway, last night's stream featured four games, and since that was the case, I'm going to give my thoughts on them here right now.

First, there was Dead of Alive 2: Hardcore, and prior to last night, the only DOA games I played were Dead of Alive 5: Last Round (on Steam and XBox One) and the original Dead of Alive (PlayStation). DOA2:HC certainly holds up, it's character models all look great, the game play is still the same so it was very much a pick up and play for me without having to figure out too much, in fact I was surprised some stuff I would use in DOA5:LR worked in DOA2:HC (such as many of Tina's throws!). The story mode was interesting, in that it just give some extra moments of character interactions, but I'm not to sure how I feel of the Tengu as the 'last boss', with how it distorts the screen and having some really cheap tactics.

Second was Dino Stalker, a spin off of the Dino Crisis games, Dino Stalker sees the hero Mike Wired, getting transported to another dimension where he he ends up having to fight dinosaurs to stop something catastrophic from happening. This is a light gun game, but it can be played with a controller... and outside of instances where I feel I've having to fight the movement controls, it is fairly solid and certainly playable.I made it through the first three levels with only one death and that was due more to me not realizing I can destroy objects to reach new areas, and thus I ran out of time!

Third was Power Rangers; Super Legends... and it's certainly better than Power Rangers: Time Force. Released to celebrate the franchises 15th anniversary, Super Legends is a side-scrolling beat 'em up that does reward exploration to find hidden items and secrets, but it can be a straight forward experience if that is what one prefers. It is an oddly 'quite game' as even at max volume, it certainly didn't sound as loud as say most games from the PlayStation 2 error. We cleared the first couple of levels with a fair amount of difficulty, plus one Mega Zord battle, which was... interesting. 

Lastly, the final game of the night was WWE SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain... and I have always thought this game was overrated. Some of the character models looked okay, but in comparison to Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore which we played earlier in the night, HCTP has not aged well. Here the face of Trish Stratus doesn't even look as if it belonged on her body from some angle. That said, the game play certainly took a lot of getting use to again... and the A.I., even on Normal, can be down right brutal (can't even think how I use to play this on its hardest difficulty setting). Since I still have my memory cards, I had a save file with every thing unlocked, so that was fun at least.

Of course a little detail about last night's stream is that I set up a new scean in OBS to use when playing older games whose aspects ratios were 4:3 (mostly for the original PlayStation and PS2 things in my library), and added a little feature that shows the game title on screen as well. 

Following the stream, for the raid, we dropped in on Kalenal as they were playing Final Fantasy XIV! They stream three times a week over on twitch.tv/kalenal!

Twitch Clip Links

1. Aren't You My Brother? I'm Gonna Kick Your...
2. Panic Shooting! 
3. We've defeated so many enemies!
4. Right in the Kisser! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #2, Left-Right Step Combo and Advanced Combo #2 for a duration of 31 minutes and a calorie burn of 561 kcal. Normally I would do a little extra on top of the daily, but since my butt didn't get out of bed till the middle of the afternoon, I just stuck with the daily.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw me start up the 5.5 content starting with Unto the Breach, and and I went roaming around unlocking a couple of more 'job' classes with in the game as well, because at some point I will be needing to expand what roles I utilize! Though I am content being the clueless Bard... I just do Damage, so no one expects me to be on point for heals or pulls as a tank! There was a particularly charming moment with Estinien confusing Alisaie for her brother Alphinaud. Sure they are twins, but how can anyone confuse Alisaie for her brother upon first meeting! Their hair parts on different sides and Alisaie carries a rapier! Rather surprised that Alisaie let the Azure Dragoon live after that to be honset.

It's Sunday, which means its Twitch Bits time to highlight all the games we played last week in a little video! This past week we played Overwatch, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Final Fantasy XIV, Kingdom Hearts III, Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore, Dino Stalker, Power Rangers: Super Legends and WWE SmackDown: Here Comes The Pain! 

For tonight's stream, we're playing Overwatch, as we do every Sunday!

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

The Toy Story Of Kingdom Hearts III

Good morning everyone,

Three solid days of work, I can't complain about that, even if the questions I ask in interviews are poorly worded and were clearly intended to be asked at the end of 2021 and not the start of 2022.

Anyway, last night's stream of Kingdom Hearts III certainly was... odd, and it's a damn good thing any game I play on stream I play on a casual setting, because I may have made it harder on myself by choosing to do the Toy Story world first, instead of the world that ties in with Tangled. If it was set at a higher difficulty, I would've been dead repeatedly... in addition to then number of times I got lost.

For how Toy Story was represented, I thought it was fairly good, the acting for Woody and Buzz Lightyear was pretty solid, Rex got annoying and Hamm was a ham. The Toy Story world, titled 'Toy Box' certainly took some inspiration from Toy Story 2 in terms of having a good chunk of aciton taking place in a toy store, plus the relationship the toys have with Andy is certainly used well... even if Buzz has to be a bit out of character in terms of his heart faltering when things seem dire.

As for the world itself, boy is it real easy to get lost on the toy store portion, again the open areas are just huge so trying to explore seems like a good idea... until the enemies start re-spawning, which placed me on the back foot. The idea of piloting a toy-sized mech certainly was a cool idea, and I'm starting to see some trends that the developers really over thought a lot of stuff with the 3rd main line installment of the franchise.

Now there was something that made me chuckle and thwat was a cut scene between Kairi and Lea (aka Axel), in what Kairi was writing in a letter to Sora, making it sound like she found someone better. From a fan fiction writer's point of view, the shipping of Kairi and Axel just makes sense based on what is actually in the game.

For the raid, we sent the fun over to Hawleigh who was playing Jackbox Party Pack games! She streams over at twitch.tv/hawleigh!

KINGDOM HEARTS III Achievements

• Knight: Defeat 1,000 enemies.
• Inseparable Friends: Adventure through Toy Box and complete the story.

Twitch Clip Links

1.  I'd knew he'd say that
2.  Well that was something
3.  This is a thing
4.  It's Go Time!

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 a estimated calorie burn of 436 kcal. Today we completed the requirements for the Honored Stamper EX achievement, which is to acquire 400 stamps. This is tied to do doing the daily workouts with one stamp per day. We now stand at 87% completion of the EX achievements, the remaining ones all all tied to hour spent using each trainer.

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

• Honored Stamper: Acquire 400 Stamps
  

Fitness Boxing 2 Statistics for the week of January 9 to 15, 2022

• Punches Thrown: 9,571
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 3952.80 kcal.
  

Think I figured out an exploit or two as it relates to the grind heavy achievements of the Capcom Arcade Stadium, the plan being get to the final boss of Final Fight, save, finish the game, reload and repeat in that order.

Watched RoboCop 3 last night... and it's not that bad a movie, in fact some of its themes actually hold up a lot better than RoboCop 2! No really, you have major corporations looking to push people out of their neighborhoods with no compensation, police caught in the middle... and RoboCop has a jet pack!

For tonight's stream we're going to mess around with some different games, check and see what works and what doesn't. In short it's a variety night!

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

I Swear The Stream Was 90% Cut Scenes!

Good morning everyone,

One thing I 'love' about my job is when parameters change for a project and I'm not told until after I see the changes for myself and then question it. That said I did get the USB headset that will be needed at the end of the month... and for those wondering why don't I just use my streaming headset and microphone for work... it's because last time I did, it fucked up a lot of settings.

Anyway last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV certainly was cut scene heavy as we did every single quest in the 5.4 content that is titled Futures Rewritten. Now I fully understand that a good part of it was to see the Scions getting back into the swing of things, but damn it, there was so many cut scenes, both voice and text only it wasn't even funny. This does raise a question when it comes to new players to FFXIV, remember I only started playing it in October of last year, but let me point out that there are some very large stretches where there are very large stretches at times where it's just cut scenes of some variation. 

Believe me I understand as to why, that the creative team behind FFXIV puts a lot of thought and care into every little thing they do, however because the NPC dialog boxes tend to be on the small side, it does make reading it a pain the in the ass as I end up looking at the bottom 1/5 of the screen and thus end up missing some animation that is happening with the character models.

Still we did see some closure as it relates the Ga Bu being brought back to his senses thanks to things Alisaie learned in the World of the First, which leads to major progression overall for the nation of Limsa Lominsa. Then there was even more set up for Endwalker with towers appearing every where, and the threat that the latest Ascian wants to die and take the entire world down with him.

Beyond that, I did unlock the Sage and Dancer classes during the stream, and stumbled across a level 60 dungeon that some how I missed, so nice progress in that regard. Because of what's next with the the 5.5 and 5.6 content for FFXIV being on the shorter side, I might knock those out off-stream, or at the very least one of them,s so we're nearly caught up story wise to every one else!

Big thanks to the Hawleigh for the raid! Last night they were playing Horizon Zero Dawn over at twitch.tv/hawleigh! 

For the raid, we dropped in on ChunTaiLi who was playing Genshin Impact over at twitch.tv/chuntaili! 

Twitch Clip Links

1. A Moment With The Bunny 
2. Put The Piggy Down... NOW! 
3. He was once a man... then he took a bullet to the knee 
4. Successful defense of Alisaie 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Beginner Combo #1, Front-Back Step Combo and Hook Combo #2 for a duration of 28 minutes with a calorie burn of about 439 kcal

As you may have noticed, I switched using the bullet points and the numbered list, I think it looks better by having the numbers with the clips, just to give an indication they are listed in the order they happened.

Messed around with the Capcom Arcade Stadium last night... forgot how boring Warriors of Fate gets in its later stages with the over use of some enemy types.

Picked up a Ghostbusters logo t-shirt, because come on, as a Ghosthead it's just weird not having one! 

Am happy to say between the last two commissioned stories I wrote and the timely nature of my birthday being in late December and earning enough through subs and bits to break the threshold, I'm able to stay ahead of some obligations. Thanks everyone

For tonight's stream we'll be resuming Kingdom Hearts III, and it'll be a mostly casual playthrough!

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

Geting Great Tune-Ups In Forza, Learning About The Lore In Gears

Good morning everyone,

Well yesterday was the first work day in a while as the usual nonsense of me seeing what I'm listed to be on only for it to be switched at the last second to something else. Still managed to have a productive first day back.

Last night's stream lead off with Forza Horizon 4 and making use of of a lot of Ultimate Spins to unlock many goodies and cars. Spent a lot of time just roaming around, doing speed traps, making epic jumps and other general nonsense. I did have one particular epic fail that I'm glad I was able to clip. Also one of my viewers let me know they do tune-ups for all the cars in the game, so I checked a few out. Was pretty awesome to see how set up a Datsun to push 175 MPH!

Half way through the stream, as has been the norm for Wednesdays, we switched over to Gears 5 and was joined by LvStrkR and Iceman as we wrapped up Act II, and did a fairly good job of finding  mostly everything. The lore regarding the creation of the Locust and how things relate to Kait really comes together, and the banter between Kait and Del is pretty awesome. 

There were some issues with some of the game's gimmicks that either cause havoc because of a lot of flashing (Iceman and LvStrkR both made notes of that), or mess with whoever is playing as Kait (which was me),That gimmick ties to whenever Kait has a vision which causes her to go rather loopy or just makes the screen all red

Still at this point we've roughly covered 50% of a lot of key objectives so now comes the question of what was missed in terms of collectable and components for Jack. Looking forward to seeing what Act III brings as we go from an Ice and Snow covered area to a desert.

Big thank you to Sheepfuzz for a big raid following their stream of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles! SheepFuzz broadcasts over at twitch.tv/sheepfuzz!

Also big thanks to Lorespade for another raid following their stream of Fallout 76! They stream over at twitch.tv/lorespade!

For last night's raid, we sent things over to GameWithLuna who was playing Valorant! They stream over at twitch.tv/gamewithluna!  

Forza Horizon 4 Achievements

• Horizon Fashion Week: Unlock 100 clothing items for your character.
  

Gears 5 Achievements

• Let's Get You Some Answers: Used the Comm Towers to locate the hidden facility
• We Need the Old Plan: Killed the Matriarch
  

Twitch Clip Links

1. An Epic Fail In A Race...
2. Geronimo! 
3. Hydroplaning!
4. I Was supposed to kill it! 
5. Funny... Also Funny
6. We Need The Old Plan! 
   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Defensive Combo #2, Double Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #1 for 28 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 434 kcal.

Messed around with Capcom Arcade Stadium after the stream last night... I'd like to 100% complete it... but the achievements are more focused on timed played and amount of time played. Still we got one done. Way I figure if I play it for a half hour a day we can gradually knock out various stuff... besides a half hour is about how long some of the bullet hell games in the collection take to get through with unlimited 'quarters'.

Capcom Arcade Stadium Achievements

• Newbie: Play for at least 10 hours.
  

For whatever reason Blogger was not saving my drafts last night when I was putting down different notes... so I lost quite a bit of this post. Which may have been a FireFox problem as I had to do a full restart when it wouldn't load anything... and before anyone points this out to me in a DM Microsoft Edge was working fine

For tonight's stream we'll be featuring Final Fantasy XIV and starting on the 5.4 main story content!

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

Side Questing Is Life With The Fist Of The North Star

Good morning everyone,

Hey it's work day and I have work, woo-hoo... and I instantly regret typing that seeing the first assignment of 2022... but hell, you gotta do what you gotta do right? Right...

Anyway last night's stream of Fist of the North Star really showed how much a lot of the side stories and mini-games are, because I knew I was in the second to last chapter of the game, and I figured that the end game in some regard would be taking place in the southern part of the wastelands, away from Eden. Nope! The final chapter is going to take place in Eden, which meant I could have finished the final chapter last night... if I wasn't focused on getting so many side stories done.

That said, we did get a lot done, from finishing the entire Bounty Hunter story arc, to getting the final training session with Toki and beating him in a fight that has us rather under powered in comparison (I was at level 50, Toki is at level 75... thank goodness for all the healing items I happened to have). Also I believe I'm about 1/2 way through the Manager Ken stuff, and realize I would have to go back to the Bartender stuff to wrap up some loose ends there. Perhaps the big highlight was finding the Sega Mark III, so there is a world breaking moment of Kenshiro playing himself in Hokuto no Ken, the Fist of the North Star game which came out for that system (and later released as Black Belt in the United States)

For last night's raid we sent everyone over to LifewithStan who was playing Valheim! They stream over at twitch.tv/lifewithstan!  

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophies

1. Tycoon of the Century: Earn 10,000,000 IDL total.
2. Apocalyptic Mechanic: Obtain a wide variety of buggy parts.
3. Watchman First Class: Proof of being a true bounty hunter.
4. High Roller of the Century: Spend 10,000,000 IDL total.
5. Wasteland Treasure Hunter: Retrieved 1000 items out in the Wasteland.
6. Toki? Do You Need a Moment?: Let Toki get over his mid-battle coughing fit.
7. Purer Than the River: Defeat Toki at his strongest.
8. Employee of the Month: Make 100,000 IDL in Merchant Ken.
9. Gamer Archaeology: Play all hidden games found in the Wasteland.
10. Road Rage of the Century: Drive 500km in the buggy.
11. The Man who Charged Forward: Completed Chapter 10.

Twitch Clip Links

• Defeating Toki At His Strongest!
• Kenshiro Prepares To Play Hokuto no Ken 
• A Moment Of Hokuto no Ken
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 Daily Workout featured Intermediate Combo #1, Triple Combo #2 and Biceps Shape Focus Combo for a duration of 31 minutes and an estimate calorie burn of524 kcal.

In an effort to expand the variety (and rotation) of shirts I wear on stream, two Twitch Tye-dye shirts have been added to the wardrobe. Always wait for the sales and promo codes for Twitch merchandise folks... never pay full price.

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventures saw a long wait in a queue to take part in the Eden's Promise: Eternity raid in order to wrap up all of the Eden side quest line. For the most part I understand what was happening, with the battle's mechanics, but as usual my reaction times lead to me getting wrecked a few times. Also knocked out the next part of the Doma rebuilding so that process is steadily being made.

For tonight's stream, the plan is to split the fun with Forza Horizon 4 and Gears 5, but if something changes we'll mess around with some random stuff instead.

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

In Context, Roah Is Kind Of Right

Good Morning Everyone,

Last night's stream of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise saw the long way around being taken when it came to finishing chapter nine of the story, which sees the normal big bad of the manga and anime, Roah, make his appearance. Turns out Roah knows the secret of Eden and was the one who came up with the idea to create the city, as a means to safeguard against anyone discovering that the Sphere City basically has a nuclear weapon capable of destroying what's left of the world, that is triggered if someone is being restored on the bed in the chamber of miracles... which is exactly where Yuria is, so once the time runs out, the world (or what remains of it) goes boom. So in the context of the game, Roah is actually in the right in his rush to kill Yuria out right, but for the story, Kenshiro wasn't going to let that happen obviously, and thus they fight it out. Plus at this point there are two chapters left, and Roah and Ken's story doesn't end here.

In terms of where this would fit in the greater lore of Fist of the North Star, from what I understand of the timeline, this would mostly place the events after the Jagi arc, after Roah learns that Yuria is the last of the Nanto generals and well before the events of Ken's showdown with Roah

Now the majority of the stream saw me messing around with bounties, sub-stories and other general side quests... the world of the game is actually very engaging in that I want to knock out as much as I can before I feel I have to move the story forward. Hell even the pain in the ass crane game in the arcade is worth doing just to see how the damn thing is rigged!

Of course I would actually jump back into the game off-stream to knock off the achievements associated with the Crane Game, as well as the one to have Kenshiro eat at all food that can be ordered at the three restaurants. Really is looking like Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise will be one of those games I will throw on just to work towards some of the more grind heavy goals. 

For last night's raid, we sent everyone over to MATURISHBAMBINO_ who was also playing Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise. He streams over at twitch.tv/MATURISHBAMBINO_ !

Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise Trophies

1. Tiger Dropped: Defeat a master from another world.
2. The Man who Proved Himself: Completed Chapter 9.
3. Shake-a-shake-a-shake: Obtain Rank S in Bartender Ken. 
4. Eden's Own Gastronome: Order every menu item at all eateries.
5. Crane Stance: Obtain all prizes in the crane game. 
   

Twitch Clip Links

• Tiger Dropped!
• Putting Down Roah! 
• We got something out of the crane game!
  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout had me doing Difficult Challenge Combo #2, Difficult Challenge Combo #1 and Difficult Challenge Combo #3 for 34 minutes and an estimated calorie burn of 639 kcal. Today we reached the Immortal Weight Puncher goal of 540,000 HITs which is the last of the punch total EX achievements for the game.... which surprises me because one would think that total would have been 1,000,000.. Anyway, with it accomplished, we're at 86% completion for all EX Achievements

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievements

1. Immortal Weight Puncher: Reach a total punch count of 540,000 HITs
   

Apparently the Padres and Giants told the Mets to fuck off about interviewing members of their staff for positions they need filled. Good for them. 

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV adventure saw me tackle two trials as part of the Eden side story, Eden's Promise: Litany and Eden's Promise: Anamorphosis... which sees a lot of Gaia's back story revealed, in that she is one half of a couple that really wants to be together forever... which means that can't happen because of and how much Gaia means to Ryne. The later trial also raises a few questions regarding Ryne's mental state if some how Thancred is something she has hopes and dread about considering how tight they were. I could be misunderstanding the imagery.

Got a call from one of the various people trying to fill in for the day shift supervisor who passed away at the end of last year, I'm told, for sure, that Thursday things get back to normal for those of us on Day Shift... and that we'll be required to use rather specific types of USB headsets at the end of the month. Good thing I had a few commissioned fan fics to write to get the jump on that extra hardware I need to have.

For tonight's stream it'll be more Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise as we'll focus on a lot of side stuff first before advancing the plot of Chapter 10!

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

The Lack Of Courage With Randoms

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Overwatch was interesting on a few levels, first big thanks to ChiefB33F and PandaSweet for being apart of matches through out the night... and second I did have four plays of the game, three as D.va and one as Torbjourn. Other characters used were Brigitte, Mei, Tracer and Reinhardt!

Now what was interesting is the number of folks choosing to play the 'toe in / toe out' method of being on the objective, which actually cost us several wins. Ya'll know me, 99% of the time I'm focused on the objective, but if I notice some nonsense happening I will pull back like no one can believe. I can handle losing hard fought matches when everyone is on the objective or payload... I will not tolerate losing because someone chooses to not engage the enemy or even attempt to get on the objective.

Of course I get told I'm too brave for my own good at times since I often play as D.va, but I rather be aggressive and go all out to try and win than pussyfoot around!

Also during last night's stream, found out Bob Saget passed away this weekend, that certainly was shocking. Like most people my age, practically grew up only knowing Saget in his role of Danny Tanner on Full House and his time hosting America's Funniest Home Videos. It really wasn't until the mid 2000s I became familiar with his stand-up routines and learned of his reputation as one of the filthiest comics of all time.

Anyway, for the raid following the stream, we sent the fun over to Helramma who was playing Apex Legends! They stream over at twitch.tv/helramma!

Twitch Clip Links

• Shutdown!
• We caught the train...
• Well... great... that happened.... 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Hips Shape Focus Combo, Sway Back Combo and Straight Combo #2 for 31 minutes and a estimated calorie burn of 465 kcal. In terms of EX Achievement progress, as you'll see below, this week we'll hit two milestones pretty easily, as we need 800 HITs for Immortal Weight Puncher which will be accomplished with tomorrow's work out, and we'll have the five daily stamps acquired by the end of the week

Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise EX Achievement Progress 

• 33/50 hours trained with Janice for Janice's Champion
• 395/400 stamps acquired for Honored Stamper
• 539,280/540,000 total HITs for Immortal Weight Puncher
• 85/100 percent of all EX Achievements acquired for King EX Fighter
  

Continued my X-Box achievement streak via the Microsoft Solitaire Collection, pick up three achievements in it last night. The toughest one to get was 'Classic Speed Run', to get my best times in all three to equal to 10 minutes or less. My times were 1:57 for Klondike, 5:17 for Spider and 2:14 for FreeCell, for a total time of 9:28. Anyway these would be the last achievements in that game I would be able to get for a while, since nearly every one left requires daily challenges.

Microsoft Solitaire Collection (UWP) Achievements

1. Get Out of Jail Free: Won 10 FreeCell games
2. Classic Speed Run: Your fastest win times in Klondike, Spider, and FreeCell add up 10 minutes or less
3. Become a Star: Completed an entire pack of challenges in the Star Club 
4. Always Invited: Participated in every event in a month
5. Event Aficionado: Completed all the challenges in an Event
   

My off-stream Final Fantasy XIV progress saw me finally getting back to the Eden side quest line, and I got my first taste of Eden's Promise: Umbra. And while it was a successful first attempt, there were some aspects of that fight I didn't understand and the wiki certainly doesn't help. I also loved that more big battle music from Final Fantasy VIII was used for it! As far as the plot goes, Gaia being used by an Ascian to free itself from Eden is an interesting twist.

For tonight's stream, we shall return to Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise to continue that adventure, mostly because I was able to extend my X-Box achievement streak through other means as mentioned earlier.

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