A Night of Dragon Ball Z: Budokai

Good afternoon everyone

Last night's stream featured Dragon Ball Z: Budokai on the PlayStation 2... and we went through the entire story mode to unlock every character, so that meant doing the World Tournament mode to end up unlocking Hercule. A lot of the inputs for many of the characters is the same, which meant a lot of tactics I ended up using ended up being the same for all the characters I played as. Visually, the game does hold up fairly well for being 20 years old (it was released in November of 2002), the sound mixing is pretty damn solid as well.

Now since we were going through the story mode to unlock every character (mostly for bragging rights), let's talk about how unbalanced it is. By default, you end up mostly playing as Goku thought all of his big fights (Raditz, Vegeta, Recoome, Ginyu, Frieza, Android 19 and Cell), before switching to Gohan as the focus in the Cell Games portion of the story mode. There is one opportunity to play as Piccolo, and it's for his first encounter against Imperfect Cell. The only opportunity to play as other characters, mostly more fights as Piccolo and Vegeta are avaliable when going back into the Story Mode for 'extra content', seeing some things from a different angle or 'What if' scenario, such as the infamous Cell absorbing Krillian scenario.

Of course Dragon Ball Z: Budokai is probably most remember for being one of the many Dragon Ball properties that had issues with its music because the original composer plagiarized the works for others. So when the game was re-released in a HD Collection with Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3 in the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 era, all the music was changed.

Twitch Clip Links

• Radtiz is actually in this game
• Big Bang Attack!
• Raditz is the Champion! 
• That's A Perfect Way To End That
  

Big thanks to Kalenal for the raid, they were streaming Final Fantasy XIV over at twitch.tv/kalenal!

For the raid last night we dropped in on Phanir who was playing Dragon Ball FighterZ over at twitch.tv/Phanir!  

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Uppercut Combo #2, Body Hook Combo and Body Uppercut Combo.

Yesterday, over on The Game Theory YouTube channel, the content creator Mathew 'MatPat' Patrick probably said some of the most elitist bullshit possible by trying to say he has not contributed in any way to ruining the plans of Game Developers while also saying that 'Let's Play' content creators (like myself) aren't the real fans of many of the games he covers because don't dive deep into the lore like he and other 'theory' channels do. Now in that video, he said he was contacted by a developer who 'jokingly' asked if he had an inside source at their company because one of his videos was way to accurate as it related to something they were working on, while also pointing out that other developers admitted to changing plans because of things said on his and similar channels. The results some time can be completely different than what was clearly intended or make the game worse... and MatPat has the balls to say they shouldn't have done that, that the developers should've just let him be right about his theory.

So that all said,  let me explain something to MatPat, as someone who has done their fair share of theorizing on different things I enjoy, expanded on lore with my own personal head cannon to predict where things could go... it is the job of the creators of the video games to try and surprise the vast audience of gamers who want an entertaining experience, regardless of the genre. If the developers feel you are a hindrance to their efforts because of how accurate you happen to be, and feel that they have to change their plans, then guess what, it is your fault. People saw it with the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, they saw it with Bendy & The Ink Machine, and they saw it with Hello Neighbor.

One last thing on this topic, if MatPat had the balls to claim credit for spiking interest in some of those games that I mention, then he should accept the blame when developers feel like they have to subvert expectations beyond what they intended to try and get to their end goal.

I gave Civilization VI a try last night, and boy... it's no where near as good as Civilization V... or even Civilization IV. I found the interface and changes to be extremely clunky and not as natural to figure out as compared to earlier entries in the series. Guess we won't be featuring that on a series of streams any time soon.

It's the start of a new week, so lets recap what we did last week with the Twitch Bits vid, which features Overwatch, Mass Effect 2, Fallout 76, Final Fantasy XIV, Persona 5 Royal, & Dragon Ball Z: Budokai!

For tonight's stream it's of course Overwatch as we'll messing around with it. If I'm able to get into the Overwatch 2 Beta this week we'll try and dedicate a night to it, depending on if things line to where we can feature it. 

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

Persona 5 Royal Does Take Your Time

Good morning everyone,

Persona 5 Royal has this little loading icon thing that says 'take your time'... and boy does that perfectly describe how I just sink so much time into it on Friday nights. Last night stream went 10 hours, and had one hiccup when the stream went a little wonky at the 9 hour mark. This was not planned, but the stuff with Futaba was just so good and I wanted to see how the story arc wrapped up, everything leading into the Beach day and end of the Summer vacation was just great.

That said, I did as much as I could to make up for the fact that I screwed some things up at different points, so we took a trip into Mementos (and nearly ran into the Reaper), did a lot of time spending with different confidants and managed to max out four of them, and I no longer have to have a Lovers or Chariot persona on hand as a result. 

One would think I would have a lot more to say about last night's stream, but it was after 4 AM when we rapped up and I was warped out of my mind. In the YouTube archives, the stream will be divided into three parts, two 4.5 hour long VODs, and one 1 hour long VOD.

Persona 5 Royal Trophies

• True Confidence: Maxed out one of your Confidants.
• Trash Into Treasure: Sold old clothing at Furugi no Neuchi.
• Pyramid of Wrath: Plundered: Completed the pyramid Palace.

Twitch Clip Links

• There we go 
• Are they siblings?
• He knew?! 
• Wow... she's... here.... WOW! She walked! 
• How did she figure that out?!
  

During the stream we had two raids, the first by x9abenonymous9x who was playing State of Decay 2 over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x and the other by Redneck_23 who was playing American Truck Simulator over at twitch.tv/redneck_23! 

For the raid, we dropped in on Felkimchi as they were playing Mafia III over at twitch.tv/felkimchi! 

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Front Back Step Combo, Hook Combo #2 and Beginner Combo #1. We did this workout at 6 AM before I went to sleep.

Fitness Boxing 2 Stats For April 17 to 23, 2022

• Punches Thrown: 8, 785
  
• Estimated Calorie Burn: 3488.15 kcal.
  
• 24 of 30 hours trained for Bernardo's Contender EX Achievement
  

I will not be surprised if Disney shuts down Disney World or goes about relocating it to another location in the United States due to the stupidity that is going on in the state of Florida because of Trump like stupidity from Ron DeSantis and the rest of his ilk. 

The first full week of Fantasy Baseball has two days left in it, today and tomorrow, and I'm only leading in two out of nine categories against my opponent. My squad has knocked in 17 RBI and has batted .273. The struggles of Anthony Rendon, Chris Taylor and Corey Seager has been bothersome, not to mention the roster moves I've had to make.

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 just going to take it easy and mess around with something random, total chill stream. 

So on that note I'm going to bed we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!

Just your weekly night of Final Fantasy XIV

Good morning everyone, 

Last night's stream of Final Fantasy XIV saw the new raid being featured... and boy doing it on stream was a hell of experience of whatever could go wrong did go wrong. I'm still not fan of the first two boss fights of it, granted I only have done it once before. Now we did do some focus on the PVP side of it, as the Crystalline Conflict is a lot of fun, and I've managed to be apart of a couple of win. Best part about it is that the matches are fast paced and last only a few minutes.

Now of course we did dedicate some time to Fishing and Botany as well, gaining a couple of levels in both, as well as knocking out a job quest for both. I might not do the next job quest for Fishing on stream as it apparently involves spear fishing which might take awhile to accomplish from what I understand. We also did the World of Darkness Alliance Raid as well. So I've been seeing that one a lot lately which is fine.

Twitch Clip Links

• That's my plan try and follow the other people.... 
• Well that is perfect timing! That is just perfect!
• That's two for me none for you! 
  

For the raid last night, we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x  as he was playing Gears of War 2 with FnDanteSavage!  

Work has been surprisingly consistent this week, which is always nice... even if the assignment is for a less than quality client.

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Double Combo #1, Defensive Combo #1 and Defensive Combo #2. We might go back to ramping it up a little more next week with the exercises.

When I get around to playing the Assassin's Creed games, I can safely say that I won't have to worry about any online multiplayer achievements as UbiSoft shut down the servers that supported the mode in several games from the Xbox 360 / PlayStation 3 era.

Saw the latest excuse Sony is using for no proper emulation of games from the PlayStation to PlayStation 3 era on modern systems, and it all goes back to the shitty way the PlayStation 3 was designed. They basically over thought that system, and every game on it needs a full remaster to convert it to more modern systems. This is why when I got back into Console gaming in 2020, I went with the Xbox One S and Nintendo Switch. Hell if it wasn't for the fact there were some exclusives tied to the PlayStation 4 like God of War and Persona 5 Royal, I would have held of on tracking that system down.

By the way, the Amazon and Xsplit ads you see are authorize by me to be on this blog, as I'm an affiliate with both  So 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! But 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 Persona 5 Royal and the aftermath of Futaba's Palace after the epic stream we did last week. Looking forward to seeing what happens next in the story!

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

We were Fallout and About

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream of Fallout 76 certainly was interesting as I had a nuke dropped on me while on one of the early quests, and found myself in all sorts of random encounters. Big thanks to Iceman for joining in on the fun and games as we covered a lot of things I needed to do in the Northern part of the map.One thing I can appreciate is the side quests that certainly adds a level of detail of how warped things were in the world of the game and that's before the apocalypse started. I mean, having to track down missing young persons to see what happened to them is one hell of a cold case. 

We also ran into a couple of random glitches such as enemies running at light speed to attack, and some interactions not loading straight away. But bugs and glitches were par for the course with Fallout 76 when it launched, hence why I didn't start messing with it until long after it had some major updates.

Fallout 76 Achievements

• Perked Up: Fully Rank Up one Perk
• Pest Control: Kill 300 Creatures 

Twitch Clip Links

• Well I got caught in the nuke!
• 3 for 3.... 4 for 4! 
• These guys are moving rather quick!
  

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

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Intermediate Combo #1, Biceps Shape Focus Como and Triple Combo #2. Best part about that screenshot is that one has to realize the totals are only for the Fitness Boxing 2 portion, though the days in a row streak includes the original Fitness Boxing.

You know, with my day job, we get assignments from a lot of large firms who do a fair job of presenting both sides of an issue... but then there are the times we get blatantly designed polls that are set to push an agenda.

So what's going to replace Mass Effect 2 on Mondays and Tuesdays? I'm leaning towards Borderlands 3, which will be a challenge on the console side of things... or the Chrono Cross remaster.

My fantasy baseball team went a combine 6 for 42 yesterday... ugh.

Marijuana has been legalized here in New Jersey, I have no real feelings on it one way or the other.

If you're a streamer or looking to get into streaming, check out what Xsplit has to offer over HERE and use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order.

Played some Final Fantasy XIV last night off stream, for the Alliance Raid of the Day, it was World of Darkness, also managed to do some leveling on the Fishing skill set.  Of course for tonight's stream we shall featuring Final Fantasy XIV, we will do the new alliance raid and obvious work on a few different things.

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

We wrapped up the Classic version of Mass Effect 2

Good morning everyone,

Last night's stream saw us finish the classic version of Mass Effect 2, and I was right to start a bit early, since Lair of the Shadowbroker took about an hour and forty-five minutes to complete, which was a fun mission. I totally forgot to apply Liara's ability points, so I thought all she had was Singularity as an ability, which probably made some parts harder than it needed to be.

From there it was getting the Reaper IFF and recruit Legion... which later revealed the issue I had with Samara's Loyalty mission last night, because once we did Legion's Loyalty mission, the argument between him and Tali forces me to choose a side. Too many Paragon choices made along the way threw things out of whack, so when I get around to playing the classic version of Mass Effect 3... the Geth are basically screwed. It's not the first time that's happened, and it's certainly not ideal.

I also made three mistakes during the final mission, choosing Legion and Samara for the vents and long walk portion, and not taking Miranda for the final boss. Why does this mater? Because if you pick Tali for the vents, Jack for the long walk and take Miranda for the final boss, the first two gets referenced in Mass Effect 3, and Miranda basically quits Cerberus at the end of Mass Effect 2. Little details like that mater folks.

Still, it's always great to play a Mass Effect game, not sure when we'll do Mass Effect 3, because of all the charts I need to reference to find all the items to get nearly everything done in that game. Also, we finished Mass Effect 2 with 59 of 60 achievements unlocked. The final three achievements are well.. things I rather not do.

Mass Effect 2 Achievements

• Most Dangerous Game: Defeat the Shadow Broker’s Assassin
• Heart of Darkness: Confront the Shadow Broker
• Detail Orientated: Use all information terminals in the Shadow Broker’s stronghold
• Catching Up: Reminisce with Liara on the Normandy
• Power Gamer: Reach Level 30 with one character
• Friend or Foe: Obtain geth technology
• A House Divided: Hack a geth collective
• Paramour: Successfully pursue a relationship with a teammate
• Suicide Mission: Use the Omega 4 Relay
• Against All Odds: Survive suicide mission
• Long Service Medal: Complete Mass Effect 2 twice, or complete it once with a character imported from Mass Effect 1
• Mission Accomplished: Save humanity throughout the galaxy from certain annihilation
• No One Left Behind: Keep your team alive through the suicide mission

Twitch Clip Links

• Charge!
• EDI Enjoys the Sight of...
• Whoa... 
• Sniper Rifle for the Win!
  

For the raid we dropped in on Birthday_Shark who was playing the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 2 over at twitch.tv/Birthday_Shark!   

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout featured Difficulty Challenge Combo #2, Difficulty Challenge Combo #3 and Difficulty Challenge Combo #1

Going to have to make a couple of roster moves for my Fantasy Baseball team, always  got to check it, because one never knows with those day to day injuries. 

Did an Alliance raid run of The Copied Factory last night, there are some parts of that I really like and some parts I really hate... good news is I now have all the orchestral rolls for it unlocked.

You know when I was told I would be the only one on an assignment for work yesterday, they weren't kidding. Which raises the question why some things aren't set up like that to make sure folks have work consistently  

Ric Flair is apparently training to have another match... and all I can think of is the original Nature Boy, Buddy Rogers, who was doing the same thing back in 1991-1992. It did not end well for him. 

The CW is up for sale, and a lot of shows that air on it, such as DC's Legends of Tomorrow, have not been renewed. There is speculation that nearly everything on the CW is going to get cancelled out right and that Warner Brothers-Discovery is going to create a new version of the Arrowverse on HBO Max, I'm not at all surprised to be honest. 

Again, I'm not at all surprised by the Phillies troubles, the bullpen and rotation wasn't really addressed at all, and if the offense isn't putting up a ton of runs, then they will continue to lose ball games.

If you're a streamer or looking to get into streaming, check out what Xsplit has to offer over HERE and use the promo code CASDEN to save 10% on your order.

For tonight's stream, it's back to Fallout 76 for more silliness in trying to get quests done! 

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

We Made Too Many Paragon Choices in Mass Effect 2!

Good afternoon everyone,

Last night's stream of Mass Effect 2 saw a nice balance of finding a couple of side missions, recruiting the two more characters in Thane and Samara and basically setting up everything for tonight's stream to be a heavy feature of huge missions. Of course last night's stream did see the result of making too many types of choices, in this case Paragon or 'good guy' choices.

See I always go for a more Renegade Shepard in my Mass Effect trilogy sessions, and some where along the line I made a couple of Paragon choices that kind of ruined how I like some scenes to play out, namely during Samara's loyalty mission. I suspect these choices happened when trying to lure Morinth out where I stumbled across a couple of Paragon only decisions... as was the case with the mission for Ish last week. Normally, I would get a choice to side with either Samara or Morinth... but that didn't happen this time. This does raise concerns when it comes to Legion's loyalty mission and the argument they have with Tali afterwards. 

I should point out I did have one Critical Mission Failure and a couple of close calls during Thane's recruitment mission. On a side note as well, it's amazing that Samara and Thane have such combat heavy missions to get them, but their loyalty missions involve no combat at all, and it involves killing Samara's daughter and saving Thane's son. I wonder if there was something cut from the game that would have them at odds, much like Tali and Legion will be as I mentioned before, in addition to Jack and Miranda's blow up. In fact, Grunt and Mordin should have had issues with each other as well. The thing is, that leaves Jacob as the only one not to have an argument with anyone else... plus Zaeed and Kasumi, but those two were DLC characters.

Anyway, what we'll lead off with tonight is Lair of the Shadowbroker, then go get the Collector's EMF and Legion, then do Legion's Loyalty mission and finally go through the Omega 4 Relay. This is going to pretty action packed for the most part and it should be a lot of fun.

Mass Effect 2 Achievements

• The Assassin: Successfully recruit the Assassin
• Weapon Specialist: Fully upgrade a weapon
• The Justicar: Successfully recruit the Justicar
• Cat's in the Cradle: Gain the loyalty of the Assassin
• Doppelganger: Help the Justicar resolve her mission

Twitch Clip Links

• Hey where did he go? 
• Shepard Hardly Felt Anything
• Watch the landing... There she goes! 
  

For the raid we dropped in on YRGamerBunni who was playing the Legendary Edition of Mass Effect 2 over at twitch.tv/YRGamerBunni!   

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Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout involved Straight Combo #2, Sway Back Combo, and Hip Shape Focus Combo.

Did some off-stream Final Fantasy XIV stuff last night, tried out the PVP... and turns out I needed to slot what abilities I wanted? It was very confusing. Also picked up a couple of Blue Mage spells. So that was a positive. It was pointed out to me that I never list achievements from when I play Final Fantasy XIV... and it's because the Lodestone site for FF14 doesn't exactly update in time for me to document anything special that was accomplished

Imagine my shock to see that Anthony Rendon is now listed Day to Day... and that Lou Trivino is on the COVID list... keeping up with my Fantasy Baseball team is going to drive me batty

For tonight's stream, as I mentioned earlier we'll be looking to finish Mass Effect 2, I'm looking to start almost as soon as I finish dinner after work to make sure we can cover everything without going past midnight!

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

The Clear Inspiration For Final Fantasy XIV's New Alliance Raid

Good afternoon everyone,

Completely caught up on the 6.1 Main Story Quest content of Final Fantasy XIV and I was right in my assumption that everything is being done to set up further expansions down the line. That said, I did do the story line for Myths of the Realm, which is the side story for the Alliance Raid called 'Aglaia'... and boy did I struggle with the first two big bosses of it, which the knock off the edge mechanics. Also, it appears that this Alliance Raid story arc has some heavy influence from the Greek Myths.  

Think about it, it is basically stated that these higher beings exist in their own realm, that they assume another form to 'observe' things up close,  and let's not forget the fact that 'Aglaia' is an alternate spelling for 'Aglaea' who was one of the three Charities in Greek Mythology.  In fact I will not be surprised if the next two Alliance Raids are named after the other two Charities, 'Euthymia' and the other being 'Thaleia' as these are the alternate names for 'Euphrosyne' and 'Thalia'. Granted 'Euphrosyne' has a second alternate name in 'Eutychia '

Anyway, last night's stream of Overwatch was a lot of fun as we played nearly every match with friends and associates, Big thanks to PandaSweet, BangBangBang and BloodyClown for being apart of the action! Now in addition to Quick Play matches, we also worked in some of the Archive matches, a couple of Mystery Heroes and Mayhem matches. Characters who I ended up using ended up being D.va, Wrecking Ball Reinhardt, and Moira, who I picked up three play of the games as during the stream. So all in all a great night. I also had a play of the game as Wrecking Ball but it did not save for whatever reason...

Of course of the clips, one should probably take a look at the third one, because I've rewatched it a few times, and I'm still not 100% sure exactly how the hell did I survive being knocked off the ledge twice by Winston. I think my expression says it all. 

Twitch Clip Links

• I'll take Red Lobster... Sizzler... but not Olive Garden! 
• Team Kill and Marshmallows!
• How did I survive?! 
  

For last night's raid, we dropped in on PradoxGamerAU who was playing Rune Factory 5 over at twitch.tv/PradoxGamerAU!  

Today's Fitness Boxing daily workout involved Hook COmbo #1, Waist Shape Focus Combo and Block Combo.

I have enjoyed adding an instrumental track to the nightly highlight reels over on facebook.com/FredCasdenGaming has added a lot, and worked out rather nicely because of how low the game audio is during my streams.  

Not at all surprised that the Phillies could not follow up their offensive output from Saturday night against the Marlins, as they got yet another reality check yesterday afternoon in a blow-out loss. That said, as I look at my Fantasy Baseball team, I'm considering dropping both Jonathan India and Mark Canha from my squad, but hopefully they'll be able to return to help stabilize who I have available most days. I did dropped Alex Kirilloff and replaced him with Trey Mancini

I've been kicking around a few idea for some fan fics, some based around Mass Effect, I'll probably pass them along to a few folks I know instead of writing them myself.

For tonight's stream we'll be returning to Mass Effect 2, as we'll search for any loose missions in areas of the galaxy map thanks to maps found last week before focusing on recruiting Thane and Samara.

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