August of Persona 3 Portable

Good morning everyone,

Work is back to normal starting today, but it's the assignment that I was doing during the early evening last week... and I'll have to do it for an extra hour... so ugh... it's going to be a long day, But the important thing is things will feel normal today.

Last night's stream of Persona 3 Portable opened up with us doing some grinding to try and get Junpei and Akihiko close to level 30, but after dealing with the August full moon, we experienced the summer break portion of the story, which saw Mitsuru signing everyone up for summer classes which basically ate up a week of in-game time, sure we got to learn about the Major Arcana, but the real highlight was completing a few social links, because it appears I've fallen way behind on the pace for maxing out the academic portion of the main character. 

Now we made sure to cover everything up to two nights before the September full moon, which means tonight's stream will open with a trip into Tartarus... as well as figuring out how I'm going to balance the party because Shiiniro, Koromaru and Ken have all joined the team, so trying to figure out the best way to use them in relation to the rest of the team will be a challenge.

Also way I figure, it'll probably take about eight more streams to finish up Persona 3 Portable, this is factoring in how the gaps between major floors in Tartarus seem to be getting wider, while also trying to anticipate any requests Elizabeth might have.

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• Bunker Debunked: Defeat the Chariot and Justice.
• Fusion Expert: Perform 50 Persona fusions.

Big thanks to Kalenal for the raid following their stream of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild over on twitch.tv/kalenal

For the raid we dropped in on zdleague who was also playing Persona 3 Portable over at twitch.tv/zdleague

Got some writing done yesterday, I intended to finish the Mass Effect short story, but then I felt the need to lay down and lost a few hours due to a nap. By the time I woke back up that nap it was nearly too late to have dinner.

Been looking at a lot of Jerry Springer interviews lately... and when you really think about it, he really was the greatest day time talk show host of all time, since he applied the same reasoning the like of Oprah did about giving celebrities a place to talk about their struggles, but for the every day person instead.

I looked over the achievement list for Star Trek Resurgence and near as I can tell, it will require three play throughs to get all the achievements that are tied to various choices. We'll start our first play through on Saturday.

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

A Big Night As Wrecking Ball

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday was kind of a weird day, as I ended up laying down quite a bit, still I got some writing done, and found out that the client who is commissioning the Mass Effect series of short stories would like me to do Resident Evil stories down the line.  

Last night's stream of Overwatch 2 was a lot of fun, we were joined by PandaSweet for the entire stream which was fun. Between the two of us we had 9 plays of the game, with mine being as Reinhardt (3), D.va (1), Orissa (1) and Wrecking Ball (1). Other characters I used were Junker Queen, Sombra, Tracer, Roadhog and a few others.

Now the best moments of the night involved Wrecking Ball in that we got both of his character achievements. The first involved playing on Defense on the Eichenwald map, in a match Panda and I were resigned to practice, so somehow absorbing 1250 damage without dying was shocking considering I was diving in and backing out. The other achievement involving rolling through three enemies at once... and that was done via a moment where I knocked three enemies off a ledge.

With both of these achievements, I know have 65 of Overwatch's 164 achievements, which is pretty good with all things considered/

Overwatch 2 Achievements

• Adaptation: Absorb 1250 damage with Wrecking Ball's Adaptive Shield without dying in Quick or Competitive Play.
• Strike: Roll through 4 enemies within 2 seconds as Wrecking Ball in Quick or Competitive Play.

For the raid we dropped in on x9abenonymous9x who was playing God of War over at twitch.tv/x9abenonymous9x

 The plan for tonight's stream is resuming Persona 3 Portable, as we're going to be in good position to try and knocking more of Elizabeth's requests and put in some leveling for Junpei and Akihiko to keep them caught up to Mitsuru, Yukari and Aigis. How much grinding we'll do depends on much time I want to spend trying to get gold shadows to appear.

Had one solid lead for a possible job interview via Zoom later this week, which if things go right, could see me back in the travel industry. We'll see how that goes on Thursday.

I have a full series of Star Trek Online on Xbox One videos schedule to premier on Mondays at 9 AM on my YouTube channel, which means I can use the Wednesday slot of the week for other types of content creation while being on camera.

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

We Had A Variety Night

Good morning everyone,

Yesterday I did plan to wake up early, but... ended up waking up a lot later than intended, but still got a few things done.

We had a fun stream, as it was a variety night, opening with Fall Guys and running into instances of dudes self sabotaging the team in so many ways, including diving off the platform in Block Party. No wins, but we did make it the final round once.

We switched of Ghostbusters Spirits Unleashed after I learned they added some cosmetics from Extreme Ghostbusters, so yeah that caught my attention. We had a couple of victories but mostly got chased out by the ghosts. Didn't really get a good look at the new map but it's nice to see there are stuff still being added.

We played some Smite for the first time in a long time, winning three out of the four matches played (2 in Arena, 1 in Assault), with those victories being as Athena, Terra and Nike respectively. I actually forgot how long Assault matches can feel because of the random nature of who everyone has to use, Still I'll take the wins.

Now all of those games were played on the Xbox Series and Xbox One consoles, because lastly we hooked up the PS3 in probably a year I think, and we played the X-Men arcade game, USA Rom version on Hard, using Dazzler. It was a solid run, and a good test of how it looks and plays on stream after all the hassle I went through to improve the picture quality.

Now I did consider doing an extra night of Persona 3 Portable or Mass Effect, but I figure bouncing from game to game and console to console made for a more unique experience.

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

Getting back to Mass Effect, did some writing on the short story commission yesterday afternoon, and I figure it's now about 40% done, just need to do the action sequence.

The plan for tonight's stream, well it's Overwatch, even though we are all disappointed in being lied too by the developers of it regarding the PVE content, since they already had a live game to service in place. I will not be surprised if someone files a class action lawsuit against Activision Blizzard over this  

Good thing I ended the stream when it did, because a few minutes afterward, my internet went down!

I continue to mess around more with the Xbox version of Star Trek Online and discovered there is a very noticeable lag when doing anything in the tailor, like tweaking uniforms and so forth. In fact in an upcoming video scheduled for July on my YouTube channel, it takes about 20 minutes just to switch the uniforms of my starting crew from the TOS era to the 2409 uniforms.

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

FIrs Impression of Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Good afternoon everyone,

Work yesterday was positive, mostly for the fact that we can go back to our normal schedules, so on Monday we're back to the 6:30 PM Eastern start time! 

Last night's stream of Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and I can safely say it is a gorgeous game with a great musical score. The combat can be a little iffy, but there are some game play styles similar to Alice: Madness Returns. The biggest thing that gets me is the puzzles because the game is so pretty that I end up getting turned around and lost repeatedly. 

Now I am taking the super casual approach to playing it, and I can safely say it will not be a game that I can finish in two streams, even though a guide listing indicates I'm nearly half way through. but the trade off is that it will provide a nice alternative in the weekly line up as being something modern that visually stands out differently from the other big games I'm playing considering the open world nature of how I play Mass Effect.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits (PS4) Trophies

• Found a Friend: Hero Rot joined your team.
• Haikyo: Discovered the Village.
• Say Cheese: Captured a picture in Photo Mode
• Good as New: Restored a Flower Shrine.
• Into the Woods: Discovered the Forest.
• Hunter in the Forest: Learned the Bow Ability.
• Rot Commander: Use 5 Rot Actions in a single combat.
• Taro's Fear: Found Taro's Knife Relic.
• Taro's Love: Found Taro's Food Offering Relic.

We had two raids last night, one from oldish22 (twitch.tv/oldish22) and from b00mpowsurprize (twitch.tv/b00mpowsurprize) 

For the raid we dropped everyone off over on alexirmen who was also playing Kena Bridge of Spirits over at twitch.tv/alexirmen

Not sure what's on the agenda for tonight, we might go with a variety night, but we'll see what we end up doing.

As something to mess around with off-stream with the potential of streaming it, messed around with the Xbox version of BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma EXTEND, which is the definitive edition of the 3rd game in the series. So not sure if we'll stream its story mode without the context of the first two games on the final game.

BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma EXTEND Achievements

• Lesson Is More: [Tutorial] Finished the stylish and beginner lessons in Tutorial Mode.
• Impersonal Trainer: [Training] Dealt a total of 100,000 Damage.
• Good Grief: As Makoto, land an attack with maximum Impact Gauge.
• Just a Taste: [Arcade] Completed Arcade Mode.

Tried to put a dent into grinding for the last two engineer achievements in Mass Effect by doing 'laps' at Pinnacle station. Not sure how much I was able to accomplish.

Did make progress in the Mass Effect short story commission, it'll probably be finished by Monday for my Subscribstar followers.

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

A BSOD Style Damper

Good morning everyone, 

Work yesterday was okay, more of the same of trying to work with the very wordy script we have to use, but hey, as I said the other day, we just have to try to make it work, if we managed to get anything out of it, great, if not... we tried.

Last night's stream of Mass Effect was very much focused on side quests and level grinding, as we bopped around the Milky Way finding various missions from Admiral Hackett, plus Garrus and Wrex's loyalty missions as well as quests that originated on the Citadel. We did hit Pinnacle station to try and start grinding on the final achievements associated with the engineer (AI Hacking and Neural Shock).

Now next time we play Mass Effect, we'll probably focus on the Pinnacle station quests, then do Bringing Down The Sky, the big DLC mission before focusing on the main story of the game.

Of course the end of last night's stream was weird, as a sudden BSOD occurred indicated a bug of some kind, but every scan and diagnostic tool I can think of indicates nothing was wrong. Last thing I need is yet another computer going down this year.

Mass Effect Achievements

• Damping Specialist: Use Damping Field 75 times

We didn't do any raids following last night's stream because of the 

The plan for tonight's stream is to start up Kena: Bridge of Spirits on the PlayStation 4, from what I understand this game is very straight forward, with trophies attached to combat and collectables. So we'll take a casual approach to this game.

Got some writing done on the Mass Effect short story commission, getting a good portion of the intro done. Since it focuses on Miranda's 2nd meeting with Shepard on Citadel, it's already in the perfect location for various dialog.

Anyone ever noticed that in the Super Mario Bros Super Show episode with the Quirks, the little aliens play the Legend of Zelda theme? I noticed that last night after the stream.

With that said, we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Resident Evil 5's DLC was a lot of fun

 Good morning everyone,

Work yesterday was fairly good, despite some issues with Microsoft Edge randomly remembering my login from last year that I've changed causing some headaches. Then I find out there is possibility of normal day work coming back which means a change in my streaming schedule again! Ugh! At least it'll be back to normal, which means Fall Guys would be back.

Last night's stream of Resident Evil 5 features both the Lost in Nightmares and Desperate Escape DLC, and we did both with Iceman, which was a lot of fun.

Lost in Nightmares is set before the events of RE5 on Chris and Jill's mission that saw her get captured by Wesker, basically a throwback to the gameplay style of the earliest Resident Evil games with puzzles that need to be solved and limited ammos. We did use a guide, and had one crushing death. The fight against Wesker was of course a pain in the ass as it relates to the QTEs being noticeable, but we cleared it.

Desperate Escape is a companion chapter to the event of Chapter 5 of RE5's main story, where you play as Jill and Josh as they escape from the facility after Chris and Sheeva rescue Jill. It's a mad dash, super action sequence with lots of bad guys and ammo. As a side story and showing how Jill and Josh got to the helicopter that appears at the end of the game, it was quite enjoyable.

Now with this, we're moving on Resident Evil 5, but we'll revisited down the road for shits and giggles, to try and get other achievements, but starting next week, Resident Evil 6 takes center stage.

Resident Evil 5 Achievements

• A Friend in Need: Save partner 10 times when HELP is displayed.
• Must've Got Lost: Complete "Lost in Nightmares" on any difficulty setting.
• Egg on Your Face: Defeat a Majini with a rotten egg.
• Way of the Warrior: Defeat 150 enemies singlehandedly in one playthrough of "Desperate Escape."
• The Great Escape: Complete "Desperate Escape" with an S rank.
• Getaway: Complete "Desperate Escape" on any difficulty setting.

For the raid we dropped in on pradoxgamerau while they are playing Pokemon Brilliant Diamong/Shining Pearl over at twitch.tv/pradoxgamerau

The plan for tonight's stream is to play Mass Effect, we shall continue our side quest hunt and grind for using  the engineer powers!

Also, as noted last night, The Dark Pictures Anthology will be something I'll be looking to get, since Iceman and I learned those are online co-op, which means more shenanigans we can have on Wednesdays! Now if anyone wants to gift it to me on the Xbox side... (I'm kidding!)

Did some writing on the WWE commission story and I was told by the client to take my time with it, so I'll shift my attention to the Mass Effect story commission.

So on that note we'll see yo ulater over on twitch.tv/fredcasden

Later Start Time, Same Old Fred

Good morning everyone,

So yesterday we had work for the first time in few weeks, but it was at a later time which pushed the start of the streams back to 9:30 PM, which will be the norm for the foreseeable future. But the good news is the assignment we got just involves us 'trying' to be productive, because of how impossibly tight the requirements are for anyone to even qualify for the research that is being conducted. 

Last night's stream of Persona 3 Portable was pretty shocking in regards to how much we actually got done. We saw the summer trip to Mitsuru's family summer home, and I can see how much much was gutted for Persona 3 conversion to be on the PlayStation Portable because I can imagine how over the top some things were from beyond a visual novel perspective, including Aigis's big reveal, which is surprisingly understated. Now what helped things progress was how an entire week in-game was dedicated to 'training' for track event

This meant we were able to get to another extended trip through Tartarus, getting up to Floor 89, while leveling up to 31, which puts us slightly ahead of the pace of the game I believe in terms of dealing with enemies. Now we had Mitsuru, Aigis and Yukari in the squad, mostly based on a guide's recommendation, which really helped in regard to the enemies encounter being vulnerable to their abilities and attacks. 

Next time we play, we're going to open in Tartarus to try and get Junpei and Akihiko caught up, as they are level 23 and 26, making them kind of weak going forward. Plus there are a couple of quests for Elizabeth we might try and go for.

Persona 3 Portable Achievements

• True Supporter: Max out a Social Link.
• Head of the Class: Rank #1 in your class on an exam.

For the raid we went over to maximilian_dood who was doing a Street Fighter Legacy over at twitch.tv/maximilian_dood

The plan for tonight's stream is Resident Evil 5 with Iceman, and we'll see about Fall Guys in the second half, since my schedule now favors finishing streams towards 1:30 to 2 AM in the morning. 

The producers at Blizzard who over seen Overwatch basically said that making PVE content is too hard for them, and that they are going to half-ass PVE story content going forward. Which really is disheartening since the PVE content is what everyone was excited about when Overwatch 2 was announced.

Recorded the final DVD inventory video for my YouTube channel, and recorded three Star Trek Online videos as well. Now what will end up as the Wednesday series of exclusive content is up in the air, but the STO videos will be on Monday mornings, with each mission being done one at a time.

Didn't get any writing done yesterday, but we'll see about doing some today, because I did get busy with those different projects.

Did get back in touch with Kristi this morning, which was a great way to start the day!

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