A recap of stream and project updates from the last three-month period, and a window into all of the random things that have been occupying my time as of late!

Howdy everyone! It’s the very first time that I’ve decided to put out a long-form update post. I plan to use this sort of thing to talk about recent accomplishments and upcoming plans, and maybe fit in some extra ranting about whatever has my interest at the time. I intend to try to provide a quarterly recap going forward! So with that out of the way, let’s look back at the last three months of 2024, shall we?

New Developments in the Tenerezza Speedrun

As one of only two runners of this charming little game, Tenerezza has claimed a bit of a special place in my heart. With half of my Twitch emotes featuring the titular character, that statement probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise. But towards the tail-end of July I realized that my previous world record run was benefitting from some inconsistent frame rates in certain areas in the game. This tended to occur in small, closed in spaces where very few objects were being rendered.

After discovering this, I immediately set out to try to beat my own record, but without this unfair advantage. I locked my frame rate to 30 FPS, and set to the task of developing new strategies to make up the time I would now be losing by default. The answer to this conundrum came in the form of the game’s item shop, which offers an item which doubles Tene’s magic damage for a short time at the expense of halving her physical damage potential. Stocking up on these items for use on boss fights allowed me to make up all the time I needed, and then some. It also brought the added bonus of making the final boss fight a bit safer - more damage done faster means less time wasted on healing undodgable attacks. My 1:08:16 illegitemate WR was dethroned by this run, boasting a 43 second improvement for a 1:07:33.

With the NG+ WR now unblemished, I had another long-time goal that I wanted to claim: the first run of the regular New Game Any% category. There’s a reason that no runs had been posted in this category up until this point, and it’s because the NG+ run is vastly safer to perform. If I tried to use the same route on NG as I do on NG+, it would be nearly impossible to defeat the final boss without dying, if I could even make it that far in the first place. The entire back half of the game becomes significantly more lethal when Tenerezza only reaches level 30 at best, and you have to decide where to allocate your precious skill points.

But during my research for the NG+ record, I stumbled across two key items in the game which offered an answer. The Books of Magic, volumes 1 and 2. These items change how Tenerezza casts magic, with volume 1 allowing Tene to charge magic without slowing down and volume 2 removing the animation lock when casting uncharged magic. Considering that charged magic is highly situational in this game, I judged that volume 1 wouldn’t be worth the time spent to obtain. But volume 2… This modification to get rid of animation lock blows the run wide open. Make no mistake, the bosses are still quite lethal. But now at least, I had a chance to outplay them and start dodging attacks. This item makes it possible to fight the final boss and dodge almost every attack it can throw at you.

With the plan set, I got to work and a few days later managed the very first New Game Any% run for Tenerezza in 1:31:06. There’s definitely room for improvement in this record, and I look forward to struggling against this beast of a run again in the future.

Dawn of a New Final Fantasy Expansion

It’s hard to believe that Dawntrail has been out for a full two months now as I’m writing this. My FFXIV story streams still have a long road ahead until we get to explore this expansion together, but I’m stoked to forge ahead through all of the adventures that await us. Even now, we’re over 70 streams in to this behemoth of a game and we’re a bit over halfway through Stormblood. There’s easily another 70 streams to go, if not more, so I hope you all are in for the long haul on this one. It will definitely be part-way into 2025 by the time I catch up to current story content.

Story streams aside, we’ve also made some notable strides on the speedrunning front in FFXIV. I’m currently the world record holder for Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker MSQ categories. Endwalker in particular was a very long road, taking me three separate attempts (all on a new character) until I was able to overcome all manner of technical and routing shortcomings to achieve a 13:25:32 multi-segment record for the expansion after Dawntrail’s release which currently stands as the only run for the expansion in any category.

But perhaps even more important than that… was improving the world record for a pair of fights in Final Fantasy XIV which had been believed to be at their most optimal for years. Both the Hard and Extreme versions of Containment Bay Z1T9 had 3-way and 7-way ties respectively for first place at 59 seconds each, and this was due to the way the fight was scripted. I’ve now done it in 58.

Metaphor Hype

Setting aside Square Enix for a moment, ATLUS has also made quite a large splash with the release of the Metaphor: ReFantazio demo and let me tell you… I’m so glad I waited to learn anything about this game because the demo was fantastic, and the full release happens just before I make it back home from my vacation. I don’t know how I’m going to manage to fit this one in with all the other games I need to play, but safe to say this one might be jumping my backlog queue.

The Other Final Fantasy

Final Fanatsy XVI saw its official PC release in the middle of September, and one of the first things I did when I got back from vacation in October is complete the very first PC run of any category. I’ve formerly competed on PS5, but getting set up to compete on the PC version was high on my priority list. One particularly nice perk of doing so is the load remover that was developed for these runs. I still have a long way to go on my mastery of this game and category, but I’m quite proud of my inaugural run for the PC boards.

Toward the Horizon

It’s surreal to me that we’re in the final quarter of the year again now. It’s now one year since my return to streaming. You all have pushed me to embrace this return wholeheartedly. We now have a community that has formed around our critically acclaimed MMORPG and all the other incidental quirky games, hobbies, and jokes that we’ve shared together this year. I didn’t imagine coming back to streaming would result in me starting up a dedicated VGM radio station, but it has. I didn’t image coming back to streaming would result in me speedrunning one FFXIV expansion a week for nine months, but it has. And I didn’t imagine coming back to streaming would result in revitalizing my Discord server where many of you all hang out every day, but there you are.

All I can say is thank you. I’ll continue doing my best to be worthy of the kindess you all show me by showing up time and time again and being part of it all.