The Let's Play Archive

Armored Core: Project Phantasma and Master of Arena

by ArclightBorealis

Part 25: Master of Arena - EX Chapter FINAL: The Other Bonuses

As usual, here is where I'll be listing off all the extra stuff that wasn't shown off in detail during the course of the main playthrough but is still interesting enough.

The Remaining EX Arenas
As you know, by default the four EX Arenas that are immediately available when starting the game are the Leg Categories. However, after completing all four of those as well as meeting other conditions on Disc 1, an additional 4 Arenas are made available.

Completing all four Leg Categories unlocks the FROMSOFT Arena. This ladder contains nine ACs of various builds with each pilot being named after an employee at From Software. Doing a bit of research by cross referencing the credits screens of all 3 AC games up this point, these are the identities of these FROMSOFT ACs:
Completing all missions in the campaign on Disc 1 unlocks the Guest Arena. This Arena contains 30 opponents that are all designed by members of Japanese video game publications from Famitsu to Dengeki Playstation. Though unlike the FROMSOFT pilot and AC naming scheme, it's a bit all over the place. Famitsu pretty much uses the magazine's name for the pilot while using a person's actual name or alias for the AC itself. Meanwhile Dengeki uses the naming scheme "Dengeki [person's name]" for the pilot and use a unique name for the AC itself. Again, nothing is consistent, but it's cool that there it caught the interest of these outlets back in the day to get them to contribute to the game's content.

Though it is not quite as cool as the Champion Arena, which is unlocked after completing all campaign missions and beating every opponent in the Main and Sub Arenas. While Guest was a category for Japanese publications, Champion is a category containing ACs based on tournament players from Japan during Project Phantasma. so these are ostensibly the AC load outs they used in competitive play. I definitely enjoy it when developers make the effort to take actual player's data and use that construct AI opponents based on it. So even if you never get to meet or face them in person, you can have the satisfaction of getting destroyed by artificial copies. Kinda like VF4 EVO's Quest Mode.

Lastly, once everything on Disc 1 is 100% completed (which kinda ties back into the Guest and Champion unlock conditions), the final category is the Master Arena. The Guest and Champion categories allow you to fight opponents in any order at your leisure, but the Master Arena requires you fight all 19 opponents in order. As this is designed to be the hardest series of challenges on the second disc, every single opponent is a HUMAN PLUS with varying abilities and a good number of them launch into battle overweight. Not much else to say other than I backed down super hard against the first AC after getting utterly destroyed.

The Remaining Parts
Now going through these last four Arenas will net you some extra gear, though again at this point in the game there's rarely any use for them if you've already grown comfortable with the load out you've settled on. Completing the FROMSOFT Arena gives you the WR-RS7, a special rocket launcher that is designed to disrupt an opponent's targeting systems. Completing the Champion Arena nets you an optional part that is just an upgraded version of the SP-ABS, so that means even less recoil from firing weapons. Completing the Guest Arena will get you a floating mine dispenser, the WRR-10. The Master Arena nets you a number of items when you defeat a certain number of foes. First is the Napalm Launcher mentioned earlier, reaching rank 3 gets you the HD-12-RADAR head part, and conquering the entire ladder gets you the P77-ST. This is one is very unique compared to all the others, and here's why.

It's a "stealth" unit. While it is the heaviest, most expensive part with the highest energy drain and takes up both shoulders, this item will "give the AC stealth capability." This make's Master of Arena the first in the series to have this type of item, where it will disrupt the opponent's ability to lock on to you. While in AC3 the stealth equipment there has limited ammo use, this one here only lists the price, weight, and energy drain in its stats. Meaning wearing this thing gives you indefinite stealth and is even more cheating than even PLUS or Overweight ACs are already. The only price to pay is putting an enormous amount of weight on the AC, but that's kind of moot when you consider the option to make your AC overweight is available if you've transferred your 100% AC1 file up to this point. Literally a bonus part in every sense of the word, using it only to screw around with the rest of the game after having cleared out absolutely everything.

And One More Thing...
I know I had been promising one last special video to put an end to this LP, and I have it right here. It's short, unfortunately, as I only received 2 submissions for this custom Goon Arena. But I had some good times putting these two designs together and fighting them.

Custom Arena - AC Goons

Thanks a ton to terrenblade and Seiren for submitting the designs. Surprisingly, the former ended up being much harder for me and requiring more tries, but it was still doable. For as simple as the Ranker Logic interface is, the results are quite damn good considering how early this was implemented in the series.

Alright, LP now over. That's wrap. Have a good 2016.