I discovered that there's a way to manipulate RNG slightly for Extra Arcade.
Description as to have it works: *If you have every weapon unlocked, then every weapon has a chance to appear when fighting opponents. This means that if you fight "X" character and that character has a good weapon (High Defense), then it will take longer to defeat. As a result, you end up wasting more time. *Given that statement, if we have/buy bad weapons (Low Defense) for the opponents, then there's a possibility of them having those weapons. *I say a "possibility" because there are "Slotted" weapons already set in case you don't buy a single weapon in Weapon Master. My speculation as to why this happens is due to the fact that you can unlock Extra Arcade by beating Arcade once. As a result, I think the developers thought that having certain weapons already slotted for Extra Arcade would make a difference between Arcade and Extra Arcade. Otherwise, you would have to face opponents with vanilla weapons on Extra Arcade.
What do you need to do: *Best way to set this up is to have an specific memory file for this category. This is due to the fact that we are buying specific weapons in Weapon Master in order to have an advantage over Extra Arcade Opponents. *Here is a link with all the weapons in the game: https://www.neoseeker.com/soulcalibur-ii/faqs/86583-soul-calibur-ii-weapon-insanityprevails.html This link tells you all the stats of all weapons as well as how to get them. Once you are on the link, do a "Ctrl + F" and look for "Low Defense." *Buy all weapons that are "Low Defense," even if the percentage is not as high as you want. We want to have more variables that are in our favor. That means that if we increase the number of "Low Defense" weapons for "X" character, then there's a higher probability of a "Low Defense" weapon appearing for that character.
Viable WR characters: *I tested all characters that were in the Leaderboard for Extra Arcade with the exception of Spawn (Don't have) and Link (not viable unless it's an Extreme/Hard difficulty IMO). *Spawn - Abomination; Since I haven't tested this myself, I'm not too sure what to say. However, from what I've seen from Slevanas, this might be the best character for this category. *Maxi - Vajra; In my opinion, the best non-guest character for this category. The combination of having a "High Attack" weapon against "Low Defense" weapons makes it almost as good as Spawn. Downside, can't blocked enemies attacks. The main attack is ( A+B ) while running. After the attack is complete, hold the block/guard button to cancel the animation, then repeat again. You can watch my PB for a reference as to how it looks. *Astaroth - Nanbanfu; Another good alternative for this category. This is the same principle as Maxi, but you can actually block. Your downside now is being slow. The main attack is a 2 hit combo that you get by pressing ( A + B ) while running but you need to hold it for a bit, then press the same combination again ( A + B ) in order to get the second hit. This strategy is not as consistent as Maxi's since the second hit can be evaded by CPUs. The best reference for this is in my Extra Time Attack run.
Nonviable WR characters from the Leaderboard: *Nightmare - Soul Edge (Complete); Even though this combination is good, the thing that makes this non WR material is the fact that nightmare takes too long to get the kills. In this regard, he is slower than Astaroth. The main attack is ( B ) while running and the animation is too long that in the long run wastes a lot of time. *Voldo - Soul Edge (Complete)/Cat Claws; The main attack for this combination is ( B ) while running. Even with the boost on Attack/Damage, this attack can sometimes take 3 hits to beat enemies with "Low Defense." weapons. The reason is because Voldo, with those weapons, does not output too much damage as the other characters on the list. *Mitsurugi - Damascus Sword; This on paper can be pretty good, and possibly WR material, but the main attack is a 3 hit combo that you perform by pressing ( B ) while running that is not too consistent. The first 2 hits can hit consistently, but the 3rd one doesn't. The fact the it is an inconsistent multi-hit combo makes a little bit worse because in case the enemy blocks the first attack, then you have to commit to do the full combo and waste a lot of time.
Final Notes: *There's still a lot we don't know about the Slotted weapons. How many there are per character? Which weapons? *Mitsurugi is a wild card for this category if you are trying to get WR. More testing is needed from someone that knows how this character works. *In case you don't have another memory card to do this, then you have to go through Weapon Master and buy the necessary things in order to do attempts for Extra Arcade. *This Guide is mainly for people who want to have a PB from the ranges of 30-45 seconds. *This guide purposes is to facilitate getting better RNG with weapons in Extra Arcade. However, the AI will still behave like always. As a result, you still need to grind a fair amount of attempts to get your intended goal.
Thank you all who read this. Hope it is useful for someone. If there are any questions, you can DM me. P.S. there might be some things that might not make sense because I wrote this late at night when I was tired.
