BBS Leveling up Tips / Keepers of the Arena

So I finally beat the game with all three characters and finished the final episode. But since I started on Normal mode I have to complete all the reports to get the secret ending, which I have done for everything except Keepers of the Arena. That :bou::bou::bou::bou: is hard. Either I need to devise a good strategy or just do some power leveling. Right now I have Ven at level 42, and Terra & Aqua are in the high 30s.

So my questions are twofold:

Do you have any good strategies for Keepers of the Arena?

What are some good leveling spots/strategies for this game?

The best leveling spots imo is Neverland, its one of the last zones so the enemies have good XP and there are a ton of them and just going from one end to the other will help level you up.

As for Master of Arena, you can either power level, get a friend to help in Link up mode, or build a set-up with high tier abilites (the ones that take up two slots) and spam the hell out of them in normal fights and abuse shotlocks for the bosses. Most people say Bio Barrage is best cause it does the highest damage but I prefer Lightning Ray cause it gives you way better invincibility and allows you to get past some of the nastier moves.

Which characters are you using?

I'm using Terra, Aqua, and Ven... the only characters. I have to beat it with all of them to unlock that stupid movie. :D Currently working on Ven though.

I have tried exactly what you have said. Spam Mega Flare, etc in the enemy battles and then Bio Barrage for the bosses, but I can't even get past the first boss (round 4). They way I do it is just dodge around the arena until I have full focus and then unleash a shotlock, but chipping away at him takes so damn long and he does so much damage that eventually I slip up and can't get a cure off before he ices me. I guess I just need to level more but I checked gamefaqs and the exp needed to get from 42-50 is like double what it took to get from 1-42. :(

It depends on the character. Ven has Faith and Salvation which do damage and heal, though against the bosses in this arena, it's better to do them from a distance since you can be knocked out of Salvation and Faith only has a short invincibility period.

For Terra, unlock his final normal deathblow (the one where he summons meteor). When the boss summons the cage, attack him but don't use skills so you don't accidentally activate one of the Styles instead. Once you get his death blow activated, it keeps Terra completely invincible when using it, hits multiple times and does fairly decent damage with the right weapon. Aqua is stuck using the normal strategy but I guess it wouldn't hurt to activate Blademaster to get some extra damage in.

The main thing is just getting his pattern down. You've technically reached the point where levels are not as useful as skill and some of the bosses actually go up in level with you. The biggest thing with the bosses of this stage is just to keep your distance and learn your timing. Terra oddly enough has the hardest time cause his dash move has pathetic invincibility so he needs to rely on its speed to get out of the way. Ven just needs a minor proper timing with Dodge Roll and Aqua is just a matter of spamming Cartwheel cause it's the best in terms of avoiding damage. Also make sure you're not using the offensive versions of these moves cause they sacrifice invincibility time for the ability to cause minor damage.

Really, the best means of taking them down is keeping your distance, using shotlocks when they summon the cage, occasionally attack the cage to build back your shotlock and have all the damage modifiers that raise the shotlock gauge when you take damage.

Another, albeit risky strategy, is to use the Ice cream Donald's nephews sell cause they automatically put you into one of the Styles. Most of the character's ultimate styles will do a fair amount of damage but you may end up trading blows.

Personally, you need to memorize the pattern of the first boss cause you fight a nastier version of him in the final round...

If you need practice with dodging. I recommend beating the game with all three characters and trying your hand at battling Vanitas' Shadow cause that mother smurfer is a cheap bastard and insanely fast but he'll teach you quickly how to dodge and keep distance in a fight...

Thanks for the tips! I read online somewhere that the skills Firaga and Sonic Blade stun the Iron Imprsioners. Is that true?

Not that I've ever seen. I never tried but since Shotlocks don't even stun them, I would think something as simple as Firaga and Sonic Blade wouldn't.

The really sad thing about all of this, is once you unlock the characters Ultimate Shotlocks by beating Villains Vendetta in Mirage Arena, they all become insanely easy to deal with. You'll start leveling by redoing Villains Vendetta over and over again...

Ok so I finally beat Imprisoner III and got Imprisoner IV to about half health, but then I died. The problem I have is when he gets me with his mallet and knocks me to the edge of the arena. The camara then unlocks my auto-lockon so I can't really see him, so I'm just dodging every which way with only 1 hp. At that point his spin gets me because I can't see it coming, and having to mash square and the joypad, cycle through my commands to get to Curaga, and frantically hitting L+R to lock on again all at the same time is too much for me. This guy is pretty freaking cheap. The strategy is solid but I can't seem to avoid getting pinned on the edge at least once per battle since the fight is pretty long.

This is all with Ven by the way. Haven't even tried the other characters yet.

Beat it finally! With Ven. Just used WK's strategy and tried to keep myself healed and away from the edges. It's an endurance battle more than anything. Strategy doesn't change at all, just got to keep doing the same thing over and over until he's finally dead and not get caught off guard (some luck involved there).

Congratulations, now go take on Vanitas' Shadow and the new Unknown...;)

Alright, I got through this mission again with Terra without much fuss, but Aqua is giving me trouble. She is just so. damn. slow. And her cartwheel doesn't travel that far. For the other two characters it was Imprisoner III that gave me the most trouble because Imprisoner IV had some time wasting attacks that allowed you to get a breather, but Aqua is so slow that I can't get away fast enough whenever he charges me with the hammer. That disorients the camera and I can't see what his next attack is (and if it's the spin or the hammer again I'm toast since I won't know which way to dodge). I guess I just have to keep at it and hope he varies his attacks a little more to give me some time to assert myself. I got really unlucky the last time because it seemed like he came at me with the hammer every other attack, and he didn't do any of the time wasting moves (when he draws you in or when the disappears and the arena starts flying at you) at all.

It also will take just some decent timing (or button mashing) with Aqua. Her cartwheel is short and doesn't move her around very much, but she's also got the longest invincibility window compared to Ven and Terra's. You may just need to keep up a relentless cartwheel spam when he tries the spinning attack.

Yeah, I did pretty much cartwheel spam for his attacks and that worked better. I also think I got unlucky the first couple of times with the order of his attacks. I finally beat it because he stopped doing the relentless hammer-spin-hammer-spin combination. Now I can watch the secret ending!