Even in the most unlikely places can joy, and even a sense of life, thrive.
The Arama Archives is a series of Project Arrhythmia custom level collections by Aratonati. Branching off of the game's main story mode as an Alternate Continuity, it follows A-Tan and Hal as they continue to work in curing the Tokyo Flu. With humanity's time running out, the two stumble across a map to an antigen that could rapidly speed up their efforts. However, it's not located in the supercomputer they've operated out of this entire time, but an external database: the titular Arama Archives.
The series is made up of three collections of levels:
- Melodical Escapism
: A prologue series that takes place during Project Arrhythima's main story, with relatively little deviation from it - A-Tan and Hal are training nanobots to fight the Tokyo Flu. - Ad-OwO-ble: After finding a map to the antigen from Nowo, the Final Boss of the previous collection, A-Tan and Hal venture into the Archives. They find a seemingly alive virtual world resembling Earth which is currently at war with an army of OwOs led by the cat Kitcat.
- Spectral: No longer sidetracked by the OwO invasion, A-Tan and Hal follow the map to the Spiral Mainframe - but after A-Tan mysteriously goes offline, Hal ventures as a nanobot into the Spectral Rift and runs into several bosses that block their path.
Along with tropes from Project Arrhythmia, The Arama Archives contains examples of:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: Running My Head in Melodical Escapism makes use of one that forces you to follow the scrolling screen to avoid taking damage.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final level of Ad-OwO-ble, Aeolia, has attacks and enemies from every single level before it in the collection return as you fight your way through the OwO army to reach Kitcat.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Moonlight Sonata in Ad-OwO-ble is filled with damage-dealing "GhOwOsts" that fade in and out of view as they drift across the screen. According to the official showcase video, the level takes place in an abandoned mansion.
- Boss-Only Level: Opia in Melodical Escapism, which features a fight against Nowo. On the other hand, Kitcat has a few different levels in Ad-OwO-ble including Right Meow, Meowchine, and I Said Meow.
- Every single level in Spectral is one, making the collection a Boss Game.
- Chekhov's Gun: Midway through Ad-OwO-ble, the player passes by a shelf full of "space milk" while on the way to destroy the OwO Spray in the Space Mart. Near the end of the collection, in the level Meowter Space, Kitcat pulls out some space milk and drinks it to power up - revealing that the spray was a distraction from its real superweapon.
- Cute But Deadly: The main premise of Ad-OwO-ble, with it even being mentioned in its Tagline. Kitcat and company are all based on a "cute" emoticon, but are still very much dangerous.
- Final-Exam Boss: Nowo, the Final Boss of Melodical Escapism, almost exclusively uses attack patterns from earlier levels in the collection during their fight.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: In the level I Said Meow, there's one about halfway through that shows Kitcat holding a plush of Nowo with a knife.
- Shout-Out: Melodical Escapism is one to the rhythm game Melody's Escape. All of its levels use songs that were included in it, excluding the final level Opia.
- Source Music: In Spectral, Koto is playing the piano in the song for her level Cleyera on a small piano she carries around during the fight.
