With the groundwork set, let’s talk about what this scenario is about, and I’m going to blow your minds with one fact/advice about storytelling. Something that will either be shocking or shockingly obvious depending on who you are
The best way to express a theme is through its absence or through contrast.
Life is more poignant as a theme when death lurks every corner, freedom is easier to explain in opression, love shines harder through hate…
And victory is more evident through defeat.
Uma Musume is not a stranger to defeat, indeed, one of the things that makes the stories so compelling is the fact that, being based in real life win records they’re weaving tales around the sort of chaotic push and pull that real life brings.
While there are characters based around this as a core element, from Haru Urara to Twin Turbo to even my wife Light Hello, the biggest thing is the fact that defeat is something that threatens everyone no matter how invincible they might be.
And there is no better embodiment of this principle than the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. After all, El Condor Pasa who was considered the perfect horse and the best candidate for leading sire of its time barely made it to second place. Deep Impact who did become leading Sire and whose bloodline still echoes to this day only has two defeats to his name, a second place in Arima Kinen and a third place (and subsequent disqualification) in the Arc.
But it’s not just the challenge and defeat, it’s the international touring, the physical, monetary and emotional investment in equal parts. It’s one thing to taste defeat in home soil, it’s another entirely to travel so far to hunt for an uncertainty.
And Project L’arc very much opens directly into these themes. In fact, it is very blunt on how it’s exploring the fact that winning the Arc has been a Japanese goal for decades, or how it can be frustratingly inconceivable to some that Japan can win against french horses in the Japan Cup while Japanese horses haven’t won in France.
But let’s step back for a second and take it from the top.
The first thing to note is that this scenario is a sandbox scenario like Make A New Track, what this means is that since it’s not following the girl’s main story you can challenge any race you want. However, unlike MANT the story in this one is even more focused instead of being a collection of disconnected scenes that didn’t fit elsewhere.
And I make note of this because not only does it make the girl you train for it secondary to the main plot (unless you’re training one of the main girls of the scenario, but we’ll talk about it later), but also because the trainer in this scenario is such a defined character that it wouldn’t be a stretch to make a distinction of “Project L’arc’s trainer” as a unique entity.
So the story starts and there’s rumors abound in the academy that they’re looking for girls that want to challenge the L’arc. Some are excited about the idea, others are apprehensive, and others like Sirius Symboli have an inhuman amount of salt regarding the matter.
This is when Project L’arc is introduced by its founder, Mei Satake. Mei is part of the branch of the URA (the in-universe governing body over horsegirl racing) in charge of analyzing European races and she has but one dream: To see a Japanese horse girl win the Arc, to show the might of Japanese racehorses.
This is where the trainer remembers the last question that the chairman asked them upon being accepted: “What’s your dream?”. It’s then that the trainer recollects that their answer was a “cliche” “to train the world’s best horse girl”.
Project L’arc’s trainer is explicitly a rookie, they jump the chance to participate in the project despite knowing that they’re chewing more than they can handle… but in the end, isn’t that the essence of the dream of finally conquering L’arc? And so, with clear approval of their trainee, they join the project.
And if I had to point any complaints at all about the plot, it would be the fact that whoever you decide to train is reduced to a generic, voiceless girl that could’ve feasibly been replaced with even a mob character no problem. It isn’t a problem necessarily because it isn’t clashing with the rest of the narrative and it serves its function as much as a more generic trainer would usually do.
But if, for example, you’re training Aston Machan for whom I clearly still have a lot to say even to this day, it’s slightly surreal to see her in so many scenes clearly conveying something to the trainer without saying a word. It’s not the first time this has happened, even as back as URA Finals your girl had mute bits in the events with Aoi and Happy Meek, but those scenes weren’t as… sustained.
It’s not a dealbreaker nor a detriment at the end of the day, it just feels WEIRD.
But anyways, to achieve the goals, Mei had Satono Diamond’s Sega Sammy Satono Group prepare a set of Umalators, the VR coffin-like simulators that were used in the Grand Masters scenario (and others, but only for games before Grand Masters which is a cool continuity detail), except these ones are coded specifically to simulate the conditions of the Longchamp racecourse.
Mei then explains further that compared to the Nakayama racecourse, the Longchamp course sits at twice the height above the sea level which will make the slopes and such even harder than usual. Not only that but the soil is different too, the western soil being firmer.
This isn’t just answering further what differences cause Japanese horses to underperform, but it also shows that yes, Mei is indeed a professional in her element when she talks about it.
She also reveals that the financing for the international tour will come from the public. the URA ain’t spending a single yen in it so they better get support from the people, and to gather that support they’re preparing “Star Matches”, basically exhibition matches that show the might of the girls that they want to ship overseas.
How will girls that have other specialties be able to run it? Don’t worry about it, they’re training for this one race specifically after all… by which it means: So long as you play the scenario your proficiencies will be adjusted.
If the freestyle training hasn’t caused any winners, shouldn’t there be a more strict training program? No because the problem hasn’t been the training style but the training conditions.
And so the training begins, both in VR and in the real world. We’re leaving the mechanics for later which is going to be interesting due to how tied they are to the story beats, but let’s move on with the story.
From this point the trainer keeps struggling with being a rookie, one particular moment I like is one where Mei makes trainers answer a test with 200 questions. The test is one that you can repeat until you get everything right and also includes logistical elements like being able to say “my knee feels weird” in French.
I like the scene not only because it shows Mei’s philosophy about the whole matter, that the thing that matters is not giving up; but it also gives it this grounded feel of “we ARE going overseas and we must be prepared”.
After debuting, your first objective is to get 7000 support points (which you get with the aforementioned Star Races and racing with rivals), after which you prove your international worth participating in the Nihon Derby.
Then you participate in the Prix Niel, considered by many to be the prelude to the L’arc, and everything goes well!
Then you participate in the L’arc, and you will very likely lose against Venus Park, the first of the new scenario girls (after Mei). And this is easily one of my top five favorite things in this game so far, alongside Machan as a whole, Cafe’s end reveal, and Special Week changing the fate of her real life counterpart.
You see, it’s tricky to talk about this scenario because so many mechanics are tied to the story, and one of the mechanics is that you can buy specific proficiencies that will affect your performance in story races. Basically, entering a race you might have a number of different negative conditions that reduce specific stats by certain amounts, and buying the proficiencies removes them (and after the first purchase they add training bonuses).
The L’arc requires you to buy a proficiency that removes the “Jinxed” status. The kicker? You CAN’T buy it yet.
So let me break down what will most likely happen when you first play.
You’ve managed to win most of the races and then you go to the race things are named after… and you end up second. So you retry, second again; you consume all your continues and you never go past second.
So you retry the scenario and realize that in the turn in between the Prix Niel and the L’arc two proficiencies unlock, so you make sure to have enough points to buy them… and then realize that neither is the one that eliminates “Jinxed”.
Now, it’s possible to win, in fact if you win you unlock an alternate scenario later on, but most of the time and especially starting out you will not win, you’re Jinxed and can’t do anything about it. The unlock conditions for that one even state that you should get the support of your teammates for it, but narratively the characters are in a “to each their own” state at this point.
So like… you all can see what they did, right? They’re making the player feel frustrated, that first place feels so close, so achievable, everything was going so well and now you lost. And the reason it happened? That you’re jinxed.
This isn’t the first time the scenario plays with emotions mechanically like this, but it has, no joke, become one of my top moments in all of videogame history for how it makes you feel MECHANICALLY the way that the story wants you to feel. You’re feeling the decades of victory being so close and yet still so far away.
So you’ve resignated yourself, no matter how many times you retry you’re gonna lose, fine… what now?
That’s the question, isn’t it? What do you after losing? Do you cry and leave? Or do you train to try to win?
Everyone wants to keep training, but the faith of the public is wavering, and so is Mei too.
This is where another fun mechanical moment comes. In one turn your Motivation (the actual stat) will reach its lower stage as Mei is dejected, but one turn later after getting a pep talk it will max out as Mei gets motivated again, this isn’t relative to the motivation you had before the event, it will max out regardless.
And here’s another fun bit to this. Mei’s support card has an event that gives you the “Positive” condition, which blocks motivation going down for one event… which includes this one, so in a way the game is making you feel like the earlier bond with Mei is appeasing things here.
So it’s time to get the crowd back in your good graces! Next objective is to get 42.000 Supporter Points.
After that, you prove yourself again by participating in the Takarazuka Kinen, which… man, I really need to talk about Nakayama Festa in detail soon to explain why they picked that one specifically.
The next objective takes you to the Prix Foy, which like the Prix Niel is considered one of the trials to get into the L’arc.
So here it comes, the revenge, you’re no longer Jinxed, you have everyone’s support and a new rival, Rigantona, now wants to race against you too. To win at this point is all but inevitable.
And so, you win the race. Japan finally has one L’arc and Mei is over the moon about it all. But this isn’t the end to her, after all, now that you’ve proven that it’s possible, that’s only gonna make more girls want to try to win!
…but you might notice at this point that the intro video shows three girls and you’ve only faced two.
And there’s also one perk you werent’ able to purchase…
What if you won that first L’arc?
In truth, it’s not impossible or even too hard. It IS hard, however. Every scenario has certain alternate conditions for extra content, be it to end up second in Aoharu or have at least 16 performances learned in Grand Live.
For Project L’arc you basically need to have enough speed to offset the stat penalty of the Jinxed condition. And if you win, the story beats adjust slightly. While the rest of the characters still have to deal with their defeat, now you’ve made yourself a target, and you’ve caught the eye not only of Rigantona, not only of Venus Park, but of someone you might recognize from Team Sirius’ story…
Montjeau.
The same Montjeau that stole first place away from El Condor Pasa in her attempt at the L’arc.
And she ain’t a pushover, lemme tell you.
So concludes the story of Project L’arc, but there’s one more thing worth talking about in regards to the story, but let’s leave that for the next one.