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Affinities And Weaknesses
The First Phase
The Solo Mission
You’re playing Persona 5 Royal, and you’ve made it all the way through your first dungeon, Kamoshida’s Castle. You’ve trained up your Personas and begun to fill your compendium, you’ve sent the Calling Card, and now it’s time to kick Kamoshida’s ass to make him see the error of his ways.
RELATED: Persona 5 Royal: Kamoshida's Palace Walkthrough
As the first boss fight in the game, it’s relatively simple to get through, but there are some difficulties and peculiarities about Shadow Kamoshida to watch out for. Read on for everything you’ll need to know about the fight against Shadow Kamoshida, from stats to strategies.
Updated November 26, 2022: We've updated this article to include a video guide that shows you how to defeat Shadow Kamoshida.
Affinities And Weaknesses
As an early-game boss, Shadow Kamoshida has no strengths, weaknesses, reflections, or nullifications for any type of attack. You can still affect him with debuffs, and every kind of attack does hit him, but no particular type of attack is better than another.
The First Phase
To begin the fight with Shadow Kamoshida, head to the Throne Room Safe Room when you arrive in the Metaverse. After ensuring your team is ready to go, leave the safe room and head directly for the treasure. Having sent the Calling Card, the doors to the room with the treasure are open, so head on in and grab the crown. Easy, right? Of course not. As you leave with the treasure, King Kamoshida will confront you, and after a cutscene, he’ll turn into a long-tongued demon monster, Suguru Asmodeus Kamoshida.
There’s not much to the first stage of the fight against Shadow Kamoshida outside of wailing on him. If needed, you’ve got time to heal up the party with Morgana and Ann’s Dia spell, but Shadow Kamoshida doesn’t hit hard enough to worry.
Your time here is best spent using buff moves to enhance your team or debuff Shadow Kamoshida.
The Chalice
Once you’ve chipped away enough of his health bar, he’ll take a bite of the people dangling in his chalice, which heals him fully. As frustrating as it is to see Shadow Kamoshida return to full health, his healing did do something good for the Phantom Thieves – now you can attack the chalice as well.
Until you destroy the chalice, Shadow Kamoshida will heal every time his health gets too low, so you’ll want to focus on the chalice and destroy it, not paying much mind to Shadow Kamoshida himself.
Your team shouldn’t get too hurt during this, but you’ll want a full party for what’s ahead, so heal with Dia and your medicines as needed if Shadow Kamoshida chips away at you.
The Solo Mission
Once the chalice is destroyed, Shadow Kamoshida can no longer heal, but that doesn’t mean he’s done protecting his crown. He’s not willing to go down without a fight, so you’ll need someone to sneak off to steal his crown while the other three keep him busy.
It doesn’t matter who you choose to send, as long as you don’t send Ann. You’ve probably noticed that she’s the object of Kamoshida’s focus, so if she tries to leave the group, he’ll notice she’s gone, and the plan won’t work.
Ryuji is a strong choice because he’s got a rather personal score to settle with Kamoshida. Letting him do it is fun storytelling, but nothing is wrong with sending Morgana if you’d rather. Whoever you’ve chosen will leave your party, and the camera will focus on them sneaking off before returning to the rest of the Thieves. Without them in the main group, you can’t use their attacks and will proceed as a three-person (or cat) team.
To let Ryuji or Morgana advance toward Shadow Kamoshida, the remaining party has to deal damage to him. His regular attacks still won’t hurt much, but when you see Shadow Kamoshida preparing his Killshot, be sure to have everyone in the party block.
Allowing someone to be hit by this attack deals colossal damage, which may be enough to take them out at this point in the game. Don’t chance it – just block.
The more damage you do to Shadow Kamoshida, the closer Ryuji or Morgana will get to the crown. When they reach the second floor, you’ll be interrupted by a quick cutscene, wherein Shadow Kamoshida realizes that you’re down a Thief. Unfortunately for him, he’s too late in noticing, and whoever you’ve sent will knock the crown off Shadow Kamoshida’s head.
Whoever you sent will now rejoin the team. Without his crown, Shadow Kamoshida is nothing, and he’s now open not only to All-Out Attacks but also takes extra damage.
From here, just beat on him until he goes down.
There’s a cutscene after he’s defeated, but the Thieves make it out with the treasure. All that’s left to do after beating Shadow Kamoshida is tick down the countdown timer with some everyday activities like building Confidant rankings or honing your skills before you see the consequences of your Phantom Thieving actions.
NEXT: Persona 5 Royal: Complete Confidant Gift Guide
