Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth might not have the same difficulty as its predecessors when it comes to puzzles, but it pulls no punches when it comes to fights, especially boss fights — and the first one in particular.
The fight against Super Kamoshidaman takes place in several phases and seems designed to be replayed after you learn the boss’s attack patterns, which change halfway through the fight. It’s a nasty piece of work, but some careful strategizing and a bit of level grinding should see you through.
Super Kamoshidaman: Rounds 1 and 2
You’ll actually fight three forms of Super Kamoshidaman, but the first two don’t really count. The initial fight is a scripted loss, since he’s overpowered thanks to the statue in the city’s central square. Just guard until the inevitable happens.
After that, you’ll go through some story beats and eventually find a way to remove the statue and remove Super Kamoshidaman’s invincibility (because this is a movie set in a video game, so it works).
With the statue out of the way, you might think you need to give the fight your all. But you’d be wrong. Without his special statue, Super Kamoshidaman is a complete pushover; his attacks won’t do more than 1 damage to your party, and your critical hit chances seem to be higher as well.
With that in mind, the best thing to do here is just to press Start and enter Rush mode. Your party will automatically attack, you’ll probably land two or three All-Out Attacks, and the fight is done.
That’s when the real fight begins.
Super Kamoshidaman, Bunny Edition
For reasons that become apparent later in the game, Super Kamoshidaman turns into a giant rabbit wielding two massive carrot guns. Yes, it looks ridiculous and disturbing. Yes, it’ll trash you if you don’t bring your best.
Because of the challenge he poses, your party members’ levels should be between 9 and 12, though 10 or 11 should suffice depending on your playstyle.
Super Bunny Kamoshidaman’s carrots are the main threat in this opening stage. The left carrot lands one fire-based hit that deals massive damage; the right carrot acts as a sort of machine gun, dealing two to three hits that could be spread out over a line or focused on one character. Note the left and right designations are from Bunny Kamoshidaman’s viewpoint, not the player’s.
Bunny Kamoshidaman himself attacks using a rabbit kick, but it doesn’t deal any damage. Instead, it has the potential to put one of your characters to sleep, though it does miss frequently.
What makes this fight particularly difficult — even more so than the Queen of Hearts in Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth — is that you don’t really have access to stronger spells or skills at this point, nor is your party all together yet. You’ll need a careful strategy because of that.
Recommended Party Setup
Because the left carrot’s attack is fire based, you’ll want to leave Yusuke out of your party. He’ll inevitably come under fire and, given his elemental weaknesses, will be useless for that turn.
If you don’t have Ryuji in your party at this point, add him in and get his level up. Being a defense-oriented character, he’s the best suited to dealing with the carrot guns thanks to his higher HP pool.
Put a sub-Persona with Line Guard on him, like Agathion or, if you’ve leveled Ren up to 11, you could fuse Ippon-Datara for an extra HP boost as well as Line Guard.
Since your party is fairly small at this point, you don’t have much choice for other characters. Ann is a must, since she can target the carrot guns’ weaknesses, so your only other options for the fifth slot are Morgana and Akechi. Either of those Support characters would be fine, though Morgana has the advantage of being fast and knowing a Dia skill.
Another highly useful character is Persona 3 Portable‘s Female Protagonist. Her fire-based skills are an absolute necessity later in the fight.
The left carrot is weak to Zio skills, while the right carrot is weak to Agi. You can’t target Bunny Kamoshidaman until the carrots are gone, but when you can target him, you’ll find that he has one of those damage barriers like the Gorgeous King shadows. That means you can’t deal full damage until his health meter is roughly halfway depleted.
It’s also very important to note that once the carrots are gone, Bunny Kamoshidaman attacks multiple times per turn and can deal huge amounts of damage.
Strategizing
You don’t want to get rid of both carrots right away.
Stick a sub-Persona with Poisma on your Support character, and cast it immediately. It won’t hit the carrots, but they aren’t your goal.
Instead, it’ll almost always stick on Bunny Kamoshidaman himself, dealing a decent bit of damage every turn until it wears off, and it’s time to cast again. Keep that up at the very least until the damage barrier is busted.
At the same time, make sure you get rid of one carrot gun. Use Ryuji’s Line Guard every turn so he’s the main target, and heal him whenever you can.
If his level isn’t high enough, he might not act before Bunny Kamoshidaman, If you find that’s an issue, you can always just put his sub-Persona on Ren and let him take the damage instead.
Which carrot you target will mostly depend on which one causes you the most grief. I found the right carrot more of a pain, with its multiple hits per turn; Line Guard boosts the user’s defense anyway, making the one massive hit from the left carrot easier to deal with.
There are a few other helpful ways to last through the fight. The sub-Persona Anzu grants the skill Fang Smash, which reduces the enemy’s attack. Using that on the carrots gives your party a better chance of survival, and Ame-no-Uzume’s Rakunda can be a life-saver as well.
Make use of Futaba’s support skills too. Mini-Recovery restores a bit of HP at the end of each turn for a few turns, so it’s worth using at the beginning of the fight.
After you’ve whittled his health down enough and you feel confident you can win the fight, go ahead and take out the other carrot. That leaves Bunny Kamoshidaman completely open to attack.
The Final Fight
He’s weak to Agi-based moves. One of the best strategies for this stage is to use the Female MC’s Agi attack. That not only gives you a chance to land an All-Out Attack, but it also puts her in Boost mode.
On the next turn, use Firestrike Link for no HP cost, which means another All-Out Attack plus additional fire-based damage after the next attack lands against Bunny Kamoshidaman.
If you lowered his health through poison enough, the fight should only take two or three turns max after taking out the last carrot.
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Once you’ve taken Super Kamoshidaman out, you’ve really only just begun in Persona Q2. Fortunately, the strategies and skills you learn here will be of great use as you progress further. And, on one count, you can rest easy: the boss of the second labyrinth doesn’t play as dirty.
Published: Jun 3, 2019 10:26 am