The second of the Phantom Thieves' calling cards in Persona 5 Royal goes to Ichiryusai Madarame, the Shogun of Vanity, who has been stealing credit from his students for years. He's the first "official" target of Joker and his gang, and he's the reason why Yusuke joins the Phantom Thieves.
Unfortunately, the cunning plan Morgana comes up with doesn't go off without a few hitches, and Madarame catches up to the Thieves before they can escape with the Treasure. This leads to the second boss battle of Persona 5 Royal, and while Madarame is in some ways an easier fight than Kamoshida, he's only easier once players figure out his gimmicks.
Setting Up
- The ideal level for this fight is 21. By this level, every party member should have both a single-target element skill and a multi-target element skill. The last one to get his is Ryuji, so players may want to leave him out of the active party if he isn't level 21 yet.
- For similar reasons, Joker should have Personas with access to single-target versions of the four basic elemental skills (Fire, Ice, Electricity, Wind), or at least access to whichever skill is missing in the active party.
- Joker should also have a Persona with strong Physical skills. Oni is a good option if Joker's level is high enough.
Picture Perfect
During the first phase of the fight, Ichiryusai "Azazel" Madarame will transform into a set of paintings. Each painting acts independently, and each one has its own set of elemental strengths and weaknesses.
- The Painter's Left Eye can buff an ally's attack or debuff a foe's defense. Both Eyes Drain the four basic elements.
- The Painter's Right Eye can use basic elemental skills like Thunderclap to damage a single foe.
- The Painter's Nose will sometimes waste a turn, but it can also use elemental skills. The Nose Drains the four exotic elements (Psy, Nuke, Bless, Curse).
- The Painter's Mouth can Bite a single foe for a medium amount of damage. The Mouth also Drains the physical elements (Phys, Gun).
- Every Painter's feature can use The Artist's Grace, which causes a party member to become weak to every damage type for one round. Note that this overrides Null, Drain, and Reflect, and even the Crystal of Vanity's power won't work against this ability. Players should make sure the afflicted character guards on their turn to avoid as much damage as possible, but Madarame will tend to focus on this party member until the effect wears off.
- Outside of using The Artist's Grace, Madarame tends to focus his attacks more on Yusuke than on other characters.
- Each part of Madarame doesn't have many hit points, but if players destroy one without destroying all of them, the surviving features will use Restore and bring back one fallen feature per turn. Fortunately, they can only bring a painting back at one-quarter health.
If the party gets hit by The Artist's Grace twice, Joker will get the idea to throw some black paint on Madarame. He can send Morgana or Ann to go grab some, and it will take them two rounds to reach the paint and ambush the boss. At this point, one good all-foe skill will take down every piece of Madarame, and the All-Out Attack that follows will blast him to pieces.
Of course, the faster way to defeat this phase of the battle is to use the Ma- skills over and over until the Painter's Nose and Painter's Mouth fall. The two eyes will gain HP from these attacks, but they won't gain anything if they're already at full health. With the Mouth down, players can safely use all-target Physical skills to destroy both eyes in short order.
Copies of Copies
When the paintings fall, Shadow Madarame will reemerge and the party will get a free All-Out Attack on him. However, he'll then use the skill True Fake to create four new versions of himself: Ersatz Sorrow, Ersatz Mirth, Ersatz Joy, and Ersatz Fury. The four clones will use the elemental skill they clearly associate with, and they're Weak to the opposing element (Fire and Ice, Wind and Electricity). However, they also Reflect their associated element, one other basic element, and Resist Physical damage.
These reflections make all-foe attacks dangerous to use, so stick with single-foe skills and use Baton Pass to nail them one by one. After several Baton Passes, a single-foe skill should be strong enough to take out a Madarame Ersatz with a single hit.
On his turn, Azazel Madarame will bring in new clones to replace any that have fallen. However, these new copies are random, and so the field can fill up with two or even just one type of Madarame Ersatz. If no clones are down, Azazel will skip his turn. Thankfully, the clones are easy to defeat, but the fight will only end once the real Shadow Madarame runs out of HP.
Players also have one other advantage. After several rounds of phase 2 pass, he'll start creating copies that have a fraction of their normal HP and are afflicted with Sleep, leaving them wide open for a Physical Technical attack. With so little support left and no way to attack the party directly, players should have no trouble finishing off Madarame and collecting the real Sayuri.
Persona 5 Royal is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.