Persona 3 Reload: Haunted Castle and Spiritual Castle weaknesses

Haunted Castle and Spiritual Castle guard the way into the Monad Passage on floor 171 (171F) in Tartarus. These sturdy bosses can be a pain if you don’t know how to approach them, but they quickly become one of our favorite fights in Persona 3 Reload.

Haunted Castle and Spiritual Castle are some of the few bosses in the game that Fuuka can fully scan. This means you can see their attacks, level, SP, and health—and no, that 9999 health on both bosses isn’t a bug.

Once you figure out the trick to this fight, though, Haunted Castle and Spiritual Castle will go down easily despite their HP. This makes for a much less frustrating bout than the annoying Minotaur II you just battled (the “stop hitting yourself” fight, as I call it) and sets you up for the next fight: the Intrepid Knight and its accompanying Change Relic.

Here are the weaknesses of the Haunted Castle and Spiritual Castle in Persona 3 Reload and how to beat these Monad Passage bosses.

What is the Haunted Castle weakness in Persona 3 Reload?

The Haunted Castle is weak to Light but nullifies Dark and resists Slash, Strike, Fire, and Wind. This means a few of your options here are either less effective or outright ineffective.

What is the Spiritual Castle weakness in Persona 3 Reload?

The Spiritual Castle is weak to Dark but nullifies Light and resists Slash, Strike, Ice, and Shock. This acts in symmetry with its Dark counterpart. Combined, you can’t hit both for full damage with the same magic attack (at least not without spending a Theurgy).

How to beat Haunted Castle and Spiritual Castle in Persona 3 Reload

How do you beat two bosses that have 9999 health? Very quickly, if you know what you’re doing. The trick to this fight is using Dark instakill attacks on Spiritual Castle and Light instakill attacks on Haunted Castle. It’s that simple.

Chipping away at their health bars won’t work: these two bosses have 9999 health each and complimentary resistances to most forms of damage. When you analyze them, though, the game makes a point of telling you how much health they have, so you know the usual strategies won’t work.

Because of this, you need access to variations of Mudo and Hama through skills or items, plus a Homunculus or two in your backpack (though the more, the merrier). We used Curse Paper and Purified Rice to kill them with items.

We recommend bringing Koromaru and having a Light instakill on Ken or the protagonist, but as long as you have access to these abilities, you’ll be fine. Bringing Ken and Koromaru carries the risk of being hit by the bosses’ instakills or giving them extra attacks, but you should come out on top provided everyone withstands the assault.

Koromaru is bound to go first in this fight due to his high agility. Cast Mudoon on the Spiritual Castle and watch it disappear. Then shift to whoever has the Light instakill ability and cast that on Haunted Castle to make it vanish on sight. Provided the attacks land, that’s a wrap. Like the Terminal Table fight, it has a simple yet unexpected solution, which makes it memorable.

Once you finish these two bosses, you’ll be ready to fight off the Intrepid Knight and the Change Relic as the last Monad Passage battle in the top half of Tziah.