At the start of your Persona 4 Golden journey, you must awaken the Personas of all your allies before they can fight alongside you as you explore the Midnight Channel.
Yosuke is a classmate of Yu Narukami, who fell into mental turmoil after the death of Saki Konishi. This led to the emergence of Shadow Yosuke, a manifestation of his emotions of feeling out of place.
Shadow Yosuke is the first boss you face after awakening Yu’s Persona, so the fight provides the opportunity to test out all the battle mechanics inside Persona 4. The fight also serves as a tutorial for affinities and guarding attacks which is really important to understand early on in the game.
How to defeat Shadow Yosuke in Persona 4 Golden
The boss fight can be started when exploring the Midnight Channel and you must first enter Konishi Liquors to do so. Once inside Yosuke will hear Saki Konishi complaining about him and will be shocked.
This will prompt a second Yosuke, his shadow to come forth. He would look exactly the same as your friend with his defining feature being his glowing yellow eyes.
You will start a conversation with him at the of which he would transform into a persona. The boss fight will now begin.
Since this mini-boss fight is the first battle you have since awakening Yu’s persona, it will serve as a great tutorial for you to get to the grips of the game and battle mechanics.
You will have to take on Yosuke’s Shadow alone as all of your friends including Yosuke are yet to unlock their Personas. Shortly after your chat, the fight will begin along with a short tutorial on learning affinities.
Shadow Yosuke begins the battle with a wind strike. This wind attack will be extremely effective against your Izanagi causing you to lose HP. At this point, you can consume some items for restring HP and SP. Medicine and Soul Drop help replenish both respectively.
You must be careful when using these items though, as they will use up your attack turn.
Now when you get your turn to attack, you can use Izanagi’s Electric attacks since they are effective against Shadow Yosuke in the affinity chart. A good choice here would be the signature attack of Yu’s Persona Zio.
Zio’s knockdown effect can help you stack two attacks by canceling out Shadow Yosuke’s attack turn in this Persona 4 Golden boss fight.
You must note that this effect won’t work another time so the move can’t be spammed. You may run short on SP; in which case it is best to avoid SP-heavy attacks and instead opt for ones that use HP to deliver. Using Cleave is a good shout when doing so.
You can opt for a strategy that involves alternating between using Zio and Cleave. Zio will maximize the affinity advantage while Cleave will help you manage your SP efficiently.
While delivering attacks you must also look out for incoming ones. Focus on your defense by using Guard every time Shadow Yosuke goes in for a Power Charge.
If you are consistently hit with Shadow Yosuke’s Power Charge, you’ll find yourself in trouble. You should also be on the lookout for avoiding Wind Oblivion the next stage of this attack.
Continue using the same strategy until you wipe out Shadow Yosuke’s HP and defeat him as the first boss of Persona 4 Golden.
Once the battle ends Yosuke will regain conciseness and will confirm how he really felt, confirming what Shadow Yosuke proclaimed. At this point, you can choose the dialogue option “You’re still yourself” to assure him.
The added confidence in myself will awaken Yosuke’s Persona. Now known as Jiraya, he will retain his wind-based abilities and join your party as a member who will aid you in battle.
