SegmentNextDungeons
Eight TV-world dungeons, and they are not sorted here by story order or by quality. Both of those lists already exist and neither tells you why a run falls apart.
In practice a Persona 4 Golden dungeon run fails in one of five ways. You run out of calendar. You bring the wrong element. You meet a boss with no weakness, or one that covers the weakness it has. You run out of SP before the top floor. Or the dungeon takes your rules away. The dungeons below are grouped by which of those checks they run on you, and inside each group they stay in play order so the page still reads front to back.
Every dungeon at a glance
| Dungeon | Order | Window | Floors | The check it runs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Former Konishi Liquors | First | Not stated on our page | One fight | The element. One skill decides it |
| Yukiko's Castle | Second | 17 to 29 April | Randomised, boss on the final floor | The calendar, plus two bosses that wall their own weakness |
| Steamy Bathhouse | Third | 19 May to 4 June | 11 | The calendar and attrition |
| Marukyu Striptease | Fourth | Not stated on our page | 11, boss on 11 | The wall. Shadow Rise has no weakness at all |
| Void Quest | Fifth | Not stated on our page | 9, one chapter each | The wall, rebuilt every few turns |
| Secret Laboratory | Sixth | 16 September to 5 October | 9, descending | The calendar, plus two key cards |
| Heaven | Seventh | 6 to 20 November | 10, ascending | The calendar, and a boss whose weakness moves |
| Hollow Forest | Bonus, from January | Behind Marie at rank 10 by 22 December | Not stated on our page | The rule change. It takes your equipment |
Check one: the calendar
Four dungeons have a rescue window, and missing it does not just fail the rescue. It replaces the story boss with a harder optional one, and it makes you climb every floor again to reach it. That second consequence is the one nobody mentions.
| Dungeon | Window | Story boss | What replaces it | What the replacement costs you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yukiko's Castle | 17 to 29 April | Shadow Yukiko, on the final floor | Contrarian King, on the 8th floor | A full re-climb, and it turns fire to drain with Red Wall while using Kill Rush, Rampage, Marakunda and Hysterical Slap |
| Steamy Bathhouse | 19 May to 4 June | Shadow Kanji, on floor 11 | Intolerant Officer, also on floor 11 | All eleven floors again. It is weak to electric, and it fires Bufula twice if Yukiko is in your party |
| Secret Laboratory | 16 September to 5 October | Shadow Naoto, on B9F | Extreme Vessel, on B9F | A boosted God's Hand that can knock a party member straight out. Bring Tetrakarn or a physical-nulling Persona |
| Heaven | 6 to 20 November | Kunino-Sagiri, on floor 10 | Lost Okina, on floor 10 | Nothing extra to climb, but the door stays sealed until Kunino-Sagiri is down. The reward is the Chakra Ring, which halves magic SP costs |
Marukyu Striptease has an optional boss too, the Momentary Child, but its gate is different: it appears on the top floor only once you have cleared every enemy in the dungeon rather than once a date has passed. It is level 40 and weak to ice, and beating it unlocks the Bear Claw weapon in the room near the pole.
The real argument for finishing a dungeon early is not the optional boss, though. It is that every day you spend inside is a day you are not spending on a Social Link, and those have their own deadlines. Our social links guide covers the other half of that trade.
Check two: the element
The early dungeons are decided by one Persona and one skill, which is why they feel simple and then abruptly do not.
Former Konishi Liquors is the purest version. Shadow Yosuke opens with Wind of Oblivion, and if it lands you are knocked down and eat the follow-up chain, so guard it. Then Zio knocks him over, the knockdown buys you an extra turn, and Cleave spends it. He guards periodically to cut your damage, and the whole fight is that loop. It pays 3,000 yen and 100 EXP, and gives Yosuke his Persona. Come back on 1 or 2 May and there is a quest item plus a fresh weapon for Yosuke waiting.
Yukiko's Castle shows the idea working and then breaking. Shadow Chie on the second floor is weak to wind, so Jiraiya and Garu carry it, except that she raises Mud Wall for three turns and all-out attacks are wasted on her, so keep something non-wind in reserve. When she stops attacking and stares at Yosuke, that is your cue to guard with him, because Mazio is coming.
Shadow Yukiko on the final floor inverts the lesson entirely. You do not want to deal fire, you want to resist it, because Burn to Ashes hits the whole party and Agi picks off individuals. Be at least level 12, bring a fire-resistant Persona, kill the Charming Prince she summons first with Bufu, and make Yosuke a dedicated healer for Chie.
So the honest conclusion, which the ranking posts never draw, is that elemental prep is necessary and never sufficient in this game. Half the weaknesses get walled over mid-fight.
Check three: the wall
These are the bosses that either have no weakness or cover the one they have, and this is where most runs actually die. The skill names below are currently scattered one at a time across five separate walkthroughs, so this is the first time they sit in one place.
| Boss | Where | What it does to your plan | The answer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avenger Knight | Yukiko's Castle, floor 5 | Weak to fire on paper, then hides it under Red Wall. Tarukaja into a physical attack | Tarunda almost nullifies the buffed hit. Chie's Skull Cracker panics it and buys turns. A captured or fused Slime at level 3 teaches Tarunda |
| Shadow Rise | Marukyu Striptease, floor 11 | No elemental weakness at all. Opens on fire magic, then Fire, Ice, Wind and Elec Break strip your resistances for three turns each, and Spirit Drain takes 30 SP | Party at level 33 to 38, strongest single hit rather than an all-out attack on a knockdown. At 50 percent health she uses Supreme Insight and nothing works for three turns, so just guard, and your HP and SP are restored afterwards |
| Shadow Mitsuo | Void Quest, chapter 10 | Hides inside the Mitsuo the Hero shell, then rebuilds it with Whisper, Chant and Prayer while Dekaja wipes your buffs | Break the shell, all-out attack the moment he is down because he will not stay there, and clear Fear with Patra or Amrita before Ghastly Wail kills whoever is afraid |
| Shadow Naoto | Secret Laboratory, B9F | Fast, with Heat Riser, Element Zero and Galgalim Eyes, plus Mute Ray | Yukiko's Fire Break to remove its fire resistance, then Makarakarn so that Mute Ray and everything else it throws comes back at it. It rarely uses Megidolaon, so a levelled party wins comfortably |
| Escapist Soldier | Void Quest, final floor | Resists physical damage, raises your ailment susceptibility with Foul Breath, and Mudoon can instantly kill | Build for magical damage, bring Yukiko or Teddie for ailments. Rewards the Gaia Sword |
| Kunino-Sagiri | Heaven, floor 10 | Its weakness keeps changing, because it changes the atmosphere and its own affinities with it. Dekaja wipes your buffs, and it turns your own party against you | Re-check its stats every time the atmosphere shifts. Do not walk in with a party sharing an exposed element. At zero HP it controls all three members, so heal up before that phase |
The Killing Hand in Void Quest is a smaller version of the same idea. It is paired with an Almighty Hand that heals it, and killing the healer does nothing because another one spawns. Magarula knocks the Almighty Hand down while damaging the Killing Hand, which stops the healing long enough to actually finish it.
Check four: attrition
The long climbs are a resource problem rather than a tactical one, and the resource is SP.
| Dungeon | Floors | The gate inside it |
|---|---|---|
| Steamy Bathhouse | 11 going up | Daring Gigas early, with Power Charge and Tarukaja stacking into one huge hit, and Shadow Kanji on 11 with two adds that heal and buff him |
| Marukyu Striptease | 11 going up | Three bosses back to back near the top, and the optional fourth only opens if you have cleared every enemy on every floor |
| Secret Laboratory | 9 going down | A Leader Card gate at B6F, then a Research Card in a chest just before a locked door on B4F |
| Heaven | 10 going up | World Balance blocks the vine to floor 8 and uses all four elements plus Mind Charge |
Two habits cover most of it. Teddie hands you 3 Revival Beads, 5 Peach Seeds and 5 Soul Drops at the Castle entrance, and you should hold at least one Peach Seed back because a later quest wants it. And Yosuke's Dia between encounters is free healing, so use it rather than burning items after every fight.
For Shadow Kanji specifically, the order matters more than the damage: take out the nice guy first, because he heals Kanji and keeps the tough guy from being knocked down with a fire resistance spell. Ice knocks the nice guy over, fire takes out the tough guy, then Kanji. Bring Dokudami tea, because he poisons the male party members and enrages the female ones. Our items guide covers what to stock, and our levelling guide covers getting the party high enough that none of this matters as much.
Check five: the rule change
Hollow Forest is the only dungeon in the game that changes the rules rather than raising the numbers, and it carries story spoilers, so treat this section as one.
Getting in is a chain rather than a location. Max Marie's Aeon Social Link to rank 10 by 22 December. On 2 January, head to the Velvet Room in the Central Shopping District to wish Margaret happy birthday, which is when you learn Marie is missing. Margaret then calls on Wednesday mornings from 11 February until the winter ski trip, where the cabin television pulls you in. After that you go back down daily through that same TV after school.
Then the rules change. Your inventory is emptied on entry, so every party weakness that your equipment was papering over is suddenly exposed, and you have to rebuild the loadout from chests and mini-boss drops as you go. When you find armour, give it to whoever needs the protection most rather than to whoever has the highest level.
Your SP is halved after every fight except the first, offset by an SP recovery bonus that scales with your potential SP and grows with each successive turn in battle. Elemental Break items and SP-restoring stones are worth stocking heavily beforehand, because they are the only part of this economy you control. The enemies themselves are not difficult, which is exactly the point: the dungeon attacks your preparation, not your reflexes.
One thing to settle before you drop in. Once you are past the entrance you cannot swap anyone in or out, so pick your three before you drop in. The fox at the entrance will heal you for a price, there is a blue butterfly save point and a Velvet Room door, and Daidara Metalworks and the Shiroku Store are reachable from the staging hub by telling Rise you need to shop. None of what you buy comes in with you.
Where to go next
Every dungeon above has its own full walkthrough with floor-by-floor shadow lists, and the two that most often send people looking for help are Marukyu Striptease, for Shadow Rise, and Heaven, for the shifting weakness on Kunino-Sagiri.
For what to bring, our magic skills, physical skills and support skills pages cover the skill names used throughout this guide, and fusion covers building the Persona that answers a given wall.