How to beat Grotesque Guptauros (Minotaur) in Metaphor: ReFantazio (Belega Corridor Dungeon) on Hard
Here’s steps on how to beat the Grotesque Guptauros (Minotaur) in Metaphor: ReFantazio in the optional Belega Coridor Dungeon on Hard Difficulty. The strategy will work fine for all lower difficulties as well (the boss’s pattern will be the same). The key point is that the Minotaur’s AI can be manipulated and you can even cancel his powerful attacks.
Which Archetypes to Use & Skills to Inherit
Do NOT use either the Healer or Mage archetypes. Any classes that use Staves or Maces (Healer and Mage) will cause the Minotaur to use a harder moveset that you can’t defend against easily. Your weapon is directly locked to your archetype, so you’ll have to outright avoid Healer and Mage. It’s recommended to instead use Seeker, Warrior and Knight (these archetypes do NOT have staves or maces).
If you’re wondering how to figure this out, when you unlock the Belega Corridor you can buy information from the informant in the Inn who tells you about the boss’s weakness and strengths.
By this point in the game you can inherit 1 skill from other classes for each character and archetype. Using skill inheritance you can make a character inherit healing skills (Medei is recommended on one character for AoE healing) as well as ice spells without actually having that as the character’s archetype. (AoE is Area of Effect, meaning it targets everyone.) It’s also possible to go to a shop at night and buy an accessory allowing you to cast ice spells.
How to unlock Belega Corridor
To unlock the Belega Corridor you’ll need to raise your Wisdom to 2. When you have access to free time, start by accepting the cooking request “Help Fabienne in Inn” then sit on the bench in the afternoon (spend time to increase wisdom). In the evening you cook in the Inn and you don’t need to cook the special dish, the regular dish is fine. Then the next day turn in the request and your Wisdom will now be 2. Outside of the magic igniter shop you’ll find Brigitta, talk to her for another request where she unlocks the Belega Corridor then go to it to find Minotaur at the bottom.
Important Synthesis Skills & Which Spells to Use
The Minotaur boss is weak to Ice and Spear attacks, meaning you get extra turns if you hit these weaknesses. Ice can be inherited if you leveled up the mage archetype on characters.
Spear is a basic attack from the Knight archetype, but it’s not a good attack to use basic attacks because it’s very weak.
Ice also isn’t the best to use however – you only have access to Stohl and Hulkenberg in the demo and from their stats they’re far better at physical skills. You can use Ice to gain extra press turns but it’s not much damage.
Instead, by having both a Warrior and Knight in your party you can use the Jump Thrust synthesis skill (press A or cross to use synthesis skills in battle on the Knight’s turn), it uses 2 press turns but you also gain 2 press turns by hitting the Minotaur’s weakness.
This synthesis skill is a medium Pierce attack but it also applies Rakunda on the enemy (this is amazing because it lowers the enemy’s defense with each hit, which you can’t otherwise do easily at this point in the game). If you use it repeatedly it will keep doing more and more damage thanks to the debuff effect.
You can have the protagonist be a Seeker archetype and you can cast Tarukaja on your allies to deal even more damage (keep casting it on Hulkenberg if she’s a Knight doing the Spear synthesis attack, you can stack 3 Tarukaja buffs and she will do significantly more damage), and make sure someone such as the protagonist has Medei inherited for an area of effect healing spell.
Strategy to Defeat Minotaur and how to avoid his powerful move (His attack pattern)
You should open the battle by using the Jump Thrust synthesis skill and buffing your characters.
The Minotaur (Enemy Turn 1) will always do an area of effect physical, as well as a physical hitting one character too. This will make your ally who got hit twice get knocked out, and your remaining allies will have low health.
Using your turn quickly revive your KO’ed unit and heal as much as possible. The Minotaur (Enemy Turn 2) will repeat his pattern, attacking with area of effect and another hitting one ally. Again, he’ll likely KO a party member or two so heal up and get ready for the next turn.
If the first two turns are too hard and everyone is dying you can try instead to just defend to survive it. Stunning Arrow is a consumable attack item you can get from the goblins that has a chance of stunning the boss and can work well.
Now, Minotaur (Enemy Turn 3) will Aim and Charge (he won’t attack). You can avoid his next powerful attack by now simply hitting his weakness at least once. If your Knight and Warrior are alive just use Jump Thrust again, or if some allies are knocked out you can use an inherited ice spell or even just use a regular spear attack with your Knight just to make sure you trigger his weakness. You can even use an ice attack consumable item (Ice Chunk) to hit his weakness if you’re in an emergency.
As long as you hit a weakness of his, on Enemy Turn 4 you’ll get a message “Buff effects on Grotesque Guptauros faded!” meaning his powerful attack was cancelled successfully because you struck his weakness. He will still use his second press turn to attack so make sure you can handle a regular attack from him but it’s a regular weak attack on one party member.
Be careful, and make sure that you strike his weakness at least once after you see him charging up. Otherwise his powerful attack won’t be cancelled and you’ll get KO’ed from a very powerful AoE attack.
Here’s a summary of how his turns work, it will follow a specific pattern:
- Turn 1: Minotaur attacks twice (one AoE and one that hits 1 target)
- Turn 2: Minotaur attacks twice (one AoE and one that hits 1 target)
- Turn 3: Minotaur aims and charges (he doesn’t attack yet)
- Turn 4: Minotaur’s powerful move doesn’t work, then attacks normally once (as long as you hit his weakness at least once between turns)
- Turn 5: Minotaur attacks twice (one AoE and one that hits 1 target)
- Turn 6: Minotaur aims and charges (he doesn’t attack yet)
- Turn 7: Minotaur’s powerful move doesn’t work, then attacks normally once (as long as you hit his weakness at least once between turns)
- …..
- Turn n: Minotaur attacks twice (one AoE and one that hits 1 target)
- Turn n+1: Minotaur aims and charges (he doesn’t attack yet)
- Turn n+2: Minotaur’s powerful move doesn’t work, then attacks normally once (as long as you hit his weakness at least once between turns)
Once you get past his initial two turns, he will always follow the pattern of attacking, then on the next enemy turn charging, then on the next enemy turn his attack getting cancelled, then attacking, and the cycle repeats. Whenever he’s charging is a good opportunity to heal up as well. You don’t need to rush through the battle – you can just take it slow too if you can’t heal the damage Minotaur is dealing.
Sometimes you will get unlucky for circumstances outside of your control. The Minotaur can rarely get critical attacks on you, meaning he gets another press turn, or sometimes you’ll miss an attack meaning you lose press turns. In this case, just click the L3 button to restart the battle.
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