Final Fantasy X: Dark Yojimbo

Dark Yojimbo is one of the superbosses in Final Fantasy X, as well as one of the Dark Aeons. He is one of the only bosses that you have to fight multiple times, and is the only Dark Aeon that you can farm for equipment.

Location

Dark Yojimbo can be found in the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth after getting the airship, in the same spot where you recruited Yojimbo. Once you attempt to leave the cave, you will be ambushed.

Dark Yojimbo is a unique boss in that you will have to fight him five separate times before leaving the Cavern. Most of the encounters will be forced while running backwards through the Cavern. However, you can skip the third fight. This encounter takes place in the first split of the cave, so if you do not walk down this path, you will miss this fight.

There are several ways to reset the Dark Yojimbo fights.

Leave the cave without doing all five fights
Loading a save within the cave
Going to the Blitzball menu in the Save Sphere
Using the teleporter near the end of the cave to return to the entrance

Prep

You will want your Strength, Defense, Agility, and Luck high for this fight, both in order to make it go quickly and so you can withstand Dark Yojimbo’s attacks. You will also want your armor fully set with passives to avoid Stone and keep your important buffs up. Celestial Weapons will make the fight go much faster as well (Auron’s will be especially useful for the first encounter).

Strategy

While there are five separate fights against Dark Yojimbo, every battle is basically the same. The only difference is the rate that his Overdrive gauge raises, and the fact that he will Ambush the party in the first encounter. You are able to use the Save Sphere between fights (as long as you don’t load a save or go to the Blitzball menu).

Dark Yojimbo has three possible attacks:

Kozuka – Attacks one target, and inflicts Full Break and Slow
Daigoro – Attacks one target, and inflicts Stone and Poison
Wakizashi – Attacks the entire party

dark yojimbo 2 — *Dark Yojimbo using Wakizashi*

His Overdrive is Zanmato. It deals 99,999 damage to the party and removes Auto-Life, making this an extremely dangerous attack. Dark Yojimbo’s Overdrive gauge increases by 2% when attacked, and by 6%/10%/16%/20%/26% when attacking, increasing with each encounter.

Having a weapon with First Strike (or Auron’s Celestial Weapon) will counteract the Ambush in the first battle, as First Strike will cause the character to get a turn first regardless of being Ambushed. If you are properly geared for superbosses, the only thing you really have to worry about with Dark Yojimbo is him using Zanmato. At 1,600,000 HP, it is possible to defeat him all five times before he can ever get his Overdrive gauge full, as long as your stats are high enough.

Quick Hit and high damaging Overdrives are the best way to deal damage to him quickly. As he has low Magic Defense, Doublecast Ultima will deal good damage to him as well. If you are unable to kill him before he uses Zanmato, you HAVE to summon an Aeon to take the damage, or it will be an instant game over.

Farming Dark Yojimbo

Due to the fact that you can reset Dark Yojimbo’s encounters, it is possible to farm him for materials and armor. When defeated, he will usually drop a Dark Matter (with a Master Sphere being a rare drop), and there is a chance he can drop armor that has the ‘Ribbon’ and/or ‘Break HP Limit’ passive. In order to farm him, just defeat him 1-4 times, then reset the encounters. You can continue doing this until you get all of the armor and Dark Matter you want. If you want everyone in your party to have the ‘Ribbon’ passive, this will be a quicker way than trying to farm Dark Matter (as it costs 99 per armor). Keep in mind that once you defeat Dark Yojimbo five times without resetting the fights, you will no longer be able to farm him.