kohhhhhga

"Today! Right now, in fact!

The stupendous chief of the Yiga Clan,

Master Kohga

...is gonna KILL YOU ALL... TO DEATH!"

Master Kohga is a minor antagonist in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and is arguably the only actual antagonistic character in the whole game, as other villains are mostly just mindless monsters. He is the leader of the Yiga Clan, a sect of the Sheikah clans that was oppressed by the kingdom of Hyrule, and as such sided with Calamity Ganon. In the main game, Hyrule is taken over by Calamity Ganon, and the Yiga are continue living in their mountain hideout, collecting bananas and terrorizing the general populace whenever they feel like. When Link is revived, the Yiga are ordered to find Link and kill him, and this usually results in that not happening.

Link encounters Master Kohga as he sneaks through the Yiga Hideout on his way to the Gerudo Desert, and a quick, easy, but nonetheless entertaining, boss fight ensues. Despite being the leader of a clan of ninja so skilled they can completely change their appearances while disguised, Kohga is characterized as a lazy oaf with very little skill, and is basically a comedic beat in the game.

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity expands on his character much more, and even adds him as a playable character. While still being a clown, Kohga is treated with absolute, genuine respect by the lower members of the Yiga Clan, and his far more serious and talented henchman Sooga is unwaveringly loyal to him. Kohga himself is shown to respect the members of the Yiga Clan as well, with him helping out several unnamed members with minor problems in some of his personal quests. The Yiga Clan's love of bananas is expanded on even more, as it is the only item they will ever drop, and Kohga himself has eating a banana as an integral part of his moveset. The death of his underlings is even his incentive to join the good guys in the last act of the game. Age of Calamity gives Kohga far more abilities as well, with the most notable being his ability to fire a giant laser beam from his face once he gets too stressed.

It's debatable if the Kohga in Age of Calamity and the Kohga in Breath of the Wild are even the same people, as the timeline in BOTW is notably screwy, not helped with some added contradictions introduced in Age of Calamity. Regardless of authorial intent, this moveset will treat both of them as the same character.


Stats
Weight - 104
Walk Speed - 0.9
Run Speed - 1.6
Air Speed - 1.2
Fall Speed - 1.35

Master Kohga, being a bit on the... overweight side of things, moves fairly awkwardly on the ground. His walk is a somewhat cautious shuffle, and his run is more of a panicked waddle. His idle pose has him taking on a stance similar to his glyph icon in Age of Calamity, one arm forward and the other held behind and above his head, a rather traditional kabuki-esque pose. He's roughly the size of Captain Falcon, though shorter than Ganondorf by a bit. His stance makes him around as wide as both of them, if not  slightly wider.

Despite the traits of a heavyweight, Kohga is inexplicably very mobile in the air. This is because Kohga is constantly in a meditative flight pose while in the air, as he's far too la- er, powerful to jump normally. Kohga will only perform a slight jump at the start of his grounded jump animation, before boosting himself upwards more while in his meditation pose. For his double jump, he will completely spin around, boosting him farther into the air. The jumps themselves are good as well, better on average compared to most heavyweight jumps.

Stress Meter!
Much like in Age of Calamity, Master Kohga has a Stress Meter that will fill throughout the course of the match. Uniquely, this meter doesn't fill up by having Kohga take damage, instead, it fills up through different interactions with his own moves. These interactions will be noted with a large STRESS! banner under each applicable attack. Some attacks may require the player going out of their way to add to the Stress Meter, or it will simply fill up upon use of certain moves, though these tend to be the slower of the two options. There are both benefits and downsides to filling the Stress Meter up completely.

AS SOON as the meter is filled up, regardless of if Kohga is in the middle of an attack or not, he will suddenly flip into the air as if he just took a heavy hit of damage, though no actual knockback will take place, he simply flies upwards a bit. During this period, the player has a choice to either input the Special Button, or not. If they choose not to, Kohga will fall to the ground and enter a tantrum state that leaves him completely vulnerable for 3 seconds. This is not the outcome you want to happen.

If you do press the button, Kohga will instead land on his feet, and fire a large purple laser out of his face, this being the powerful technique known as the Big Glowy Blast. The laser isn't as large as some other massive lasers in Smash, like Samus' Final Smash, being around the size of a crate... which is still pretty large all considering. It shares similar traits to other lasers, though, having infinite range and dealing rapid hits to any opponents that get caught in it. Said hits deal 2%, and being trapped in the beam froms tart to finish can deal a whopping 40%. The knockback of the move is weaker than you would expect, only KOing past 120%, which still makes this a pretty strong attack. While the move is active, Kohga is invincible, but will suffer light ending lag once the beam has finished. Kohga can also aim the beam slightly up or down, but there is a limit to how much it can be angled.

The problem is that the Stress Meter requires genuine effort to fill up. Every consecutive use of a single stress filling technique will halve the amount it fills up the meter. For example, Kohga's DSmash usually fills up 10% of the meter, but using it without using a different technique (or waiting around 5 seconds) will cause it to only fill up 5% on the next use. A third use will only fill up 2.5%, and so on. So you need to constantly be shifting in your attacks in order to make full use of the meter. The timing window on activating the Big Glowy Blast is also very strict, as there's no slow down effect like in Age of Calamity. It isn't difficult when you know the timing, but newer Kohga players can easily find themselves throwing tantrums far too often.


Specials
Neutral Special - Bowling for Bananas
Kohga raises his arms above his head, summoning a large brown ball covered in Yiga Clan talismans and marked with the upside down Sheikah symbol that represents the Yiga. The ball is slightly larger than a Party Ball in size, making it not too ridiculously large. When the button is released, Kohga will toss the ball forward, tripping slightly as he does, sending the large ball rolling forward at a moderately fast pace, around the same speed a barrel rolls. The ball will remain on stage until either Kohga summons a new one (though it will only vanish once the new ball is thrown), until it comes to a complete stop, or until it goes off screen. On contact, the ball will deal a moderate 10% to the opponent with moderate, radial knockback, but this single hit will almost always cause the ball to come to a complete stop.

Luckily, through a technique passed through his family, Kohga can improve the strength of the Yiga ball! Holding the button down for 1 second will charge the attack, transforming the stone ball into a large, steel ball with spikes! This spike ball is larger than Kohga himself, taking up a pretty stupid amount of space. It also rolls twice as fast as the stone ball, meaning that the ball can now hit TWO players before it vanishes. It also deals a boosted 20%, with knockback that can KO in the early 100%s. The Yiga ball is overall a fairly decent pressuring tool, as it, the steel version especially, can take up a large amount of space and is constantly on the move.

The attack has very high starting lag, however, and Kohga is completely left open during it. He has to perform a slightly sped up version of his ball summoning animation in Breath of the Wild, and much like that game, this is an opportune moment for opponents to attack him. Kohga's Side Special is the main way to get around this, obviously we'll get more into that in a moment, but it requires more set up and comes with its own drawbacks.

STRESS!
Kohga himself is not immune to his Yiga balls, as one might expect from his boss fight. If Kohga is hit by either version of the Yiga balls, they will roll right over him, dealing half the damage they would normally deal to opponents to him, but also increasing his Stress Meter by a significant amount. The stone ball will boost it by 25%, while the steel ball will boost it by 50%, making this one of the better ways of filling up the Stress Meter, if that's what you're going for. The two different Yiga balls act as separate ways of filling the Stress Meter.

Both of these will also leave Kohga vulnerable for a moment afterwards, so there's some significant risk to performing this. Notably, if Kohga is attacked during the start-up animation, the ball will drop onto his head, which while having a slightly different animation, basically has the exact same results. This is also a good way for opponents to take advantage of the Stress Meter, as activating it early can easily trip someone up and put them into an extremely vulnerable state.


Side Special - Shielding the Pain
Kohga performs a quick series of hand movements, before thrusting both arms forward, creating a large, blue wall of light in front of him. The wall is around as tall as Kohga, so it will completely protect him. The shield is pretty handy, as it will remain on stage for 10 seconds, and can block a total of 30% damage during that period. Two walls can be placed at once, meaning that Kohga can very easily create a decent safe zone for himself. Of course, he can only place these walls directly in front of him, with a 0.3 Grid Block gap between him and the wall. They also act as a solid, meaning that no players can pass through them... though they can be rolled through, preventing any ledge guarding shenanigans.

These are a good defense option, as they last a while and can absorb a decent amount of damage... but only using them for defense is something someone much less talented and wise than the great Master Kohga would do! By using the attack again while standing behind one of the walls, Kohga will thrust both fists forward in an exaggerated punch (which almost causes him to trip), causing the wall to fly forward as a projectile! It will fly forward 4.5 Grid Blocks, an impressive distance considering the wall is nearly flat, and will deal 10% to anyone it touches, with very weak knockback. This isn't a great projectile, but its very fast and its large size means... well, it has a high chance of hitting SOMEBODY. The wall still counts as being on stage at this point, and can still block attacks while flying forward, but it means you'll have to be waiting a while before you can put up a new one.

The walls have some strange interactions with other moves as well, which we'll cover as we get to them... but its main use involves the Yiga balls in NSpec! Any Yiga ball that hits one of these walls will be instantly reflected off of it (similar rolling objects will just deal the damage), sending the ball rolling at the same speed in the opposite direction. With the two walls you get, this can easily turn the field into a bit of a pinball table! But it also means that, if you're a bit careless, you can end up crushed by your own projectiles pretty easily (though that's not always a bad thing!)

Notably, the way that the Yiga balls are thrown means that they will always cross the distance of the walls if they are thrown while one is up, meaning you can't just throw one directly into your face. What are you trying to do, get the great Master Kohga HURT!?

These walls are overall a good defensive option, but there's enough you can do with them that it's never just going to be Kohga defending himself. The Yiga balls might be the main interaction with them, but there are a handful of others that make this a truly wacky move.


Up Special - The Yiga Clan's Full Support!