Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they've been chewing over. Today, Jim chews over how Tears of the Kingdom is a step in the right direction for the series' banana-loving bandits...
Let me start with a confession. When I initially started Tears of the Kingdom, I had forgotten about the Yiga Clan. In the run-up to the game's release, my mind had been so preoccupied with thoughts of "What's the plan for dungeons?", "Am I going to need to re-learn the timeline?", and "Please, for the love of Hylia, don't let those flipping Koroks come back", that Master Kohga and co. had taken a backseat in my considerations. And so, when I was first ambushed by an undercover Yiga while making an early trek across Hyrule Field, I was a little disappointed. You see, I never liked the Yiga Clan, and I didn't think that I wanted them back.
Now, having finished the main adventure and starting to go about the other 99% of the world that I am yet to explore, I am pleased to say that I was wrong. In my mind, the Yiga Clan has been fixed and — in a full 180-degree turn — I would like to see even more of them in the future.
I am not a Yiga Clan member myself (bananas are an excellent source of potassium but I'd have to draw the line at always having a bunch about my person), so I'll keep this open and truthful. I am going to go into some detail about what the Yiga Clan is up to in TOTK in the following paragraphs, right up to some late-game stuff. So, if you haven't seen enough of Master Kohga just yet and you are keen to avoid SPOLIERS, then I'd look away now. Go and enjoy a banana in the meantime...
Back to it. Tears of the Kingdom managed to bring me back around to the Yiga Clan and it was no easy task. The group had left a sour taste in my mouth ever since the end of Breath of the Wild, when the climactic fight with Master Kohga turned out not to be the intense swordsman-vs-swordsman collision that I was hoping for, and instead a goofy comedy routine that wouldn't be out of place in an early-morning cartoon.
Kohga's final tumble down the not-so-bottomless pit in the middle of his compound (seriously, why wouldn't you at least put a railing up?) left me disheartened. The cool ninjas that I had come across throughout my Hylian travels up to that point were all just a facade. These guys were just a bunch of goofs.
The subsequent appearance in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity did nothing to change my mind. Now fully voice acted, Kohga's goofiness was dialled up to eleven with almost every line being an excuse to laugh at him and, for the most part, the other Yiga members followed suit. Sure, Sooga keeps up an element of muscular mystery, but the rest of the banana bunch are frequently shown to be pretty useless and not up to much under their joke of a leader.
This take never really added up for me. Breath of the Wild teaches us that the Yiga Clan was born out of a hatred for the kingdom of Hyrule after people began to grow suspicious of Sheikah technology following the Great Calamity. Breaking away from the mother Sheikah tribe, the Yiga was formed in support of Ganon and the desire to bring about the downfall of the kingdom. I could believe that the mysterious footsoldiers who roam the land were a part of this out-for-revenge group, but suggesting that they are all actually fools? Yeeeeah, that never sat right with me.