Shinobi Art of Vengeance: Kozaru Boss Guide

At the end of Shinobi Art of Vengeance’s Oboro Village, Lord Ruse and Kozaru await. Lord Ruse naturally leaves, but sends the huge fiery ape, Kozaru, to fight you. Your enemy brags about burning down your village and killing your students; don’t let him get away with that. A relatively simple boss fight with just a few powers, he does hit incredibly hard. It’s a solid tutorial for the types of powerful enemies you’ll fight later, too.

Joe Musashi has nothing to fear from Kozaru in Shinobi Art of Vengeance, and you won’t either, if you pay attention to his attacks, and stay on the offense whenever you can. Here’s what you need to know about Joe Musashi’s first major opponent in this latest release.

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Tips to defeat Kozaru in Shinobi Art of Vengeance

Even if Kozaru is Shinobi Art of Vengeance’s first and easiest boss, don’t let that distract you. If you aren’t quick, he can still obliterate you with his huge AOE attacks, or his giant Shadow Tornado attack. Here’s everything he can hit you with:

(Fight begins at 36:30)

Kozaru’s attacks

• Dash: Kozaru swiftly dashes across the screen.
• Charged Thrust: After a short charge/delay, Kozaru thrusts his polearm forward. The flames around it also deal damage.
• Pole Vault: Kozaru spin kicks then sits on top of his weapon, and after a delay leaps off screen. Drops down in a large AOE at your current location.
• Shadow Tornado: Glows purple briefly and then fires a gigantic, but slow shadow tornado that travels across the screen.
• Power Up: Beats his chest and turns red, and is temporarily invincible.

If you went into this Shinobi Art of Vengeance fight with full rage, I honestly would just open up with Fire Ninpo. When I did, it took about a quarter of his health away in one shot. Occasionally, the boss will taunt you by pounding his chest and glowing red. During this time, he’s completely invincible.

This is one of the easiest ways you can get caught out and take damage (Image via SEGA)

Kozaru's primary attacks in Shinobi Art of Vengeance are the Charged Thrust and Pole Vault. While the Charged Thrust is slow, it reaches across roughly half the screen, and it explodes in fire. It hits quite hard, so when you see him wind up, get out of the way. After the fire starts to dissipate, you can dive kick in.

You can also attack him while he’s preparing to dive off, but do be careful. When he jumps off screen though, Kozaru tracks your location, and after a few seconds, dive bombs down. Stay mobile, and when he starts to dive onto you on screen, dash away.

Once he’s under 50% HP, he’ll start using the Shadow Tornado, and is prone to using the Pole Vault back to back. When you see Shadow Tornado get close, double jump, and at the height of your jump, air dash.

The trick to dealing him the most damage is to dive kick in and combo after his attacks proc, and dash through him to try and get one more combo. If you see him wind up for another blow, get behind or away from him.

Interestingly, the Pole Vault didn’t seem to initially cause damage. When he did the little spin kick, it didn’t damage me, but I would stay out of it out of fear. I did learn that colliding with his weapon did hurt, so I just stayed back and waited for it to finish.

With enough height, you can smoothly glide over this attack (Image via SEGA)

He has a pretty lengthy delay between attacks for most of this fight, so you can play fairly aggressively and combo him for good chunks of his health. This is the only boss I didn’t Execute, but he does have an Execute threshold when he’s very close to death. Success will give you a Max Health Boost, which will no doubt serve you well in the challenges to come.

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Shinobi Art of Vengeance is the latest action platformer from SEGA, and will release on August 29, 2025, on PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One. You can learn more about the game from our in-depth review.