Further to my review of Shank over at Rules of the Game, I wanted to examine the fight with Cesar, the man responsible for the murder of Shank’s girlfriend and the last encounter of the game. It stuck in my mind as something particularly interesting about Shank, in the way this fight feigns openness for the player’s attack strategy to make it seem different from the rest of the game. It is set up to be the “true” culmination of the skills learned in Shank, as if the previous boss encounters were merely warmups. Even though this encounter is the only thing I found interesting about Shank, it’s not something that would have been very useful in the middle of a review.

I said in my review that the traditional boss fight is challenging in the way it represents the culmination of each set of encounters at the end of a given “chapter” or “level” of a game. The tactics for each boss fight should be no surprise, as they should collect the skills developed during the course of the game. However, the challenge of a boss fight is removed when “tactics” become prescriptive of player action: whether it is requiring a particular attack to be used, or a weapon or ability that was obtained during the course of the preceding level. In the interest of player accessibility, the prescriptive boss fight is the easiest to grasp without a full understanding of the combat system. This was the approach that Klei Entertainment took with most of their boss characters in Shank.

In Shank’s fight with Cesar, there are two main differences from other boss encounters that should be evident to the observant player. Firstly, it is a fair fight. While he is a little bit taller, the size and appearance of Cesar is consistent with Shank and the goon characters that have already been faced. He is equipped with a sword, two pistols, and a knife. Secondly, it is not immediately apparent that a special activity must be performed as in the other boss encounters. That is, in the fight with Cesar the player is never explicity told to perform a one-button act to deal damage once the boss character is stunned by regular hits.

The fight is set up very similar to the one with Cassandra in the second level; however, she is much easier to defeat with persistence and repetitive attacks within a shorter period, when compared with Cesar’s overall toughness.

The use of weapons and melee attacks do not behave as they do in the regular encounters of Shank; against Cesar they are not nearly as effective. However, this can be accepted in the context of Cesar being the final boss and less susceptible to basic attacks. In the way most games increase difficulty by making enemies tougher, Cesar is simply given characteristics to absorb more damage.

Instead of an instruction, Shank gives some non-specific advice for the fight with Cesar: “Wait for an opening, and then counter-attack.” This strategy is always available to the player, though it is rare that it must actually be applied during the course of the game. Instead of reinforcing the combat philosophy – which should be typical for any self-respecting beat ‘em up – the amount of player skill is largely the result of finding ways to bypass it completely. As a result, this sudden encouragement to use the combat system may come as a surprise for some players that have had no reason to explore it until this point.

The player is then forced to come up with a strategy that may have worked in the typical encounter, but now this strategy is met with much deadlier resistance. This will result in the player becoming frustrated with the lack of feedback that had previously been so liberally granted. Since the player was able to get away with the typical buttonmashing strategy, those unfamiliar with the other aspects of combat (blocking, dodging and grappling) may not necessarily have the skills to figure out this fight for themselves.

This will result in two approaches, assuming the player doesn’t give up:

1. Chip away at him: the slow and steady approach where damage is done by the weapons, just not at the rate that the player may want.
2. Find an exploit.

Chipping away is the safest option, as it is controllable and the most predictable. There are three phases to the battle with Cesar, based on amount of damage inflicted. At the start of each phase, the player is presented with two health potions. As long as the player can survive through each phase, they are guaranteed a power-up and should (theoretically) emerge victorious without their health reaching zero.

However, chipping away at a boss can be tedious. This is despite the fact that the solution will eventually work given enough time and endurance with a rudimentary attack combination such as dodge, shank, jump away, dodge, shank, jump away, etc. None of the weapons prove to be more effective than the others with this approach, however. A katana/shank combination that was devastating in the game only provides a moderate increase in damage to the standard shank combo, and therefore isn’t worth the trade-off in losing speed from a heavy attack. The grapple move cannot be performed arbitrarily, which is consistent in the game for all enemies bigger than Shank. The disembowel move with the katana, which proved to be extremely useful against large enemies in the rest of the game, will only cause Shank to be locked into one of Cesar’s counter-moves after dealing only a moderate amount of damage. The chainsaw takes too long to recover from, and all of the guns may as well be doing nothing. The quick fire rate of the dual pistols allows the player to keep a safe distance, but they take the risk of Cesar returning fire, and his pistols do more damage. Attempting this first strategy reminded me of my time with Lucifer at the end of Dante’s Inferno¹. It wasn’t pleasant, and I did not learn anything except patience, perseverance, and the true strength of my thumb muscles (something I’ve learned many times before, but in much more palatable video game experiences).

“Wait for an opening, and then counter-attack.”

The player is thus forced to find a weakness, and exploit it.

In Shank, a “counter” move is available when Shank is in close quarters with an enemy, and the left trigger icon appears on screen. If Shank is in close quarters with Cesar, this same icon will pop up. And as long as the player hits LT in time, they can counter him and do a little more damage than with a normal attack.

However, this counter-attack isn’t enough to deal substantial damage. The player must then fall back to chipping away at Cesar until receiving the opportunity to counter again. The timing must be perfect, and by moving in close the player runs the risk of some of Cesar’s highly damaging combo moves that they have no way of blocking. The player is stuck in a loop that may require several attempts to be able to beat Cesar.

The player then starts to optimize: If I am going to get close, how do I maximize my return on applied damage?

If the player experiments – or visits online forums, if they are impatient – they will learn that the best way to beat Cesar is to grapple him. But this isn’t possible! The player complains. You can’t grapple characters larger than Shank! And this would be true, if the developers were following the rules they have set. But as evidenced by the previous boss encounters, the rules of the game in the levels leading up to these encounters don’t necessarily apply.

The grapple can only be performed without the katana armed, because the right trigger is used for the special heavy attack for the katana. All other heavy weapons can be equipped, but the chains are particularly effective. The way to perform this move is actually very similar to the “double-team” throwing move in the co-operative campaign. Once the player is able to move in for the counter-attack, they must quickly hit “RT” to grapple after the counter. Shank will pick up Cesar and perform a pile driver, taking almost a quarter of his health bar. After the player performs a few of these attacks the battle is won.

Once the counter-grapple is learned, it is incredibly easy to perform. The only skill required is the ability to time the counter and grapple button presses, not use Shank’s arsenal of weapons in attack combinations. The weapons are available for this, of course – they just aren’t as effective. And all things considered, next to useless.

Cesar doesn’t change up his fighting style except for a “gutting move” with his sword, which is similar to what Shank does with the katana. This new move appears during the second phase of the fight. The attack can be easily avoided, as there is a red blinking “tell” like every other boss and large character encountered in the preceding game.

The lack of dynamics for this fight based on Shank‘s combat system makes it predictable, and as long as the player can minimize damage taken to set up this counter-grapple move, they will win. And there are plenty of health potions to correct any missteps, when the return on risking close-quarters damage is suddenly increased.

The battle with Cesar is not as open as the initial setup impresses on the player. The counter-grapple is the skeleton key for this fight, and Cesar can be bested quite quickly using this method. This is compared to a more substantial investment of time spent optimizing a “chip away” strategy. Keeping this technique hidden from the player may give the illusion of openness, but as anyone experienced with video games knows the player will use any means necessary to maximize their success in the least amount of time used for trial and error. Ultimately the battle with Cesar is no different than the other boss fights in the way it uses one move to deal the most damage, and although a disappointing finale it fits in well with the rest of Shank.