The Psychiatrist
The Psychiatrist is an NPC and a major antagonist in Katana Zero. He provides Chronos and assignments to Zero, and is implied to be an operative of the New Mecca government.
Appearance
The psychiatrist wears a crimson suit with a white shirt and a black tie. He also wears glasses, and his hair is combed to the side.
Personality
On the surface, the psychiatrist appears to be a professional, keeping to what his employers have assigned and holding himself and his clients to a high standard. If Zero is cooperative with him, he will congratulate him on jobs well performed and suggest that Zero might even meet his family. However, if Zero provokes him or fails his objectives, the psychiatrist will reveal a seething rage.
In reality, the psychiatrist despises Zero, looking down on him for his violent tendencies and Chronos addiction, and sees him as little more than a junkie, to be used for his employers' agenda and eventually disposed of. Despite posing as Zero's psychiatrist, he is only there as his handler, with the sessions little more than a front to placate the assassin and maintain his cooperation while handing out assignments.
As per his own mission objectives, the psychiatrist has no qualms manipulating Zero, hiding vital information from him about his past, and lying to him about the nature of his dreams. While he claims his sessions are there to help Zero's recovery, dialogue suggests he does not pay any real attention to him at all outside of mission-critical discussion. The psychiatrist is quick to dismiss, threaten, and verbally abuse Zero when he feels like he is losing control of the situation, and has a particular distaste for the media attention the assassin gathers from his killing sprees.
History
Very little is known about the psychiatrist's personal life, though if Zero is friendly enough with him, he admits to having a wife and a daughter.
During the "therapy service" of Zero, the Psychiatrist was instructed to give Zero dossiers of kill contracts and to kill Zero if he learned anything about Chronos manufacture.
Boss Battle
If Zero takes every opportunity to anger the Psychiatrist, a secret boss battle will become unlocked.
- Factory Hideout – Hang up multiple times during the phone call. Answer with "Hello?" then complete the mission.
- Ask for medicine (red text) during session.
- Murdower Hotel – Ask for medicine (red text) during the subsequent session.
- Club Neon – Allow DJ Electrohead to talk about the drugs.
- Keep talking about the drugs, then refuse medicine during the session.
- Mutual-Nil Prison – Kill all the police officers.
- Tell the Psychiatrist “Fuck you.” during the session before Chinatown.
After all these conditions have been fulfilled, in the session after the Bunker mission, where Zero normally beats the Psychiatrist to death, he will instead take a combat drug of his own and attack Zero, beginning the boss fight.
Each phase of this boss fight indicates a checkpoint in-game.
Phase 1
The Psychiatrist will stay at the top-center of the room, invulnerable to attack. Giant hands will appear from portals around the edges of the rooms and attempt to grab hold of Zero. The hard mode version makes 4 hands appear instead of 2.
If a hand grabs Zero, the psychiatrist will float down and reach out to him, telekinetically exploding his head; the player can escape this by mashing the movement buttons quickly enough.
Zero can damage the boss by slashing the hands before they grab him; after doing this twelve times, the next phase begins.
Phase 2
The Psychiatrist splits into nine copies (fourteen in Hard Mode) of himself that toss energy balls, which can be reflected back at them with a slash to kill them.
The clones alternate between hovering in a circular pattern at the top-center of the room, tossing energy balls aimed at Zero with a delay between each, and lining up at the top of the room and all tossing an energy ball straight down, with a much shorter delay. Once there are four clones or fewer left, however, they will move to random positions around the room and all toss an energy ball at Zero at the same time.
Once every clone has been killed, the third phase begins.
Phase 3
The screen goes completely dark, and giant eyes appear. Zero must destroy the eyes by slashing at them; if he does not destroy them fast enough, they will grow bloodshot and vibrate before creating an explosion at Zero's location, killing him instantly. In the hard mode version of the fight, there is an additional order in which there will be multiple screens revolving.
The eyes appear in this order:
- Two eyes. Unlike all the other waves, which appear in random locations, these eyes always appear in the center of the screen.
- Five eyes.
- Four eyes, displayed on four different screens.
- Four eyes, displayed on four screens that overlap one another, with three of them flipped vertically, horizontally, or both. It is advised to focus on the images that appear blueshifted in this wave, as that screen has no inversions applied to it.
- Three eyes, displayed on a vertically flipped screen.
- Five eyes, displayed on a screen where moving objects (That is, Zero and the cursor) leave persisting afterimages. The player must quickly eliminate the eyes before they are covered by these afterimages.
Phase 4
After destroying all the eyes, Zero will briefly return to the Psychiatrist's office, where he sees him transform into a horrific monster. Here, the boss gains a wide array of attacks:
- Syringes appear from portals at the top of the screen and fall down, in groups of either 6 or 7. If they appear in a group of 6, they fall in a random order, whereas the group of 7 will always fall right-to-left. The player can find gaps large enough to stand between two syringes in either case.
- Syringes appear from portals in a semicircular pattern and are shot towards the room's center one by one. They can appear in groups of either 5 or 11; if they appear in a group of 5, they are shot in a random order, whereas the group of 11 always traces the arc of the semicircle in the order they are shot. While the group of 5 allots gaps large enough to dodge the horizontal syringes by jumping, the only way to dodge the group of 11 is by rolling towards the syringe fired first, then jumping over the one fired last.
- Either three or four small flesh-monsters appear from portals in the ground. After a delay, they will They shoot the same energy balls as in Phase 2. It is advised to focus on destroying these monsters quickly before they have the chance to fire.
- A fleshy tendril holding a giant syringe stabs at Zero from the ceiling, either three or four times. Constant horizontal movement is all that is required to dodge this attack.
- A fleshy tendril resembling the Psychiatrist will emerge from a portal and fire energy balls in several directions before retreating again. Attacking this tendril is the only way to damage the boss.
After the boss is damaged three times, the screen briefly distorts before Zero suddenly awakes in his seat in the Psychiatrist's office, his sword impaled through the Psychiatrist's eye. After Zero retrieves his sword, the player can search the Psychiatrist's body and desk like normal.
Trivia
- If the player searches the Psychiatrist's body after he is killed, they will receive the "New Mecca Government Key". This leads to the Government Lab area, where the player can switch out their swords and (eventually) access DLC missions. This also implies that the Psychiatrist was acting under the New Mecca Government.
- If the player searches the Psychiatrist's desk after he is killed, they will find a note detailing the weekly shipment of Chronos, as well as a dossier detailing a hit on Zero.
- The sound files for the secret boss fight's last phase are labelled with the prefix "akira" after the manga/movie Akira.
- The red petals that fall during the boss fight's last phase bear some resemblance to SNOW's signature sakura petals.
- During the first 3 phases of the fight, the text that appears on-screen when the player dies will be replaced with the lines of the Psychiatrist boasting about his power. Phase 4, however, will only have an ellipses.
- In the 4th phase of the fight on hard mode, all of the attacks involving syringes will be significantly faster.
- The Psychiatrist appears to be left handed, as seen in his sprites where he writes with his left hand when sitting in his chair. However, the Steam Trading Card Artwork contradicts this.
- The design for the Psychiatrist was based off of a clipart.
Gallery
Walking
Walking with Chronos syringe
Writing
Adjusting his glasses
Getting angry
Freaking out
Boss Psych, 1st form
Hurt
Boss Tentacle
Steam Trading Card Artwork
