Not long after that, the sequence where Talbot switches the knife to his other hand also finally triggered for me (luckily as others mentioned you don’t seem to have to avoid getting cut here to progress, just make sure he doesn’t slash you a second time on "crushing" difficulty unless you want to start it over again for the 573rd time but who’s counting at this point haha). It’s hard to get it right and might take a few attempts but if you play around with it a few times and make a concerted effort to transition from mashing circle around 4-6 times, then pressing down on it more emphatically/longer once, and then immediately going back to mashing it a bunch of times, Nathan should finally bite Talbot. It might take a few tries to get this pattern right but after I watched that video and tried it out, I finally got lucky and triggered the bite once and pretty soon thereafter the fight was over. Rather than just aimlessly mashing the circle button to no avail (what I kept trying to do for what seemed like forever), there’s a point in the middle of this sequence where you’re supposed to hold circle down for longer (or harder?) once and then resume spamming the button.
![uncharted 2 final boss uncharted 2 final boss](https://64.media.tumblr.com/2b48087f151dc3657a6dd15ffadf4989/d0219efb52881036-ae/s540x810/4ffd806beabf4ae55ff557e4b2b96611c6d9cb17.gif)
What I gleaned from watching the video on normal mode is that there’s actually a subtle pattern/rhythm to this sequence. I could never seem to trigger that as Talbot would always end up just pushing or rolling me away, but that seems to be the key to progressing through the fight. Where I would keep running into trouble was the grapple sequence where Talbot has you held from behind and you’re eventually supposed to bite him. So I was also really frustrated with this for a long time and finally decided to look at a video of someone completing it on normal (with on-screen directives) to see if there was some sequence or combination I kept missing. Here's a video of someone beating him on Crushing in about 2 and a half minutes, although there's no commentary or other prompts so it's tough to glean much information from it: It might just be a function of how much damage you do to him, as most of the videos I've seen where he goes down quickly, Nathan's always on the offensive, punching constantly when not involved in a QTE. There's a particular pattern to when he goes for the final kill (and Sully shows up to take a shot) and I don't see much of a pattern about when this happens. Screwing up more than one of these in a row on Crushing seems to be a recipe for game over. He knocks you down, and you kick him in the head to break his hold.You and he cross arms, but he drops the knife into his other hand for a quick slash (this appears to be the trickiest one - you have to go from mashing the circle button to hitting triangle and you have a very short window in which to do so).
![uncharted 2 final boss uncharted 2 final boss](https://roguewatson.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/pic_1392069558_8.jpg)
![uncharted 2 final boss uncharted 2 final boss](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d4/4e/31/d44e31e898eb06a2f7e835ac1051b31a.jpg)
Talbot's got a limited move set, and most of them involve quick-time events, for example: