Hello, I am designing a game which can be compared to Zelda in many ways and I'm having a hard time with my first "puzzle fight" section. After the introduction, where our hero is given a medallion by a strange divinity and a mission to go meet a character in a far away city, he must travel back to the port. He's a fisherman, so he is on a tiny boat with two wooden paddles, some lures (basically worms) and his fishing rod. The divinity event, which I summarized, took place in what appeared to be another dimension and the hero is back on the boat, only it's now later in the day (before event = sunset, now = dark). Only problem, when night time comes, some pretty nasty predator fishes called Snarks search for food, and the character wasn't ready for this at all since he usually comes back before the sun has gone behind mountains. Snarks are a mix of snakes and sharks who do not attack humans unless they are really hungry. Well, you guessed it, one alpha Snark will try his luck on poor Mr. Hero. Thing is, I have no clue how to save him! I thought he could use the paddles but that wouldn't hurt the monster. Swimming is no option, and lures will only drive away the Snark for a couple seconds. Only the fishing rod remains, but that isn't a particularly good weapon. I thought the medallion could sort of react to the monster being there but there's a logic problem with that : later in the game, you discover how the divinity tricked you into killing an important character and the medallion is some kind of leash. The only "fix" I found was to include a harpoon in the boat that would have been left there by the hero beforehand, you know - just in case. My problem with that scenario is how similar a situation it is to a Resident Evil 4 early boss. Any input will be greatly appreciated!

Great input, thanks a lot.