God Hand Review

Beat-em up fans, rejoice. More than a decade after the heyday of side-scrolling brawlers, God Hand breathes life into the genre by inventively pushing it into the third dimension. Anyone who is accustomed to games like Final Fight or Streets of Rage will feel right at home with this game. Although certainly taking cues from traditional beat-em ups, an influence of eastern animation (notably Fist of the North Star) is seen throughout the game. However, God Hand should not be written off as a niche game for anime or brawler fans; anyone who likes to customize their characters, button mash a bit, or enjoys a good challenge will find value in this title.

When I say “good challenge”, I mean that compared to most games, this one is very difficult. It’s not frustrating enough to incite controller throwing, but the learning curve for this game is fairly steep. The controls aren’t very intuitive, the enemies are relentless, and at least at first, there are seemingly overwhelming options on how to take out the baddies. The few obscure tutorials in the first stage do little to explain the controls, and even the manual that comes with the game only explains about half of the moves the hero is capable of. Many other moves have no reference on their execution, and must be discovered simply by playing. To be fair, many would enjoy this kind of challenge, as I certainly did. While you struggle to grasp the controls, the enemies will hold no punches. Luckily, this game avoided a major difficulty pitfall by allowing checkpoints in the stages. The eight stages of the game are broken into many smaller sections, each in which you can continue from once you clear the previous section. Be prepared to continue from checkpoints a lot, as you will die, many times. The game does have a nifty system of adaptive difficulty, which changes depending on the player’s continuous combo without damage. However, if the challenge is too great even with all of that, the game offers an Easy mode difficulty, which is simply the same game with the adaptive difficulty tweaked to not go beyond a certain level. With practice, most gamers will get the hang of the controls and the options available to them.

The controls, while unlike most other games, will become second nature after a few hours with the game. Movement is controlled with the left analog stick, while dodging, sidestepping and backflipping is done with the right stick. These acrobats will become vital, as the hero has no way of blocking attacks (interestingly, any enemy can block your attacks). The most powerful attacks available are mapped to the right shoulder buttons, while the left shoulder buttons accommodate the lesser-used actions of taunting and turning 180 degrees. The circle button is the action button, and is only used when the game prompts you to press it. This can be for something simple like opening doors, but you’re also given the option to put the beat down on dizzied enemies with circle. The triangle, X, square buttons, and any directional attack with these buttons are the basic offensive moves available to the hero. This is where the deep customization mechanic comes in, as any of the buttons that handles offense can be customized to attack however you see fit. There are over a hundred different attacks in the game which are found as treasure or purchased in a shop, and these can be mapped to either the X or triangle buttons (and their directions) as standalone attacks, or in the six slots designated for the six hit square combo. Aside from putting the hurt on the bad guys, many of these moves include bonuses that will become a vital part of your fighting strategy. Some moves can juggle enemies, launch them into groups of other enemies, dizzy them, break their block, or evade a high attack. Whether you want to juggle enemies, play defensively, or anything in-between, there are enough moves to accommodate any playing style.

From smashing crates and finding food, to bashing heads with pipes and bats, this game has a lot to offer to beat-em up purists, but the crazy effects of battle and exhilaration of knocking enemies into the stratosphere will excite any gamer looking for action. This game does have a share of less-than-par qualities, such as a story lacking in substance and graphics that leave much to be desired. However, such qualities were never strong points in a typical beat-em up and can be easily overlooked because the action is executed so nicely. Actually, some of the story segments are hilarious in their absurdity. Overall, God Hand will be highly entertaining to those who are willing to uncover the good in it. For those who thrive on frantic action, it won’t give its place up in the PS2 tray easily. For others, it’s still a hell of a lot of fun. Beat-em up fans, rejoice. More than a decade after the heyday of side-scrolling brawlers, God Hand breathes life into the genre by inventively pushing it into the third dimension.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It's funny that you are puting this up now, because I got the game the day it came out and I just popped this baby back in yesterday and it's just as enjoyable as ever. For fans of beat-em-ups, this is the true 3D one, and best one since the days of the SNES and Genesis. Also this games cinematics are a riot. I still can't get over how bad of a sense of humour the guy at IGN must have had to give this game a 3/10.

Great review Max

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hey Max, thanks for taking the time to write this up. So I apologize for having to edit it.

Unfortunately, I had to cut out your screencaps. When you posted this, this brought up an issue that we hadn't quite thought of. We won't be doing images in our reviews. In fact, that has spurned on the idea of a sort of guidelines thread that needs to be made. We'll write that up ASAP.

Again, sorry. This ain't us picking on you, it's just us ironing this stuff out. Thanks for understanding.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Nah, it's fine. I was wondering about that myself, especially considering the images weren't mine. I guess I shouldn't have abridged this review though, 'cause now it looks so short.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

There is no need to make it of a specific length. You also don't need to break it into chunks discussing various parts of the game if you don't want to either.

In fact, we encourage you not to.

I was speaking idiomatically.

He he, beat it yesterday the first time, this one´s a winner. It has some really nice oldskool moments that reminded me of Final Fight and other classics. Clipping (vanishing walls) is weird, I wonder if Clover did that on porpose - they can´t be that silly (haven´t seen severe clipping like this since five or six years). The environments look rather undetailed, but the character artwork, animations and the OST are top notch. Overall a weird game, but nonetheless a sleeper hit that is easily overlooked. I loved it.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?