by Mark P. – April 08, 2009
I’ve spent a few moments wondering how I should start this review, and I realize that there is only one way that makes sense to me right now. God Hand is without a doubt the best game I have ever played. It is that simple. Now, God Hand is a game that fell way under the radar, hated by mainstream videogame sites everywhere, praised till no end by the hardcore. I myself knew nothing of the game until a month before it’s European release. I only had a couple videos of the game in action and the fact it was produced by Shinji Mikami to go by.
It really is no secret that pretty much everything Mikami has worked on oozes quality. It is also worth noting that virtually all of the games he has worked on have a strong Western flavour and tone about them, yet from an aesthetic and mechanical viewpoint are unmistakably Japanese. You need not look no further than Biohazard, Killer7, and Dino Crisis to see my point. Again, God Hand slots right in with these titles. The story of just how God Hand came to exist is an interesting one too. Mikami had just finished and released his latest blockbuster; Biohazard 4, to the world. It was a shock to everyone when he announced the series had departed from the Playstation brand and had become a Gamecube exclusive. Mikami proudly proclaimed “I would cut my head off” if the game was ported to the Playstation 2. Which eventually proved to be a bad move, as less than a year later, the game appeared on the Playstation 2, doh! As a man of his word, Mikami left his comfy studio high up in the Capcom offices, and joined Clover Studio, a subsidiary of Capcom. This is where he, alongside Atsushi Inaba (producer of Tekki and Viewtiful Joe) would begin work on God Hand.
The thought process behind God Hand came from the fact Mikami wanted to develop a game where the player would use his fists to dispatch enemies instead of guns, cause let’s face it, past titles Mikami’s been involved with verge into gun porn territory. So now that every gun catalogue had been tossed out of the window, we were to see a brand new roaming beat em up being developed in 2006, that alone is guaranteed sales suicide by the way. I’ve waffled on enough about what God Hand is, so I’ll get straight to the meat of this review now.
When you first play the game it feels a little odd, it is running on a modified version of the Biohazard 4 engine of course. So you’re stuck with the camera angled behind the character, giving a rather cinematic 3rd person view to the game. The game also borrows the same tank style controls from Biohazard 4, yet the mechanics have been tweaked so well, it is no where near as unwieldy to manoeuvre your on-screen character around levels. You’re given pretty much no time to get used to the controls, since when you start the game, you’re thrown right into the thick of it. Upon the first stage loading, three thugs are placed right in front of you, your only option consists of; a) kicking their asses. I bravely ran forward, mashing the square button, then the triangle button and then the X button a few times. I manage to take one down, but I’ve lost almost half my health already, it’s only around 10 seconds later I see the Game Over screen for the first time. Oh come on, this is bullshit! My next two attempts end up the same way, after another few times of trying, I made it past the first group of enemies, two more enemies were delivered to me almost immediately after dispatching the opening three. I beat them but my health is severely low now, I run into another group of three enemies and I see another Game Over screen. God Hand is a ball-breakingly hard game, so much so I got fed up, and turned off my PS2. Bear in mind I had just spent a pretty penny on this game and my total play time had only consisted of 20 minutes so far.
About 6 hours later, I had cooled down enough and had convinced myself I was up to the task of overcoming what this game had set before me. I put the game back on and tried again, getting a better feel for the controls and fighting mechanics as I managed to progress further through the first stage. God Hand has an extremely rewarding learning curve, rewarding the player with progress the more they delved deeper into the intricate fighting system, this is what videogames are all about. I found myself learning how to dodge, somersault backwards and weave around to dodge attacks using the right analogue stick, learning when to time key moves assigned to the Triangle and X buttons and when to follow up with a Square button combo series. Minor enemies are given quite a lot of health too, a solid 20 seconds of punching and kicking needed to dispatch each one. God Hand was quickly proving that if I wanted results, my hands would have to give my DualShock 2 a good working over.
Outside of your assigned combo set, and a few moves placed onto the X and Triangle buttons were your Roulette Wheel and the R2 button; pressing the latter unleashes your God Hand, a skill that makes you invincible, more powerful and much faster until the little tension bar that accumulates energy for this all out assault had run out. It makes you go from a helpless twat just trying to survive into an all out ass kicking maniac.
I almost forgot to mention the Roulette attacks too, these range from healing skills to over-the-top slapstick fighting moves used to drain a meaty chunk out of a single enemy or a group of them, if needed. My favourite example of a Roulette attack would be the Ball Buster, hitting R1 sends the game into bullet time, with Gene going into a kung-fu like pose, the camera is rotated a further bit to the side, giving us a clearer view of the distance between Gene and his victim. You’re only given a short time to choose your attack, you select the Ball Buster and Gene immediately turns around and drives his heel into the enemy’s nuts, resulting in a loud ding! and leaving him a stunned state. You’re then given a context based action when enemies are stunned (just like Biohazard 4) so you’ll bet hitting the Circle button when prompted and within range, but then it tells you to keep mashing it, you find yourself delivering a hundred blows to the enemy before smashing them into the wall with a final hook in the most dramatic fashion possible. This just doesn’t sound good either, it looks great too, with amazingly detailed 3D fighting animation, making moves look slick, brutal and over-the-top.
As I played on I felt like I was getting better, you don’t just feel this way either, as it is also represented by a small gauge on the bottom left of the screen. During your first couple hours it will barely break past Level 1, but then you find it gets to Level 2, then Level 3 and if you’re good enough; Level DIE. Now I already mentioned this game was pretty hard at first, but the difficulty ascends as you get better. The more you dodge attacks successfully, and the more damage you inflict onto your enemies will drive this gauge up very quickly. This is bad news for you, as this means enemies will deal out more damage, more enemies will fight you at the same time and their health will be higher too. The only benefit from this system to player is that you earn more gold at the end of an entire stage depending on how many enemies you dispatched at a higher Level. This draws parallels with rank control found in arcade games, the only way to lower the rank is to use the aptly named grovel roulette skill or to just..die. The game’s ‘put up or shut up’ attitude to how the player is expected to play is nothing short of genius.
Stages are split up into sections where you face multiple enemies in each one, at the end of a section you might find yourself fighting a boss, these range from a wrestling mask wearing gorilla to an old pissed off katana wielding geezer. All of the bosses you encounter are extremely hard, with health bars stretching right across the top of the screen, your attack strength looking very average as it only chips off minor chunks of an enemies health, with a single hit from them taking off almost a 1/3 of your health most of the time. Boss fights take around 5 – 10 minutes, serving as gruelling tests of wits and endurance.
At the end of each section you’re given free reign to gamble at a casino and eventually bet on chihuahua races (one of the chihuahuas is named ‘Mikami’s Head’, a nod to what I mentioned earlier), if that sounds boring, you can take up the ultimate fighting challenges nearby, the difficulty of the challenges ranging from ‘easy’ to ‘oh god what the fuck stop beating me senseless, please’. All of this is done to accumulate more gold which is then spent at a nearby shop. You’re able to spend money acquired in the game on extra health, more tension bar gauge, more roulette orbs/attacks and even more moves. The game’s fighting system allows you to set your own customized combos which are assigned to the square button and to freely assign any moves to the Triangle and X buttons, allowing you to develop move sets for specific enemies and bosses. At times you’ll be gasping for more health and newer, more stronger moves, the game delivers these to you at just the right time.
All this physical violence does of course have a plot to go with it, with you, playing as young have-fist-will-travel rambler named Gene. Forced to kick demon ass after being given the God Hand since having your original arm cut off trying to rescue a young girl from a pack of demon thugs. Overall the game has a light-hearted, slapstick tone, with the music having quite an upbeat tempo. Cutscenes appear now and then, giving the player a break and a chance to relax, breaks don’t come often in a game where a first time playthrough sees the player continuing 90+ times (yep, that’s 90+ Game Over screens, bub). For a beat em up, the game is also quite long, my first playthrough lasting just over 14 hours.
God hand is the perfect videogame for me, appearing at a time when I had become quite fed up with gaming to be honest. This shining jewel appeared and brought needed happiness into my life. It is a shame a game like this sold like hot garbage, which then saw Clover Studio dissolved, with Capcom recovering their assets. Mikami, Inaba, Kamiya and many others who used to work at Clover Studio, now work at Platinum Games, I only wonder if Mikami is able to surpass what he had done with God Hand.
5/5
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