God Hand Retrospective

How does a person begin to describe God Hand? It’s tediously ugly. The characters are frustrating. The comedy misses its mark more than a Stormtrooper. Yet this mid-2000’s beat ‘em up remains one of the most addictive games I’ve ever played.

Upon its release, the response to God Hand was mediocre. The game had some glaring faults and the mundanity of the environment made your eyes want to blister by the end. Everything was set up for God Hand to be a catastrophe, but there was a saving grace. The gameplay. It’s a jarring contrast. On the surface, God Hand is an unsightly, uninspiring action game. Deep down, it’s one of the most unique beat ‘em up games I’ve ever experienced.

Which is a bold claim considering the studio it came from. Clover Studio, who would close shortly after God Hand’s release, also gave us Viewtiful Joe and Okami. Two of the most stylistically pleasing games of their generation, with tight gameplay to accompany them. They were two games that were showered in critical acclaim - Okami was considered one of the greatest PlayStation 2 titles of all time. Those games showed that those at Clover had creative minds. They also had a daring vision and were willing to take risks. God Hand was the ultimate risk. Going all-in on an intuitive combat system at the cost of the artistic direction of previous games. Was it worth the risk? Considering the average response, probably not. In terms of pure gameplay however, God Hand absolutely delivers.

God Hand allows the player to fully customise their fighting style. The game has over 100 different moves, all of which can be mapped to varying buttons on the controller. You unlock these by purchasing them from an in-game shop throughout the game's story, but your actual moveset can be edited at any point. This allows you to create a style that feels comfortable to yourself. The option to constantly change the way in which you fight is an important step towards stopping the game from feeling like a slog. Another important element is the game's dynamic difficulty. The game has four levels (1, 2, 3 and DIE), which adjusts based on how well the player is doing. Avoiding damage and stringing combos together will raise the game’s level. The more damage you take, the more the level will fall. The first couple of levels are fairly easy, in fact, I rarely found myself falling below level 3. It adds a lot of variety in terms of how the AI will react to your moves and how alert of your surroundings you must be.

It’s truly one of the most adaptive games in terms of playstyle. The gameplay doesn’t quite mask the myriad of flaws the game suffers from. The story is… Fine. It’s clearly inspired by an 80’s anime action series. If you told me God Hand started life as a First of the North Star game, I’d be inclined to believe you. The characters are zany. It’s easy to say they aged poorly, but I’m not completely convinced they were in good taste in 2006. One of God Hand’s biggest turn offs is how hard it leans into comedy. Going the comedic route isn’t necessarily a bad thing but it misses its mark more often than it connects. Due to that, a lot of scenes come off as forced and awkward.

Amongst these unenjoyable cutscenes is this bland world you’re forced to look at. To go from the visuals of a game such as Okami to something like God Hand was such a disappointment. It seems Clover spent more time perfecting the gameplay loop (which they did fantastically) and seemingly stuck a generic world in towards the end. It is lifeless. What makes it all the more disappointing is; you know the art direction certainly puts players off. Those players who decided against it based on its looks never got to experience one of the best gameplay loops the PlayStation 2 had to offer.

There’s the old saying “never judge a book by its cover”. I don’t believe there is a game more fitting of that saying than God Hand. The gameplay is an absolute joy. For a game that’s almost 15 years old, it still is one of the most satisfying beat ‘em up games you can play. It’s intuitive, you can adapt it to play how you want it to play. The difficulty adjusts to your level. The gameplay loop is an absolute masterclass. The quirkiness of the story has not aged well and the world is so uninspired that it will turn people off, but to play? It’s one of the PlayStation 2’s finest. Frustratingly, God Hand gets a lot wrong and that prevents it from being an all-time great. If you stick it out however, God Hand offers fulfilling gameplay that will never bore you.