God Hand

"Prepare to take up the Hand of God"

"Prepare to take up the Hand of God"

Prepare to take up the Hand of God: God Hand

God Hand, a new game by Clover Studio, makers of the Viewtiful Joe games and the upcoming Okami. Everyone seems to have their eyes on Okami and not giving enough attention to God Hand, probably because of the unique art style of Okami. I'm sure both will be amazing games so buy them and support Clover Studio. When I first found out about God Hand, I did not care about it much because from the screenshots, it looked nothing special. After looking at some of the trailers, my opinion changed and I fell in love with it instantly. It looks like a very stylish beat-'em-up action game with an amazing battle system and cool story with tons of humour in it. How many games actually let you spank your enemies and kick them in the balls? It just looks fun as hell and fun are what games are about. It is time to kick some ass!

I present to you, Clover Studio's God Hand......

Story/Presentation

The story of God Hand may not be as good as some RPGs, but for an action game, I think it is good enough. Like people said, action games are mainly about the action so as long as the story doesn't suck very badly, it is ok. If you have not heard anything about it and what to know what it is about, here is a summary of it:

Centuries ago, the world was in imminent doom until a man defeated Angra and sealed away his godly powers into his own arms. People feared and revered this person who would become known as "God Hand". Legend has it that anyone who acquired such hands would possess immense power that could turn them into a deity or demon. Fast forward to a small town overrun with thugs wielding super-human strength. A gruff drifter named Gene finds his way to this troubled region and defends a woman surrounded by a brutal mob. Despite his valiant efforts, Gene is overpowered by these thugs and his right arm is severed before falling into unconsciousness. He later awakens to find his limb whole again and that he is now the possessor of the legendary God Hand. The burden of being hunted by demonic legions seeking the right hand of God soon begins.

I can't tell you much about the story without spoilers so you just have to find out yourself when you play it. The presentation of the game is good, the cutscenes are always nice to watch because Gene is a witty badass that likes to trash talk and Olivia is just so cute. The menus of the game is clear and straight to the point, very easy to use. Nothing much else, it is just good.

Gameplay/Systems

The gameplay of God Hand is the core of the game. The controls of the game are simple and easy to learn. As for the camera angle, it is fixed behind your character similar to RE4 and there is no way to move it. By pressing the L1 button, you can turn your character 180 degrees to prevent backstabbing from enemies. Some people may think that this kind of camera angle sucks, but I think after getting used to it, it is not that bad at all. You don't move very slow at all so the camera angle won't really affect anything much and also using the radar, you can see who is behind you.

Next, is the combat of the game and you are given 3 attack buttons. The square button is your primary attack button and pressing it many times make a basic attack combo. The triangle and X button are your secondary attack buttons added into the basic combo to make even more powerful ones. At first, you start with a 4 square button combo that you can equip different techniques to and there are 114 techniques in total for you to use. You are making your own combo as you like and the possibilities are endless. Later on in the game, you can make your combo more than just 4 button presses and also some techniques have 2 attacks in one, making your combos even longer. You can also equip a technique to both the triangle and X button, but only just 1 each. That is not all yet, you can also equip techniques to use by pressing down + any of the 3 attack buttons, giving you 3 more moves. The only bad thing is how they only use the down direction instead of all the other directions. If there are more directions, it means more attacks to use. All the different techniques have different abilities, some can knock back enemies, some can knock up enemies and some can break their guard. You can change them anytime you want and different situations may require different moves. Like in some situations, you may want fast, but weaker attacks and in other situations, strong, but slower attacks.

There is also something you can execute by pressing the R1 button called the God Reel. After pressing it, the game will freeze and you can cycle through a list of special attacks to do. There is a timer too so you can't take your own sweet time choosing it and some of the moves can harm you. Again, you can equip them and there are a total of 29 God Reels in the game. Different God Reels have different levels and some God Reels are support moves. You can only do a level 2 God Reel if you are at level 2 and the amount of times you can do it is also limited. You start off the game by only able to do God Reel 2 times, but as you proceed with the game, you can buy items that give you the ability to do more God Reel. Of course, you can pick up items on the field to refill your God Reel after you used it up.

Another thing you can do, is the command actions. When the enemy is stunned or on the ground, you can do a special attack by pressing the O button or counter attacks with the left analog stick. Other than attacking, you can also use this in certain situation to dodge attacks in a cinematic way. It is kind of like the command actions of God of War and RE4.

Lastly, is your God Hand that is activated by pressing the R2 button. In God Hand mode, you are invincible, your attacks are twice as fast and twice as damaging. After the gauge is depleted, everything will be back to normal and you need to fill it up again to use it. You can also taunt your enemies by pressing the L2 button and it will increase your level bar. As for defensive moves, there is no block button, but you can dodge attacks with the right analog stick. Pushing the right analog stick in different directions will execute different evasive moves, like pushing it to the back will cause a back flip.

In the field, there are a lot of breakable things around and it looks really cool when you knock enemies into it. In some of these things, you can find items that restore your HP, TP, God Reel, give you gold and some other stuffs. You can also pick up weapons around the field to attack with or throw it to your enemies. There are not many puzzles in this game at all, most of them are very obvious and you will spend most of the time fighting. Sometimes, there will be civilians on the field that need your help, help them and they will reward you with items. Don't help them and it will affect the gold you get at the end of the stage. You will be able to find a devil fairy like creature and she will give you missions to do. These missions are optional, but completing it will give you lots of gold and gold is very important in this game. The missions can range from fighting a bunch of enemies in a given time to destroying a car in a given time.

As for the enemies, there are a variety of different enemies in the game and different gender too. Some of the enemies will carry weapons and can do all kinds of special attacks such as teaming up with other enemies for a combo attack. They are able to guard and dodge your attacks making it hard to take down some of them. Sometimes, after you defeated an enemy, a demon will come out from the body and these demons are much stronger. It is recommended to use your God Hand to take it out as soon as possible as it can teleport around and deal great damage. It will be even worst if you are fighting a demon and several other enemies at once. Defeating them will sometimes give you new techniques or good items.

At first, you may think that the enemies are easy, but as you play on, it gets ball-bustingly harder. It is normal to die several times in this game by fighting the enemies and sometimes, it will get you very frustrated. This is not a button mashing game, if you try to button mash your way through, it will definitely get you killed. You need to learn about the patterns of the different enemies and how to dodge their attacks. Even fighting 1 on 1 with an enemy can be pretty tough, even worst if in a group. The mid bosses and bosses are even harder. The good thing is that you can continue from a checkpoint as many times as you want, but at a cost of gold after that stage is over. You get to keep things you obtained before you die if you continue, but if you can't get through that part, it is still hard no matter how many times you try. To compare the difficulty to another game, I will say that the normal mode of God Hand is harder or on par with the normal mode of DMC3. If you want a good challenge then start on normal, but if you just want to complete the game then start on easy.

The whole game is broken down to many stages and in one stage, there are many parts. In between parts, you got the option to save or go to a town like place. A part is normally not very long so it makes life a lot easier for this hard game. In the town like place, you can go to the casino to play several different games or go to the fighting ring to earn money. You can also buy techniques, God Reels and power ups here. The power ups you can buy can increase your max HP, TP, God Reel and square combos. It is a nice place to relax and enjoy before moving on. That is about all of the gameplay and it should give you an idea what it is like. Many people will probably compare this to DMC3, but both of them are very different kinds of games. I enjoyed them both very much and I recommend people to get both.

Visual/Audio

The graphics of this game is not bad, the character models are detailed and nice. The environments are not that nice compared to the characters and effects such as fire are not good too. When standing very close to a wall of a building, you can see what is inside the building without going in and this can get kind of annoying. I think they focused more on the other aspects of the game than the graphics. I'm not a person who cares about the graphics that much so I don't really mind it.

As for the audio and music of this game, it is awesome. The sound effects of your attacks are very nice and you can just feel the impact. Sometimes, there will be background laughters and other funny sounds making the game even more humorous. All the voice acting are perfect, all the voice just suits the characters very much and there are nothing to complain about. The music of the game also helps make the game a lot better, it is just so nice to hear the awesome music playing in the background when you are kicking ass. It suits the feel of the game and makes the atmosphere better. There are different genres of music used like rock and techno, giving it a variety. Every game should come with the God Tracks OST and you will love it. Even though the graphics are not amazing, the amazing music and sounds made up for it.

Conclusions/Overalls

This is a very solid beat-'em-up action game and I really enjoyed it despite the hard difficulty. It is very fun to play and even funnier to watch. It has a very adult feel to it and is very humorous. There are not many games out there that is like God Hand and I feel that this game is very unique in some ways. Yes, this game is not perfect, but it is good enough for me and it should be good enough for everyone else. This game has a great potential to become even better and hopefully, there will be a sequel. I hope everyone will like my review and find it helpful even though my english is not very good. If you can't wait for it, then you can import it and understand it because the voice acting is in english. If not, you can get it when it comes out in US very soon and before that, you can get Okami first. I give this game a 8.5/10 and since there can't be a decimal, I will round it up to a 9. God Hand is definitely not a 3/10 game.

9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/19/06