God Hand

"Fist of the North Star meets Six-String Samurai"

The best part about God Hand is the sense of humor. The second best part of God Hand is the ability to customize your every move and fight style. The rest of God Hand is a mixed bag, truly. The game is like a great B-movie that you just keep watching over and over again but can never explain to anyone why you love it so much, it just delivers fun.

Graphics 7/10
The graphics are borderline. They verge on great and then they go teeter on N64 Quality. The character models are excellent and the art design compliments the game. I like all of the character designs from amusing, to stereotypical, to outlandish. The special effects as well are excellent and actually a bit above what I'm used to from Capcom, most likely due to Clover Studios ability. The motion blurs, flames, lasers, and everything else you would expect from an over the top action game is all very well done. The camera is the beginning of God Hand's problems, with its wandering, complete inability to quickly look around, and walls turning invisible when the player moves in close. On the other hand when you see a close up of what our hero is spanking, or need more visuals when it comes to punching a guy in the face 72 times in a row, the camera succeeds wonderfully. The first couple levels of the game take a lot of getting use to mainly due to the controls not the camera, but because of such different controls, it affects the way you are used to visually looking around in a game. The environments are the weakest aspect to the graphics as they are all bland, boring, and contain rare details besides crates, boxes, and various other destructible squares and barrels. The textures of the buildings feel like N64 and psOne quality, but the characters are what you are spending most of your time looking at and interacting with so amazingly it really doesn't detract from the game that much due to the high quality of the characters, animations, and special effects. Presentation of the menu screens are very simple and effective and the menus of the Shop and Gambling arenas are all much less than confusing like something such as NBA Street or Metal Gear Solid even. Finally the graphics for the mini-games, of which they are abound, are all fairly high quality for mini-games and I found myself never getting bored with the visual style of Video Poker.

Music and Sounds: 8/10

I never thought that I would be impressed with the sound quality of a girl being spanked in rapid fire. But I was. From the sound of skin slapping to the let me go whining there was some serious sick thought put into this games music and sounds. The music seems like it was taken straight from the Red Elvis's soundtrack to Six String Samurai (which interestingly enough there are plenty of comments about a character named Elvis as well). The music ranges from Surf Rock Guitar Goof to purposefully pathetic attempts to sing lounge like a drunken Elvis. The music adds a cohesion to the overall game design and although borders on the edge of repetition, it is to fun loving and diverse to ever become truly annoying. The sounds of punches and kicks, grunts and screams, slams and breaks, all are well done and help put the game in that over-the-top category. Sound is one of the things that make this game well above average in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong it is campy, but along with the campy dialogue, the campy characters, and the campy storyline, it has a perfect snug home.

Controls: 9/10

This is where the game truly puts you in the body of a God Hand. You seriously have full control of your character. Though at first there are some HUGE adjustments you must face in order to truly enjoy this game, and some people are not going to be able to make this transition. Your main character does not have the ability to block. That's right, no blocks. The second detail is that the right stick, and trigger buttons, are not used for Camera Controls. In fact you'll find very little camera functions because they are ingrained into two buttons. In classic Resident Evil style there is a button that Turns You Around (180 Degrees) instantly. The main innovation to controls lies in the right stick being used as the Dodge Stick. Instead of blocking repeatedly and then counter attacking, this game instead opts for dodging. Hitting up on the right analog stick causes you to duck, down causes you to do a back flip, right and left dash dodge in those directions. In the heat of a battle, fighting tons of enemies at once, you will find your self weaving and dodging punches and kicks while supplying plenty of your own offense all at break neck speeds. The controls are always responsive and you get exactly what you input. Every battle feels like it is survivable if you input the correct controls, unlike most games in this genre where it feels like you are doomed until you memorize every little movement of a boss. In this game quick reactions and dodging mean you will survive. The only way to pan the camera is by holding down/left or right/left on the left analog stick, used mainly for movement. This will cause the main character to walk backwards slightly while viewing around him. Other than this it's more like a fighting game than ever before as it isn't about taking your time and looking around, it is all about throwing punches and dodging in every direction possible. The thing that makes this possible that every person that hates this game for the camera or controls fails to mention is that there is a radar screen. Just like Metal Gear Solid or Ace Combat you are given radar that tells you who is around you at all times. The radar is crucial for seeing your environment without having to swing the camera around like a secondary character. The second most innovative thing about the controls is that you define your characters moves from a huge roster of punches, kicks, unblockables, dizzies, techniques, knockbacks, juggles, and more. The amount of possibilities are endless, and although the kicks are limited in the game, the punches aren't, it is God Hand after all. Finally, just like other games of the last decade, at times a button will appear on the screen and you will pound it endlessly to either dodge an attack, counter attack, or perform some Fist of the North Star super beating upon your enemies face or bottom. Stay tuned for more on the Spanking! People will either like the controls or hate them, but if you are used to the frantic and intense A.I. of Devil May Cry or Soul Calibur 3 then you will probably feel right at home here, just don't expect the same type of quality or game because it is remarkably different than other action/adventure games.

Storyline and Extras: 10/10

I have a bad habit in video games of skipping movies and storylines if I am given the right to. Hit X to Skip Scene? Sure. It's cut hours off of my play times for games such as Kindgom Hearts II and Metal Gear Solid 3, because sometimes I just want to Play a game not Watch it. This game on the other hand has the most impressive B-movie dialogues and one-liners that would turn it cult if it were a film. The main character is hilarious, similar to Dante from Devil May Cry, but much funnier and definitely cleverer. The characters in the game seem like they were all taken out of Final Fantasy 8 and 10...with what looks like Al Bhed and losers from Fisherman Horizon's everywhere. Then there are the Spandex-wearing G-string girls that you finish off with customized spankings. Seriously. The game has a habit of catching you off guard and delivering the sleaze and silliness that is always passed over in game design in order to please a massive audience. Some moves make an unseen audience cheer with applause. Some villains or bosses are direct rip offs of famous television shows or videogames. All of it is pretty funny. Over the top thumb blistering rapid fire combos and endless options as far as customizing combos and fight styles is what this game offers that most games barely attempt at achieving this successfully. The storyline in a game like is pure entertainment; the plot twists and villains only serve to entertain the player not challenge the nature of fiction. Sure some of the characters are annoying but others are laugh out loud funny and really succeed in bypassing the usual run of the mill design in games of this genre. The Extras in this game include an entire Virtual Casino where you can earn more money for new moves and power ups. The mini-games include Slot Machines, Video Black Jack, Video Poker, Chihuahua Races, and Fighting Arenas. The mini-games are actually quite fun and my friend and I played the Video Poker for half a day just because it was so addictive and easy to play repeatedly without becoming frustrating. There are also tons of extras after beating the game such as costumes, jukebox cd's, other game modes, and Theatre Modes.

Overall Score 8/10

Rent or Buy - Unless you love action games and 3-D brawlers, classics such as Final Fight, Streets of Rage, and Double Dragon, you should probably just rent this game. It is one of those games that you may tend to buy and play a few times before deciding you're never going to play it again, its initial difficulty and huge changes (no camera control, no block) make it unusual. That being said though if you do like Brawlers or even Fighting Games you should go pick it up before it disappears into the depths of a rare PS2 game, you know how those last run of games on a dying game system go, they will be hard to find in a few years if you don't get them now.

Most Similar To: Fist of the North Star/Last Battle (SEGA GENESIS)
Devil May Cry Series (although without guns)
Six String Samurai (The Film)
God of War (Certain Game play Mechanics)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/07/07