Vintage Gaming: God Hand
By Miodrag Kovačević | December 18, 2011 | Features | No comments | Share
God Hand is the best game ever made. That’s probably the only proper way to start any article about God Hand. Really, if you don’t like it, you have either never played it or know very little of what makes a good game. It is also a prime example of the mass hypocrisy present in mainstream gaming media. The game was panned for not having “proper” graphics, being too hard and being mostly about punching. These are the same outlets which ignored any obvious flaws of games such as Minecraft and Skyrim and focused only on aspects they excelled in.
In God Hand, you play as Gene, a wandering hero with a big mouth. While risking his life to save a girl named Olivia, he got his right arm cut off by a demon. Little did anyone know, the girl was carrying with her one of two God Hands, an arm which belonged to an ancient warrior who saved mankind from demons ages ago. Now, with his shiny new limb, Gene walks throughout the land, beating up demons, saving humans and being a general bastard. The story and characters are as cheesy and as bizarre as they get: you will fight a demon in a gorilla suit, power ranger rip-offs and a giant Mexican demon called Elvis, just to name a few. It’s nothing awe-inspiring, but it’s pretty damn funny.
Where God Hand truly excels is the gameplay. It follows the basic guideline that you should apply your fist 
to your enemy’s face. That’s the point: punching people in the face, just like in the old arcade days. However, the game doesn’t stop there. First off, you can customize your moves: you can bind any move to the triangle and X buttons, as well as variations like “triangle + up” or “X + down”. The square button is used for your primary attacks and utilizes a fully customizable combo system. For example, if you have six move slots for your primary attacks, you fill each slot with one attack. Then, as you press the square button in-game, Gene will execute each move, starting from the topmost and working his way to the last attack you assigned. The moves themselves are plentiful, so it’s easy to make a build that works best with your play style.
Of course, you can use the God Hand in-game. It comes with two functions: God Roulette and rage mode. God Roulette is brought up by pressing the R1 button and when you activate it, a list of super moves you 
had previously equipped comes up. They can be anything from area of effect, to ranged and stun attacks. Some attacks feature a strong resemblance to techniques from the Fist of the North Star franchise, like Gene attacking with an onslaught of punches. Others are more comical, like our hero kicking an enemy into the sky, leaving only a twinkle behind them a la Team Rocket. Depending on the level and power of the move, it will require a different amount of Roulette Orbs which you can replenish by finding special cards throughout the stages. The other function, rage mode, causes Gene to unleash the God Hand and makes him invulnerable to attacks, as well as considerably raising his speed and damage output.
The main catchphrase in God Hand’s trailers was “Hard, but fair” and it’s quite true. The game is ball-bustingly hard and punishes any mistakes you may make by promptly introducing Gene to the floor. 
However, we aren’t talking about fake difficulty here. No, God Hand is likely the most balanced game in video game history. Any time you die, you know it’s your fault and you’ll know what you did wrong. There is a radar to help you avoid enemies attacking you from behind, while those who are within line of sight have clear visual cues before executing an attack. As you get better by beating up more enemies, taking no damage and dodging attacks, the game’s difficulty increases. The base difficulty is level 1, and it goes up to level 2, 3 and, finally, level “die”. The harder the difficulty, the better the rewards are, but enemies become lethal, being able to kill you sometimes in just two punches. If you start getting your butt handed to you, the game will ease up and the difficulty meter will decrease. Oh, and you can also grovel on your knees if the game gets too hard (no, really).
Difficulty scaling in itself is a concept that was used both before and after God Hand. The game didn’t introduce it, but it fine-tuned it to its maximum potential. It’s a very difficult feeling to describe, but after spending a few hours with God Hand, you’ll notice just how right it feels.
The title was Clover Studio’s swan song, as Capcom dissolved the developer shortly after the game’s US release date. It’s sad because Clover was an amazing studio, but at least their final title was one of the greatest contributions to gaming. If you consider yourself a gamer, or even at least a fan of games, you owe it to yourself to play God Hand, either on the PS2, or downloading it from the PlayStation Network. If you don’t know how or why you should appreciate it, then you simply don’t know anything about video games.
God Hand was developed by Clover Studio and published by Capcom. It was released for the PlayStation 2 in 2006 and re-released for the PlayStation Network in 2011. It is the best game ever made.
