Godhand: Be the Fist of the North Star! Jesus Christ!

If you remember, beat ‘em ups back in the day were awesome: Streets of Rage, Ninja Turtles, even the Avengers in arcades all over. However, since we’ve entered the 3D age of gaming, beat ‘em ups have always seemed subpar in comparison to other game types, with complaints like repetitiveness and the game being too easy. However, Clover Studios, creators of Viewtiful Joe and Okami, decided to bring the fun back to the genre with Godhand back in 2006. What made it so great?

Story: Long ago, there was a powerful demon, who terrorized the human realm, but a man with the power of God in his arms came and vanquished the beast. Since then, the arms of this man were protected, and eventually one was given to main character, Gene. As Gene, you and your companion, Olivia, come to a western-like town that has been taken over by lesser demons and with a sense of justice, you’re ordered to ‘clean up the town’ by Olivia, who threatens to chop off your arm otherwise.
Cutscenes tell the story, shallow and predictable as the main plot is, but throughout your travels, you’ll meet a unique cast of character, from the gluttonous, smoking demon, Elvis, to the lustfully, cute-sounding Shannon, to the Mad Midget five, a group of short demons in power-rangers like costumes.

Furthermore, there’s just a lot of quirky humor in the story, such as your first fight with Elvis, when he puts out his cigar before the fight, only to panic and pick it up again to start it up again. Some of the humor though seems to stem from the homosexual stereotype and some suggestive themes, but you’ll at least smile.

Gameplay: With a over the shoulder camera, you control Gene as he moves around the area to fight the many demons, which while easy at first end up becoming “ball bustingly hard”, especially as you end up fighting new types of enemies all the way to the end of the game. However, one of the game’s problems is that the camera is constantly stuck behind Gene and there is no way to control the camera on its own. It has an automatic lock-on feature which when facing any number of opponents, the camera will loosely focus on at least one of them so you can run straight at them. The inability to control the camera can be annoying at first, but in exchange, the right analog stick is used as a dodge stick, to slide left or right, roll back, or just being an evasive bastard. It’s necessary to master dodging to beat the game as Gene can’t block

Combat is standard beat ‘em up and the dodging system adds a interesting level of difficult, especially as some attacks can only be dodged certain ways, but one of the neatest features of the game is how you can customize your combos and buttons to decide which button does what, and with over 100 different moves, you’ll spend a good bit of time trying out different moves to make the most efficient combo.

In addition to your combos and other moves, Gene has the power of the God Hand, which allows him to perform super powerful techniques called Roulette Wheels, which allows players to dragonkick their enemies into the Milky Way or fire a shockwave at enemies, though these uses are limited. If that weren’t enough, Gene has a god meter to activate his God Hand, making him faster, stronger, and invincible for a limited time. Basically, you’ll go Fist of the North Star on your foes.

Even with all these powers and techniques working in your favor, the game is still ridiculously difficult, almost to the point where you want to throw your controller at the television. There are moments where you’re striving off a little health and using hit and run tactics to keep yourself alive and even after you defeat your current enemies, an even more powerful demon appears and you’ll be screwed. Regardless, the game is a lot of fun, and once you get a good combo, you can perform some crazy maneuvers on your opponents.

Graphics: Wow. At first glance, these are some shoddy looking graphics. You would wonder what the fuss about this game is. Truth be told, the environment graphics are bland and block in places and you’ll be lucky to have an entire playthrough of the game without experiencing a graphical wall glitch. The locales are limited and to be honest, don’t make terribly much sense, but that just fills the theme of quirkiness the game has.

Characters wise, the models look decent, at least for the main characters. They have facial movement and interesting fashion senses, plus there are alternate costumes to unlock which carry over to cutscenes. The thugs, however, are just plain in taste and for the most part look-alikes, though they have different attack animations, and there are different neat animations to put on each type of enemy.

Sound: Voice acting is pretty cheesy, but in a sense, it fits the game’s appeal of not being serious whatsoever, and makes the game that much more laughable, since it’s not painfully bad to listen to. The script as said is cheesy, clichéd, and corny as hell, but that adds to the game’s charm.

The real grand surprise is the game’s amazing music score, which contains a rocking soundtrack of rock and trance sounding techno and remixed beats that fit the settings you’re in as well as the unique bosses you’ll face. The credits are possibly one of best ending theme to any game, because it’s so hardcore while still retaining the humor that the game has kept throughout it’s entirety. In my opinion, God Hand’s soundtrack is a keeper.

Overall: Quirky and humorous, God Hand musters up some insane beat ‘em up action while being incredibly challenging, yet still fun. It may have received bad criticisms from reviewers such as IGN (3/10, my ass!), but don’t act like you don’t like the ball buster, because God Hand is a great treasure from a great developer that has since disappeared. 8/10