An infamous game, thanks to a certain review by IGN and its no hand-holding approach that leads to insane difficulty, God Hand is a very good game, albeit with a huge caveat. Getting good enough to appreciate it.
While the IGN review may be laughable, it did point out some truths. This game does not ease you in. From the first stage, you can die very easily as you realize you can't brute force your way or get "lucky".
It's not just the enemies that make the game brutal. The dynamic difficulty rewards and punishes players by granting more loot but also buffing enemies the better you do and with a huge range of moves to learn and pick from, it's going to be trial and error to find out what works and what will get you killed quickly.
So in order to enjoy this game, you're going to have to "git gud." many years before the phrase would come to existence thanks to the Souls franchise, God Hand laid down the concept, challenging cocky gamers with a knowingly smug look that only few would prove worthy.
Which is a shame in one sense. God Hand does not take it self seriously and has a fantastic sense of humour with the story, enemies and even the combat itself (the first major boss could only be described as a villainous Mexican Elvis...it makes sense in context. Kinda.) And despite the levels being set in a ghost town, caves and other generic locations, the level design is so well done it adds to the presentation. Combine it with some hella catchy music and you have Capcom at their self-acknowledging best.
It's a game that should be experienced but there should be no shame if you don't find it's for you and the difficulty is too much (even easy is anything but) but for those that persevere and triumph, there is a beautiful, near-great game that should be more respected for trying to bring something different to the beat 'em up genre.
Rating: 8/10
While the IGN review may be laughable, it did point out some truths. This game does not ease you in. From the first stage, you can die very easily as you realize you can't brute force your way or get "lucky".
It's not just the enemies that make the game brutal. The dynamic difficulty rewards and punishes players by granting more loot but also buffing enemies the better you do and with a huge range of moves to learn and pick from, it's going to be trial and error to find out what works and what will get you killed quickly.
So in order to enjoy this game, you're going to have to "git gud." many years before the phrase would come to existence thanks to the Souls franchise, God Hand laid down the concept, challenging cocky gamers with a knowingly smug look that only few would prove worthy.
Which is a shame in one sense. God Hand does not take it self seriously and has a fantastic sense of humour with the story, enemies and even the combat itself (the first major boss could only be described as a villainous Mexican Elvis...it makes sense in context. Kinda.) And despite the levels being set in a ghost town, caves and other generic locations, the level design is so well done it adds to the presentation. Combine it with some hella catchy music and you have Capcom at their self-acknowledging best.
It's a game that should be experienced but there should be no shame if you don't find it's for you and the difficulty is too much (even easy is anything but) but for those that persevere and triumph, there is a beautiful, near-great game that should be more respected for trying to bring something different to the beat 'em up genre.
Rating: 8/10