Imagine an arcade game...got it? Now imagine a 3D arcade game...getting closer. This time imagine a 3D arcade brawler focused on combos and player expression. Ths is God Hand, pure unfiltered 3D arcade-ish action-packed fun from an era that has left us not so long ago: the 2000's, the mid 2000's to be exact. Yeah, the era were killer7 and Resident Evil 4 were also published by none other than Capcom.

God Hand is focused on one thing and one thing only: Fun. Pure, raw fun without limits. The game's lack of proper introduction makes it's message clear: "Go figure it out yourself, you can do it". At first you'll think something is missing but no, they let you run in the wild the moment you start playing. No tutorials, no training room just straight into action. This is one of God Hand's many unique traits, it talks to you face to face, knows why you are here and wastes no time in anything less but getting to the good parts in an instant.

You can't talk about God Hand without mentioning how awesome, yet simple and intuitive is the combat system. Everything is customizable from the get-go, all in the name of the player's choice. From example, you can go for an only-combo oriented build which could decimate an enemy in a matter of seconds or specialize your tecniques on crowd control when you need to, combine both! There are no "combos" that requires precise inputs to pull off, instead every attack has it's purpose: either breaking guard, juggle or launch your enemy. It's stupid simple and I don't know why no one has ever think of it before, The juice is in context, like solving an everyday problem: "What would be best for this situation?", "What would happen if I combine this, and this...?" Note that is one way to play it. The main gameplay loop is to experiment with every combination, being able to craft your own set of combos and strategies to kick ass. Or perfect what you already have.

The mid 2000's was an era of change. Just imagine, the HD consoles were the new hot thing and everyone was starting to move away from the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube generation. There was a sort of uncertainty for the new age because you know, change can be scary and this new generation promised a lot. Why I am suddenly talking about all this in a God Hand review exactly? I feel the mid 2000's was an unique era of comfort way after the Y2K scandal in the new millenium, at least on the video game space. God Hand took birth in that time, in a time while the PS2 was still selling like pancakes, but still everyone knew what was ahead. HD games were yet to completely took and the 6h gen was still giving some fight with unique titles, maybe not as groundbreaking as the beginning of the generation but they were one thing: "Unique". Outlandish, without necessarily having a grandious scope. They were weird experiments that weren't afraid to have the weirdest of ideas. Basically God Hand is overall very unique and there is nothing like it, or at least that I know. The era it was made took a huge role on green-lighting projects like these that nowdays only indies and AA productions. killer7 was released a year prior God Hand just to give a quick example. Want more proof? Look at the description of the game.

God Hand is a difficult game. No, is challenging but also very difficult. As I said before, it gives you all the tools to take out the enemies in with customizable combos. It doesn't suggarcoat your experience unless you want to. In Resident Evil 4 there was a system working underneath at all that change the behiavor of the enemies dynamically to give further challenge to the player. This was done depending of how good you were at it. Same principles apply to God Hand, as long as you don't get hit too many times a bar at the bottom left will indicate whenever you level up or not. I'm going to be honest, at first I thought this "Level Up" bar indicated actually leveling up, attacks get stronger, you get faster, etc. Cave Story uses a similar system were if you get hit you start to lose power, thus making the weapons much less effective. I was so lost in that system that I even did some bosses on "Die", which is the final level of perfection were enemies smack half of your lifebar with a single slap. Don't be afraid to die if you need to and lower that bar. Take my word; this game is not hard once it clicks but is very challenging and demands a lot out of you. That is half of God Hand magic, it is very easy to get into but hard to master.

But I won't say is absolutely perfect, as it has some problems. I already listed one of them which is that it never proprerly explains what does that bar bellow serves for exactly. God Hand doesn't demand perfection, not at all. It demands control. Sometimes the camera acts wonky when there are more than 2 enemies on screen at the same time close to each other, however this doesn't happen too frequently. In larger levels such as the desert enemies can gank up on you attacking from all directions, specially enemies with swords. Tank controls for me are a deal breaker when fighting a large groups of enemies, again. However, 1v1 fights are perfect with tank controls. These were growing pains that I learned to accustomed as the game went on, but on certain occations when mixed all together they were just annoying in a otherwise sound experience.

God Hand feels like a game that could only be made in that era of comfort. You know, living in the moment. Like, you can spank women, send them flying or even gorilla suplex an actual gorilla with a lucha libre custome in the middle of a demonic castle. Reeks ridiculness of the highest quality, the tone is always humorous, whacky and chaotic. Making a sequel will probably be against for what this game was made for; living in the moment perfectly sealed in a safe bubble.