I wanted to do a video looking back at God Hand as it really is one of my favorite titles on the Playstation 2. As I’ve pointed out before I really like the cult classics that are underrated or got overshadowed by bigger games that released at the same time, especially the ones that just don’t take themselves seriously. So that in mind, God Hand is B movie quality cheese at its finest that’s worth picking up if you’ve got a PS2, or if you still have your PS3 it’s available for download there as one of their PS2 classics. It was developed by Clover Studio, which was a developer for Capcom that only did a few titles: Viewtiful Joe and its sequel, Okami, and God Hand. Viewtiful Joe and Okami alone make for a great track record, but that didn’t keep the studio from being shut down in late 2006 or early 2007 after their 3 leads, Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami left the company and started Platinum Games after some growing tensions with Capcom. If you’re not familiar with Kamiya or Mikami, you’re likely familiar with the games they’re responsible for: Resident Evil, Vanquish, and Devil May Cry to name just a few.

So here’s a quick summary of the story: in the process of saving this chick Olivia, Gene gets his arm chopped off and Olivia grafts an arm with the power of God onto him. He’s cocky but he’s a good guy, and now he’s got the power to fight back demons who are trying to resurrect their boss. That’s about all you need to know. The cutscenes are pretty much all told as sight-gags and they’re really entertaining, and most of the jokes are low-brow. Anybody easily offended need not play this game because it doesnt hold back.

So now that the background’s out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff. God Hand is a beat em up from this weird 3rd person perpective that mostly reminds me of the latest God of War release. It follows Gene at a fixed angle, which forces the player to utilize the right analog to dodge and L1 to do a 180 degree turn. If it sounds clunky, it’s because it is, and really in my opinion it’s the only thing the game really has going against it because the rest of it is freaking awesome. The art style and game world remind me a lot of a mix between Double Dragon and Fist of the North Star, with the way the characters are dressed and the lack of any real civilization in it. I’m sure a part of that has to do with the PS2 just not being able to handle a lot on screen at once, but I also think that it’s mostly deliberate. The first stage or chapter of the game feels almost like a wild west setting and I really dug that.

Being that it’s a beat em up, expect to punch and kick people in the face a lot, pimp slap them, mule kick them, throw boxes, barrels, knock them into the sky, juggle them…oh, and stomp on them. You’ll stomp on everybody.

Being that it’s a beat em up, expect to punch and kick people in the face a lot, pimp slap them, mule kick them, throw boxes, barrels, knock them into the sky, juggle them…oh, and stomp on them. You’ll stomp on everybody. Men, women, gorillas, clowns, whatever that awful thing is… you’ll also pummel people, do some sort of rapid choke hold thing, knee them in the face, and give rapid spankings. If you’re into that. You have regular attacks that you can customize in your loadout screen, a set of special moves in your roulette wheel that cost points to use, and of course you can turn on your God Hand when the TP bar is filled up and you can whoop the crap about of anybody near you. The special moves range from kicking someone into space to stomping them into the earth to throwing projectiles…if you’ve ever dreamt of kicking a guy in the balls so hard that his face turns purple, then this is the game for you. I myself fantasize about that on an hourly basis. But then if I want to act on it suddenly people get upset and go “you have problems” because apparently, we live in a world of hippies.

The enemies range from your typical punks to crazy leather clad women with whips, to the demon bosses themselves. Shout out goes to the midgets dressed like power rangers and have voices like muppets. They had swarmed me, beaten me down and made me restart enough times it made me less confident about whether I could fight an actual gang of midgets in real life. Of course considering the last fight I was in was 3rd grade, I’m pretty sure I’ll get my ass kicked in by basically anyone.

There’s a lot of meat to this game because in between stages you’ll buy more attacks and special moves at the store from some guy in a bunny costume. You can also go into the casino and win more money and play games like blackjack, video poker and slots, and you can also race chihuahuas. Poison chihuahuas. I’m terrible at betting on races and didn’t win a single one, so going to horse or greyhound races is something I’ll likely never do. Anyways you can also do some challenges in the fighting arena for cash.

Like I said earlier, the game’s hilarious and it was a blast playing through. I’m not very good at the controls and they take getting used to, but if you watch any high level playthroughs on Youtube, the people who’ve mastered it make it look ridiculously smooth and easy so it’s a fun game to learn and really get into. It’s got multiple difficulty levels as well as rewarding you with making enemies more difficult if you fight well. Or if you’re like me and play like a geriatric then it’ll mostly leave you alone. Which is generous. If only real life was like that.

So that’s all I got for today – God Hand is a great time and it’s worth getting if you come across it in your travels.