Commemorating God Hand, Cool and Hilarious Beat em' Up from the PS2 Era!

Every gamer, especially in their adult years, must have game tastes that are more focused on certain specific genres, or can be said to change quickly. For example, we ourselves really like the JRPG genre to adventure, but don’t like strategy and puzzle games, even though when we were little we still really liked it. Despite these preferences, in fact there are still many games that left a strong impression on us even though they came from genres that we didn’t really like. One of the best titles that from our experience fits this scenario is God Hand.

Any gamer whose childhood was filled with memories from the PlayStation 2 era must be familiar with this name. The reason is very simple, because God Hand is one of the most popular PS2 games which is very busy being played on rentals in various parts of Indonesia, even though its popularity is not evenly distributed throughout the world. We used to think that this was the coolest beat em’ up game, and until now we are still comfortable with that opinion.

You could say God Hand is a very special game for us, because the playing experience it offers really always provides extra challenges and maximum excitement that we rarely experience in similar games. Of course the difficulty factor is no longer something that is rare, because most beat em’ up games can indeed be very challenging depending on how you play or the difficulty level you choose. BUT, in terms of the level of excitement, this is what for us God Hand is the king. Before continuing to read this article, there is an opinion video from a YouTuber Austin Evans which provides a lot of insight that goes hand in hand with our opinion of the game.

So if I may tell you a little, our taste in games that have a battle system from any genre base feels more specific. Whether it’s a JRPG or any hack and slash game on the market, we’ve always felt that the combat system lacks some kind of strong variety or uniqueness that makes it feel different when played. This can especially be seen from games where the main character always uses weapons such as swords or rifles. Playing games with the same battle system and weapon options all the time like this is sure to be boring, right?

So from there we started to have a great appreciation for games with hand-to-hand combat options or gameplay that relies on raw power. Examples such as the author’s profile picture that some of you may know is a character named Jude Mathis, the main protagonist of the game Tales of Xillia who relies on his bare-handed fighting style. Yup, our love for games to characters who can offer the excitement of this empty-handed gameplay made us remember God Hand again.

Incidentally, recently we are back playing God Hand (via emulator, no choice) and the playing experience offered is even more exciting than we remembered. The game is indeed very difficult and made it very difficult for us to continue progress, such as in the boss challenge against a fat mafia named Elvis which seemed very impossible to complete. But growing up, it’s not just the taste of the game that has changed, the playing skills have also improved so much that we can complete each level easily.

There is also a mechanism that you will know for the first time after playing the game again, namely a mechanism to avoid attacks with analog flicks in various directions that allows your character to move astutely like a martial arts expert. Yes, we can imagine that many of you are already familiar with this mechanism, but after trying it for the first time we were really addicted to continue using it, because besides being cool this dodging system makes every battle especially 1v1 feel much easier.

Although it offers great beat em’ up action games with added comedy elements, this game is not completely perfect. Our main complaint lies in the trash storyline with characters who, although cool in terms of design, do not have a memorable character. Not to mention the quality of the voice acting which is very poor, except in the Japanese version which is at least still pleasant to hear. But in the end, God Hand is a game that focuses on the gameplay, so that lack of it doesn’t make us hate the game. If you describe God Hand as a fresh and sweet fruit that has a rotten part, but at least you can still eat the fruit and set aside the rotten part.

The release of God Hand had sparked controversy stemming from an IGN review which gave this game a score of 3 out of 10. Because the influence of game reviews in the past was much higher than now, many gamers were eventually affected by the bad reviews so that the potential for God Hand’s success fell and even was one of the factors that led to Clover Studio’s closing in 2007, exactly one year since the game’s release. At least there is a new IGN journalist named Mitchell Saltzman who then made a video defending God Hand, which for him is one of the most favorite games of all time.

We do have a lingering desire to see God Hand resurrect in the future in a new remaster, remake or sequel. It’s just that this is not something realistic to hope for, especially with the closure of the original developer and the unclear IP rights now held by whom.

So what do you think about God Hand? is this a game that also left a strong impression during the PS2 era?

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