slade
10-24-2006, 05:19 AM
I picked up God Hand a couple of weeks ago but didn't really get a chance to play it since I wanted to finish Okami. Well, with that done, I've gotten to this game. So far, having experimented with it on and off in the last couple of weeks and finally playing it for three hours straight, I can, without a shadow of a doubt, say that this game stands up there with the likes of DMC and NG in terms of game mechanics.
The way it works is that you have a standard combo like pressing square four times and the guy will go punch punch punch punch. Only, you get different moves as you go through the game and you can sub these moves into any of the four button presses to create your own combo so you can do punch kick kick sweep or punch kick knee sweep. The combinations are practically endless because you get a huge amount of moves. Now this is just the basic start point because there are also a few more moves that you can modify and you also get a bunch of moves that you can't. And along with all that, there is the Tension Gauge, which you can use to go into God Hand mode and Roulette Orbs, which will let you do various different super moves. Context Sensitive actions are also there but you need to be fairly fast to use them.
One other thing, you can't block. Rather, like DMC, the emphasis is on dodging but here's the kicker, you're not given the option to jump either. Rather, you use the right analog stick to dodge back and forth and to the sides. It's really responsive so if you get it down, the bad guys won't be able to lay a finger on you.
And yeah, the game is hard. I've already died more times on Normal then I did on my entire run through of DMC3 on a similar setting. The game scales the difficulty based on how well you do. If you're going through everybody, doing good combos, your level starts to go up which makes the enemies begin to get more and more aggressive. They'll start to surround you and will beat the crap out of you in a few meagre punches if you aren't careful.
All in all, this isn't the most technically impressive title. It has flaws like clipping and possibly the most barren environment I've seen since the PSX days. However, look past that and you've got a fairly deep brawler.
And now, a video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MyfbtSyX3mc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5MTITSZACR0&mode=related&search=
The way it works is that you have a standard combo like pressing square four times and the guy will go punch punch punch punch. Only, you get different moves as you go through the game and you can sub these moves into any of the four button presses to create your own combo so you can do punch kick kick sweep or punch kick knee sweep. The combinations are practically endless because you get a huge amount of moves. Now this is just the basic start point because there are also a few more moves that you can modify and you also get a bunch of moves that you can't. And along with all that, there is the Tension Gauge, which you can use to go into God Hand mode and Roulette Orbs, which will let you do various different super moves. Context Sensitive actions are also there but you need to be fairly fast to use them.
One other thing, you can't block. Rather, like DMC, the emphasis is on dodging but here's the kicker, you're not given the option to jump either. Rather, you use the right analog stick to dodge back and forth and to the sides. It's really responsive so if you get it down, the bad guys won't be able to lay a finger on you.
And yeah, the game is hard. I've already died more times on Normal then I did on my entire run through of DMC3 on a similar setting. The game scales the difficulty based on how well you do. If you're going through everybody, doing good combos, your level starts to go up which makes the enemies begin to get more and more aggressive. They'll start to surround you and will beat the crap out of you in a few meagre punches if you aren't careful.
All in all, this isn't the most technically impressive title. It has flaws like clipping and possibly the most barren environment I've seen since the PSX days. However, look past that and you've got a fairly deep brawler.
And now, a video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MyfbtSyX3mc
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5MTITSZACR0&mode=related&search=