God Hand

The 3D action game has the player moving in all directions, attacking with the face buttons and using special moves. The player can turn around using a button, and all actions outside of basic attacks are performed via a context sensitive button. Using the button allows the player, as Gene, to jump up ladders, pick up items, and use special attacks on abnormal enemies. Four dodge moves are mapped to the directions on the right analog stick.

The player can assign any attacks, including the Circle, Triangle, Square, and X buttons. Square allows the player to chain multiple attacks at once. There are over one hundred moves in the game for the player to choose from including basic jabs and punches to drunken-style and capoeira martial arts.

In the game's backstory, a fallen angel became the Demon King Angra, whose demonic army invaded the world. However, a man holding the power of God within his arms defeated Angra, sending him into exile once again. The man was then given the title of "God Hand" by the people he saved. A clan of humans was established to protect the God Hands as it is said that anyone who possesses it will be "capable of becoming either god or demon".

The main protagonist is Gene, a 23-year-old fighter who has one of the God Hands, which is sought after by a group of demons. Though he is outspoken and macho, he has a keen sense of justice. Gene is accompanied by Olivia, a 19-year-old descendant of the clan who once protected the God Hands. After the demons kill her family, she fled with one of the God Hands, grafting it onto Gene upon meeting him when he saves her from bandits attempting to take the God Hand from her and gets his right arm removed in the process.

The game was first announced in April 2006 along with the use of a small teaser page on the Clover Studio website. The game was developed by the team responsible for Resident Evil 4. Development was supervised by Shinji Mikami, best known for the Resident Evil series of survival horror games, and was produced by Atsushi Inaba. The original idea for God Hand came about during a conversation between the two about the current state of action games; they found that many games in the genre at the time focused on the use of weapons and had gotten away from hand to hand combat.

Mikami expanded this in 2020 saying that the initial concept started sometime in 1999 when he played Final Fight Revenge, a game based on a popular arcade series he liked. He was disappointed with Revenge, calling it "shit," and decided to one day make a better beat 'em up.

Upon release, the game initially received "mixed or average reviews" according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. God Hand received almost universal praise for its combat system and an attempt at adhering to an "old-school brawler" formula, attributes which the same critics found to overshadow glaring flaws in its graphics, play control, level design, and camera. S. PlayStation Magazine opened its review by commenting, "God Hand is a terrible, terrible game, yet I can't stop playing it.

There's just something horrifically appealing about how bad it is in almost every conceivable way." In Japan, God Hand was listed on Famitsu's "Top 10 Reader's Most Wanted" for a few weeks. Famitsu also gave the game one six, two sevens, and one six, for a total of 26 out of 40.