God Hand: really a bad game?

[weasels]

If anyone is familiar with the now defunct clover studio's of capcom, then there is a chance that you played or even heard word of a game called God Hand. For those who are not aware, God hand was a 2006 full 3D beat'em up with a style similar to fist of the northstar with a dash of Japanese humor. I Have very fond memories of the game. while it starts out feeling a bit slow and clunky, the game evolves as you get a hang of the dodging system and find and buy new fighting moves that you can use to alter every step of a combo of the main character. For a beat'em up you can't get much better than that. I truly consider the game to be the best new age beat'em up game. Today I read an article on Kotaku (hate it or not) where the author believed that god hand was not as bad as the IGN (again hate it or not) score of 3.0. what got me is a few responses on how the game did in fact suck. This leads me to wonder:
who loved the game?
who hated it?
whats your reason for your above thoughts?

kotaku article: http://kotaku.com/5811393/the-long-path ... is-awesome

ign review: http://ps2.ign.com/objects/822/822478.html

[irixith]

I'm with IGN. It's bland, uninspired and tedious. Little variety in the enemies, poor level design. It encourages you to mindlessly button mash ad nauseam. This quote from their review sums it up perfectly:

"While Clover took a huge risk in hoping that this sort of off-kilter design would appeal to some gamers, and there will probably be a few folks out there who will dig this extremely niche design, by and large the joke simply falls flat. Dead flat. "

[jfrost]

^ I've found that the one thing that doesn't work in God Hand at all is button mashing.

[MrEco]

I loved it. I think the only downside is that there was very little replay value. Everything else was amazing. The combat was fun and difficult yet rewarding in almost the same way as Demon's Souls. The story was pretty cool and the characters were interesting. The setting was the very definition of "Fuckin' A" with a really cool vibe of a western that got smacked in the face with a Japanese game show. It's an absolutely superb game.

[dsheinem]

I really need to get this game just to give it a shot. Anyone have a CIB copy for sale/trade?

[weasels]

^ I've found that the one thing that doesn't work in God Hand at all is button mashing.

isn't that what a beat'em up is though? when it comes down to it God Hand is a Beat'em up with a bit more depth on a 3D plain. or at least that's how i felt.

[Pulsar_t]

I had the Japanese import but the menus weren't in English.. I reached the kinky twins who kicked my ass Never put it in the drive again.

[Majors]

I had two buddies that loved the hell out of God Hand. I played a few times, but didn't have the time to go through it (I watched my friends play/beat it). From what I remember, you do have to put some time into it to unlock the fun combos...so initial impressions are not the best way to rate the game.

[wakeup]

Loved it. One of the most entertaining game I've played on the ps2.

[nightrnr]

Anyone know how this compares to Final Fight: Streetwise and Beat Down?

All 3 games were beat-em-ups made by Capcom around the same time and all 3 have been slammed by reviewers. Although, out of the 3, I hear from more fans of God Hand.