00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it and discuss my guest today is a friend of the show. Host on super deluxe gamescast and Castle Bravo Podcasts and they will drag and kick your ass into the milky way. Welcome Derek Van Dyke yeah this is great I've been looking forward to this for a long time. We've got a really special game on the show, one that you picked out of my big list. 00:23.64 Derek Hello Thank you for having me. 00:34.68 Derek Yeah, you sent me the original list of like here's the games that I'm hoping to tackle at some point in the near future and I saw this one on there and it could not have been more immediate. I think it was maybe 10 seconds from you sending me the Google drive link. 00:34.88 Dave So I'm really happy to have you here. 00:46.96 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah, and today we are going to talk about god hand which is a third person action game developed by Clover Studios and published by Capcom. 00:52.79 Derek To me being like that's it. That's the one let's go baby. 01:05.56 Dave For the playstation 2 in 2006 and if this is your first time listening to the show. First of all, thank you for joining us today and here's our spoiler policy for this podcast. It's the same as every episode for a while we're going to go no spoilers. And then we're going to warn you when the spoilers begin we'll take a big music break and then when we come back after that full spoiler time you can look down in the show notes for a timestamp for when those spoilers begin. So if you don't want to be spoiled on god hand there's a bunch of wild shit that happens in this game you can tap out at that time and go play it if you're interested. So we have some elevator pitches for what god hand is I say if you've ever wanted a martial arts based beat him up where you can fight the power rangers and a gorilla in the same hour of play play god hand Derek what would you say. 01:53.11 Derek I would say this is a must play piece of gaming history if you want to understand the Dna of an entire lineage of modern Japanese character action games. 02:06.97 Dave Yeah, absolutely, there's a lot of ah pedigree behind God Hand which yeah, ah, big names like the japanese action game and in japanese gaming industry in general behind this game so agreed. 02:09.53 Derek Yes. 02:21.84 Dave I played this emulated on. Ah my pc I streamed the entire playthrough on Twitch if anyone follows the show on Youtube the videos of the streams are on there. You can see me having a great time. You can see me rage at times. It's all there. It took me about 15 hours to complete my playthrough so it's not a short game by any means. Does that sound right to you? yeah. 02:40.96 Derek Yeah, it's much longer than you would expect based on the thing that it is right? A clover studio developed a Capcom action game. You'd think that this is something people could break down to like a couple hour long stream and know who. 02:55.20 Dave No no, this is a this is a long and full action game I was surprised and I started to get like close to the end and I was like oh I'm going to beat this way before like the estimate nope I hit it right on the estimate 15 hours 03:12.81 Derek I do think if you're extremely good at the game like you you can probably cut that down by like a third I would imagine um I so like I I I haven't played I previously hadn't played the game in a while um it was definitely like a I've I played that game. 03:19.70 Dave Um, oh yeah, yeah for sure. 03:30.10 Derek So many times and I love it and it's gonna give me an excuse to go back to it. Um I got about halfway I would say I played about 6 hours and I got to about the halfway point. Um the jokes we made you know I preemptively took ibuprofen because my poor hands I'm somebody who used to play like. 03:42.16 Dave Um, yeah. 03:47.58 Derek Fighting games like locally. Um and I just like one of the things I've learned about aging um is I Just my hands physically cannot keep up with some of that anymore and I think God Hand at its heights does require an almost fighting game level of complexity. 03:56.43 Dave Yeah. 04:06.14 Derek It's not an easy game to play rolling your face against the controller. 04:06.55 Dave Yeah, yeah, right? So let's ah, let's rewind a little bit so you said you played this game a bunch of times. Um, and you're just now revisiting it for this recording basically giving you a chance to get back into it. So what was it? 04:21.60 Derek Yes, yes. 04:25.56 Dave Originally that brought you to playing God Hand and when was that first time. 04:29.21 Derek So um, probably I would say was probably a couple of years after because this was what 9006 right that this came out. Um, yeah, 2006 so I would say it was probably a couple years after that because the game had come out and flopped already. Um. 04:35.45 Dave 2006 04:45.12 Dave Yeah. 04:47.18 Derek And I learned about it through like the game developed a very mimetic online reputation right? and I am somebody I have always loved Capcom I have always loved like almost any era even even like the worst periods of Capcom's history 05:05.56 Derek I can find things to love about a lot of their games I am also specifically at the time in the PS two era I was deeply in love with Clover Studios and deeply in love with Shinji mikami um, you know Shinji Mikami is Shinji Mikami and Hadekki Kamiya are probably the designers who. 05:23.70 Derek Taught me to start looking for people who are at the top of projects right? to start learning names so I learned that shinji mikami the guy behind resin evil four um was and and ah product number 3 which is a deeply. 05:42.23 Derek Underappreciated Under known Cult game Cube game. That's a similar weird messy but very fun experience. Did this wild Bizarre action game beat him up. Um, and I think a lot of the craziest stuff about this game too. 05:59.32 Derek It's stuff that we've seen a little bit more of these days. Um, you know, especially like bayonetta is pretty popular right? So some of the heightened levels of camp and Bayonetta Maybe we're a little bit more used to this but seeing a couple of these video clips I was like I gotta try this. So. 06:03.93 Dave Yeah, yeah. 06:15.35 Dave Ah. 06:16.19 Derek I actually was able to hunt down a used copy in like oh 8 or whenever it was and play this on a PS 2 nowadays simply not possible. Not enough copies of this game were made and sold. Um, as you're probably aware. It is a nightmare finding a real copy of this game and it's never been rereleased. 06:20.77 Dave Um, nice. Oh. 06:32.82 Dave Yeah, and it's probably only going to get worse in that respect as we go. Ok so I'm like I said I'm playing this for the first time and it was basically. 06:35.15 Derek So yeah, I'd imagine. 06:48.18 Dave An episode of one of my favorite gaming podcasts watch out for fireballs. They covered this show or this game and um on their show. They talked. They loved it. They talked a lot of sugar about it and so that put it on my radar and I'd never heard of it before that I never owned a PS 2 never owned a PS 3 so Like. Ah, just a lot of these like kind of more niche or maybe this one came out with a pedigree but it flopped really fucking hard so it that kind of stuff just completely missed me at the time. Um. 07:14.72 Derek It did. 07:22.41 Dave Didn't even know about like the famous ah or infamous ign review that this game got like a they gave it a 3 out of 10 which is something for sure. So the reason I wanted to play it other than hearing other people talk about it is the way people talk about it. Really appeals to my desire to play really big personality games with big flaws like the quote the 7 out of 10 game I love yeah I love stuff like that games that um have very obvious flaws but very. 07:48.51 Derek Yeah, the messy 7 out of 10 Yes. 07:59.72 Dave Obvious personality and like ah you know, almost not necessarily they that they have to be a tour type games but I do like seeing what feels like 1 person's fucked up weird vision in a game and God Hand really felt like 1 of those from the the yeah things that I saw. Ah, wanted dead is another one that came out like last year or two years ago that really appeals to me. I really want to play that game. It might be bad but it feels like that same type of game to me so that was one of the reasons why and then like I started to hear people talk about it like this is actually a really good action game too. So that adds to the appeal. Um, you mentioned being really interested in Capcom as they go and just being like a huge fan of Capcom and the creators there and I was realizing as you're talking I was kind of running back in my head. I played a resident evil game for the first time like two years ago I played a mega man game for the first time like two years ago I've never played a devil may cry like all the Capcom hits just missed me completely other than like the the zelda games that they made that's about it. 09:09.41 Derek Wow yeah I'm such which it's crazy like you know the fact that they developed some of those um in in my opinions with the the best 2D Zeldas. Um, but yeah I'm such a Capcom sucker. 09:17.61 Dave Yeah. 09:24.46 Derek I am one of those weirdos who actually played the original monster hunter on the playstation 2 at the time which is a a for a franchise this big shockingly few people were there at the beginning in in the us anyway, so if it had a Capcom logo on it I was checking it out and I still missed God Hand. 09:31.23 Dave Um, okay yeah. 09:44.44 Derek I Didn't know this game existed until it was well over and done with so. 09:49.10 Dave yeah yeah I think that there's a lot of people like that who I guess only the real ones were there in 2006 playing god hand. So ah, my first time playing it to get in some opening thoughts here before we dive into it. 10:05.17 Dave For getting a good action game with big personality and big flaws. It was 100 % correct, that is exactly what this game is, although I was surprised by just how much fun the game turned out to be. I really really like this game. This is. Awesome! Ah, the things that some people might point to as flaws like how goofy and campy and weird. It is like I just eat that up. I loved it. There is some stuff about it that I really don't like and we'll talk about that for sure. It's by no means a perfect game but I had a great time. 10:33.60 Derek Um, yeah for sure for sure. 10:43.48 Dave This was like just a weird fever dream of people's ideas that get thrown into a video game and the way you deal with them. All is just punch them in the face and I had a great time. This was awesome. 10:55.22 Derek Yeah I Um now of course again for me I'm coming back to this game right? So um and I've played it more than once. So it's a game where the gameplay experience did not catch me off guard. 11:08.51 Derek But it's been a few years since I've come to this game and I feel that it is in the time since I first played this game. Oh god almost fifteen years ago that was very scary. Oh no more than 15 year oh no um 11:28.19 Dave Ah, we better stop now. Yeah, ah. 11:28.29 Derek We're going to move past that right? um like me I've gone from being like a silly teenager who enjoys and plays video games and things lights and sounds and silly stuff activate neurons in my brain and Monkey go Oo um to like my taste as an art critic. 11:48.70 Derek Um, and my my way I engage with art has really changed so like yes, all of those same neurons lit back up as I kicked a dude into space. But also it's really interesting to go back to something like this and really realize how a game like this is. 11:58.12 Dave Yeah, ah. 12:07.32 Derek With no budget and no time still managed to have so much personality because it's like the definition of an auteur driven gaming experience in the ways we see so rarely through gaming history but especially nowadays. 12:21.97 Dave Yeah, yeah, 1 other quick opening thought here and I'm going to bring this up many times when we talk about gameplay is I was struck as a recent convert to the church of resident evil 4 both the original and the remake. Um I am full on. 12:35.42 Derek Okay. 12:39.83 Dave Huge fan of both versions of resin evil 4 this game feels like resident evil 4 but melee combat instead of ranged combat. There's a ton about it that really like lit up the same things. 12:51.16 Derek And I think you're cooking with that and it's not. It's not a comparison I would have initially made. But as soon as I saw you, you know, write that I was like that's exactly true. Um, and of course Shinji mikami the same lead director for the project. So. 13:04.92 Dave You right? yeah yeah I mean this came out what like 2 years after are e 4 something like that like reason you know on the same console at the very least. So it's something like when I was playing it. 13:12.89 Derek Yeah. 13:22.59 Dave You know you've got a bunch of gameplay mechanics and stuff that feel very very similar and then you know just the overall quality of the gameplay experience. Really you know, brought that comparison to mind. But when we talk about gameplay. We'll dig into that more for now we're going to take a music break and when we come back, we'll set up the story. Of God Hand music in god hand you play as gene which is ah by my count. The first video game character I've ever played was named gene. So awesome you play as Gene gene is a martial artist who one day. Ah, saw a young woman named Olivia being harassed on the street by some bandits. He defended Olivia but the bandits cut off his arm in the process. It'll happen. So ah, the reason that Olivia was being harassed. Turns out that she is from this protector clan of the god hands. Which are arms that hold the power of god the bandits were trying to take the god hand from her and so in order to repay gene for saving her and to save his life Olivia grafted one of the god hands onto him. Nice ah, nice, clean thing. He loses an arm. She just happens to have an extra arm with godlike powers. So in the game gene has this mega powerful arm called the god hand and there is an evil group of ah anime villains called the 4 Devas who are trying to resurrect a fallen Demon King and for some reason gene is in their way and. 14:56.86 Dave They're out to get him. That's basically the plot setup of God Hand and it's as weird as it sounds like the rest of the story is as weird as that setup is. 15:05.93 Derek Yeah, it's not this isn't really a game where story occurs so much as like it's again, like you can tell this is a game that very much is inspired by the era The kind of lost era of the beat him up. 15:25.54 Derek Right? This is inspired by things like golden acts and streets of rage ultimately at its core. So it's kind of like here's your basic excuse plot to take you through a series of ridiculous levels and bosses and mini bosses before you get to the ultimate bad. Um, but. 15:36.55 Dave Yeah. 15:44.16 Derek There's not…this ain't a visual novel folks. 15:48.74 Dave Right? It's um, the story that happens most like the cut scenes that you watch are either Gene talking to Olivia about what they just did or about what Olivia wants Gene to do next or they're just cut scenes of the 4 villains. Arguing with each other about why they can't kill genes. That's the story. Basically. 16:07.70 Derek Yeah, your story is actually driven more by um, character interactions by which I mean not as in characters like character Arcs This is not character Arc Driven characters. Don't really grow over the course of this. And Plot events don't like cause changes in the status quo necessarily. I'd say that the story is driven by character interaction in that every major character and minor character is a looney tune and it's putting them in situations that. 16:37.99 Dave Yeah, yeah. 16:43.92 Derek These characters get to play off of it is fully a comedy in every sense. 16:48.63 Dave Yeah, right? So just to expand on that the 4 villains of the game um are a guy named Elvis who is a fat cigar smoking um like Hispanic Asshole character ah, you have Shannon who is a succubus that is her character. You have Azel who is a wears sunglasses all the time edge lord who used to have a god hand but gave it up and now he has a devil hand if you couldn't guess yeah. 17:16.47 Derek You know the requisite Capcom Rival character who has the exact same powers as your main character. 17:23.73 Dave Exactly yeah and then you have ah the leader of the 4 Devas whose name is ah Belze or something like that. He looks like a vampire. He might actually be a vampire that likes this weirdo collection of assholes most to get most of the story again is them talking to each other or. Them taking turns trying to kill gene them talking to gene that's the kind of character cast we're dealing with here. 17:52.87 Derek Yeah, it's um, and like ah I would say Elvis in particular stands out a lot. Um in terms of being like the loony tunes of the lot I think this is where it's interesting because the 4 devas are. 18:10.32 Derek There are four very different types of characters. Um like wow spoiler alert 4 characters are different but in that Elvis feels like he leans into the game's extreme sense of camp right? because you do have a guy with. 18:27.00 Derek Like some kind of unidentifiable hispanic accent named Elvis chomping on cigars. Gigantic akuma style like buddhist prayer beads around his neck. Um, you know? ah yeah, obsessed with food right? Um, who is. 18:38.86 Dave Ah, yeah, huge belly hanging out of his shirt. Yeah. 18:44.50 Derek Generally one of the funniest things in the game whenever he's on screen you have Shannon who is almost a different type of looney tunes. Ah where the character herself is very like played out. Not yeah I guess I'll say played out like. 18:46.29 Dave Um, yeah. 19:01.77 Derek Succubus Character who's just looking for ways to have fun. Um, but some of the shit that happens around her is so bananas. Yeah. 19:09.26 Dave Oh yeah, like she keeps poison chihuahuas as pets and they are just I don't know she is just hanging out. They go kill her guards Sometimes that's something that happens day to day in her life and you'll deal with the poison chihuahuas as you go through the game and it's just. 19:20.39 Derek Um, yeah. 19:26.70 Dave Those are her pets and that's a normal thing in the game. Yeah, but. 19:27.77 Derek Summoning the bus out of nowhere right? like um, you get um Azel who could not be playing the Virgil any straighter than he is um and then Bellsey kind of. To my memory ah because he doesn't make a ton of appearances in like the first half of the game but to my memory Belze is kind of played as the the fourth character who doesn't get a lot of characterization right? He's mostly there to be a big looming big bad. 19:49.40 Dave Right. 20:00.24 Dave Yeah, right? He's the elder of the group but like it's not like people like to respect his word or anything like that. He's just like the oldest one. No yeah, he's not the leader. Yeah, so. 20:02.39 Derek Um, who's not the real big bad. 20:13.12 Derek Yeah, because he's not the leader. Yeah. 20:19.55 Dave Ah, those are our characters. Um gene as a character is basically just like he. He's kind of tired because every time he gets back from one of these missions Olivia has something else for him to do and he goes does the Ray Romano like ah come on and then he goes back out and he does it. And he's full of quips and stuff like that. But you know gene's not a deep character either. But he's fun. 20:43.80 Derek Yeah, and then Olivia might be the loony tunes of the lot in a lot of ways right? as the like mission giver as the character whom the plot like theoretically centers itself around. 20:54.50 Dave Yeah. 21:02.44 Derek Any character who is constantly in different costumes and anytime it's like oh man I don't want to do that but pulling a hatchet out of nowhere. Um, you know I could take the arm back. Ah, the energy is absurd between Gene and olivia. 21:11.81 Dave Um, ah. 21:16.74 Dave Yeah, yeah, the ah energy of the entire game is absurd. So even if you know even between story cutscenes this game keeps up that campy goofy tone. Basically the whole time. So I'll give some examples of this. 21:23.38 Derek Well yeah. 21:35.85 Dave Ah, your health pickups. This is an action game. So you need to refill your health from time to time they're giant pieces of fruit in this game like ah like it's a Kirby game or something like that and every time you pick one up gene yells awesome. It's a nice little thing. Ah. 21:48.14 Derek Yeah. 21:51.26 Dave Little thing you ah you have a super meter to do your ultimate God Hand mode and you refill that by picking up porno magazines um Genes running animation is just his regular walk animation sped up and it's very funny. It's so good. No. 22:02.11 Derek 1 of my favorite things. 1 of my favorite things because it doesn't look good at all, but that is the joke. This is not because they couldn't make a run animation. This is it would be so funny if he just did his jog. 22:10.66 Dave No yeah. 22:20.50 Derek At like fast forward speed. 22:21.87 Dave Yeah, it's very good like whoever had that idea , it's genius. You know, save them some time and it's very funny. Um and then like you'll get some story cutscenes between gene and antagonists and enemies and stuff and they're all just. Ridiculously goofy. We'll talk about the bosses more in the spoiler section. But you know I already mentioned the power rangers and a gorilla. Ah, but there's 1 example of a cut scene that I have not forgotten since it happened in the game and Jean's in his hotel room. He's looking for Olivia. Ah, these 3 thugs burst into the room to try and ambush him and fight him 2 of them gene punches out the window and out into outer space like immediately and the third one winds up like charges at him to attack and gene just kind of like puts his hand up and stops him and then he kind of motions over. Like hey go stand in front of the window and the guy just kind of nods and goes over and stands in front of the window and then gene punches him out the window as well like this is the the tone we're dealing with here. Yeah. 23:24.30 Derek It's just a bug bunny. It's just bugs Bunny This is fist of the North Star but Bugs Bunny Um, another great example, kind of in the same ah vein as like the run animation is you will frequently have the ability to do this kind of thing. 23:29.73 Dave Yeah. 23:41.65 Derek Scripted quicktime events like attacks on enemies and it's always like you know mash the button to keep attacking the enemy but it will almost always be this 1 attack animation that just is the same animation repeated faster and faster and faster until you know something ridiculous. So like you know. 23:48.45 Dave Um, yeah. 23:56.79 Dave Ah, yeah, but. 23:59.83 Derek 1 of my favorites is you get behind a dude and you get him in like a you know arm around the neck and you like break the neck but then you just keep breaking the neck like a dozen times a second and it's the most it's it's just insane. 24:06.16 Dave Um, yeah. 24:14.96 Dave Yeah, there's the one where you um, someone's down on the ground and you stomp on them. Ah, but like so let's let's just say for the sake of argument you stomp 40 times when they're down there. You get 40 stomps before it's all over. 24:18.22 Derek Oh the stomp is good. 24:30.13 Dave But the enemy will usually roll out of the way at like stomp number 25 or something and Gene is just stomping on the ground.. There's no one there anymore. So stuff like that all plays into it. Um, voice acting is also charmingly bad I would say like it's. Of this era too I mean 2006, we've had, you know, professional sounding voice acting for a really long time now and not that these don't sound professional but they're all goofy as hell and it sounds. 25:03.96 Derek They're like the direction talented voice actors were given direction to be very silly like Sam Riegel is like a third of the mail cast right? So that tells you everything if you know anything about Sam Riegel you're like oh I get it. 25:06.96 Dave Yeah. 25:17.20 Dave I don't know who Sam Riegel is by name. 25:20.52 Derek Um, oh man. Well he voices um Azel 1 example, but he voices like a ton of the mini bosses. He is very memorable if you like where you go as that guy. Um, but he's got he he he he's a um. 25:24.12 Dave Oh okay. 25:31.50 Dave Okay, gotcha. 25:39.59 Derek Tremendously talented voice actor. You've heard him in a bunch of stuff. He's a very kooky kind of guy in real life. Um, and he's very well suited to these sorts of kooky roles. But even cares like Jamon price I think jamison price voices Elvis um, and Jamison price is giving. 25:59.20 Derek A performance Capital a Capital P performance. 26:01.00 Dave Um, yeah, agreed? Yeah, um, Gene Gene has a really quippy like again like Leon Kennedy style ah voice lines you know, just always antagonizing the villains or enemies and stuff like that. Um, Gene's voice performance is very carefree. I don't know, maybe should be worried in situations. But he's one of those that never. You know, too shaken up by anything that's going on, always telling people that you know you're boring when you hit the taunt button and stuff. Um and ah the enemies all have really fun and memorable like voice barks to them too I can never forget the one. That's you're not Alexander the. 26:44.97 Derek Oh the barks are great. Yeah. 26:52.59 Dave Throughout the game like who the fucks alexander then you hear another enemy in the same level go I'm Alexander the great and I'm like okay this is a thing that that they're concerned with what's going on here. 26:59.66 Derek Um, yeah I Love the um, the for lack of not using the actual name. The power rangers have some of the wildest lines. 27:11.95 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, there's one part where their taunting Gene and Gene is mocking mock taunting them back and it's ah just a really. 27:16.38 Derek That you can imagine. 27:26.89 Dave Wonderful but stupid exchange between them. You know, the more that we talk through this, I don't think there's a serious bone in this game's body when the story is concerned. 27:38.14 Derek No, there is a ridiculous urban legend around this game that far too many people believe that the ah the comedic tone was something that was only in like the big reveal trailer. Um, and that Capcom had to go in and like make the rest of the game funny because of how people reacted to it but that this is simply not true. It's not possible. You know this game does not happen in a few months of course correction and script punch up. This was. 28:05.33 Dave Um, it feels baked in. Yeah. 28:13.21 Derek From the outset meant to be something truly zany. 28:17.80 Dave Yeah, absolutely yeah, um, and then ah the other thing about this game's tone and I feel like it's something that has to get brought up if you're going to talk about this game. The writing in character portrayals is the way this game portrays women is pretty uncomfortable. 28:32.49 Derek I Mean yeah. 28:34.32 Dave In the modern day I would say that I can't think of any female character in the game who's not objectified or made fun of in some way. Ah for being a woman Basically well. 28:44.89 Derek Well, there's really only 2 women in the cast. Really yeah. 28:50.71 Dave There's Shannon and there's Olivia Shannon is a succubus so like whatever she's going to be sexy because that's the character. Um I'm talking about like all the female enemies that you fight we talked about the qte es where you stomp on the enemies. Well there is a woman enemy specific q to e. 29:00.68 Derek That too though. Yep. 29:09.20 Dave Where you bend them over and spank them repeatedly until they they shoot across the screen which we were talking about in our streams of like okay feminist run of God Hand where you don't do this bank in QTE and then I got later in the game where things were too difficult and I was like sorry I can't do it anymore I got got to. 29:18.92 Derek Yeah. 29:25.12 Derek Yeah, yeah. 29:28.85 Dave Um, and then like Olivia is portrayed as this like you know, conniving manipulative character toward Gene as much as this game can portray a character like that like she is like. 29:40.72 Derek Yeah. 29:45.80 Dave Gene and her are set up as a team and Gene is trying to save her. Gene's not a great person but Olivia's not a great person either. So it's just like if you're putting together a list of all the women in the game. She's not really portrayed in a very flattering way either. But it's mostly those q to es to be honest. 30:02.83 Derek Yeah, and like I you know what women have the right to be um, awful failed daughters just as much as right but like there's 2 women 2 like women characters named women in the game and both of them suck and. 30:08.85 Dave Yeah. 30:20.72 Derek Both of them like again one is a succubus whose entire personality revolves around like fan service stuff and then Olivia is constantly, she wears ah a super low cut shirt to expose the cleavage that the camera likes to linger on. There's a scene where you've got to talk to her and she's in the bathtub. 30:37.60 Derek You know there's the bit where she's in the classic Playboy Bunny outfit like they love to find ways to play into like Olivia should be like a fan service character and it sucks because sometimes they do have some fun with that right? like when she's in the bathtub and then she pulls the axe out of the bathtub. 30:53.61 Dave Um, yeah. 30:56.90 Derek Is very funny. Um I don't think it's necessarily that Olivia and Shannon are types of female characters. You can't have or portray it in games right? saying this is somebody who is not a woman. Um I think it just sucks that there's not a single woman or feminine person in the game who is not that. 31:14.72 Dave Um, yeah, right? yeah. 31:16.48 Derek Who is not running around in bondage gear with their titties out you know, ah with a whip or getting spanked or um, it's it's it reads in the context of god God Hand as childish not as like. 31:34.41 Derek I Don't know how to really say it but it reads as childish not as malicious, but um, it doesn't feel great. Yeah. 31:42.53 Dave No, no definitely doesn't and it was something where I was like I'm making my notes for the podcast we're going to talk about what this game is serving up to you the player and that's definitely something that stuck out to me especially because. Ah, this game is difficult and part of your ways to success because there's a lot of female enemies that you fight. 1 of the main ways that you're going to get through this game is by spanking the shit out of all of them. So yeah. 32:13.58 Derek Yeah I think you could excuse me. Um you can kind of extend that to the game has a very comedy at any sake mission in a lot of ways and sometimes that leads to it. 32:25.44 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. 32:28.44 Derek Like leaning into like offensive shock humor. Um, and it sucks because often they do succeed at being very funny but also we've been talking around the power rangers right? and the name for the power Rangers uses a word that is. 32:38.13 Dave Um, yeah. 32:46.80 Derek Broadly considered deeply offensive. Um, you know , people with dwarfism. Um, you know we don't use the m word in the m words all over the place here. But at the same time there is inherent comedy to these 5 32:49.18 Dave Um, yeah. 33:04.46 Derek Undersized power ranger assholes and they're stupid voice lines and they're like flashing their gooches at you simultaneously to make a v right? Um, you have the Mr Gold and Mr. Silver right, the 2 very flamboyant ah gay mini bosses that you fight. 33:12.32 Dave Ah, yeah. 33:15.44 Dave Yeah, yeah. 33:23.40 Derek Who are don't get me wrong. Um, the lgbtq plus community accepts and embraces Mr. Gold and Mr Silver but they are very much like a little bit of an ignorant view of especially in a very like japanese way view of homosexuality. 33:42.90 Derek Um, you know, but um, so like problematic fave you know, not not coming for god hand not coming for a 2006 ah beat him up that had no money behind it but go into it knowing like it's a bit messy. You're going to groan and have to overlook a few things. 33:53.26 Dave Yeah. 34:00.37 Dave Yeah, it's a bit just. 34:16.92 Dave You know, insensitive across the board. Even we talked about Elvis like Elvis is a comedic character. They do make fun of him for being very fat several times. So it's insensitive like the degree that you're offended or think that it's problematic is going to be up to. 34:25.53 Derek Um, yeah. 34:36.15 Dave Individual person for sure, but it is something that I did feel like we should bring up when talking about how this game does comedy because it does it in a lot of childish but harmless ways throughout the game like so much of that is you know, just. 34:43.22 Derek Um, yeah. 34:55.54 Dave Good, clean, fun and then so much so much of it is not also so hit on both parts. Yeah yeah, yeah. 34:57.63 Derek Yeah, this is not South Park where it's like seeking out to be like are you offended? Are you offended? It just leans into sometimes some very dumb avenues of humor that are kind of offensive. But even that talks about fat jokes with Elvis right? there's. So much going on around Elvis and so much physical comedy that has nothing to do with his obesity or love for food that um, like it's it is at least good in that it does not let that joke solely define. 35:21.60 Dave Yeah. 35:32.55 Derek Most of what's going on with these characters even like Shannon right? as a succubus. It'd be so easy to lean just into um her being you know a woman being sexy leaning into like how can we play with that for comedy the spanking mini game but she has poison chihuahuas. 35:33.46 Dave Yeah. 35:52.20 Derek Right? She summons a bus out of nowhere in one of the most like it hurt my belly. I was laughing so hard when she pops the bus into the circus tent. Um, you know it's a lot of games. It's coming at you with so much at once. 36:01.35 Dave Ah. Yeah. 36:08.17 Dave Yeah, absolutely so it is a camp be good time with some caveats and things that you know are just a little bit uncomfortable. But I think that you bringing up Elvis in particular and the way that they create comedy around Elvis is a good time. To transition a little bit. We're going to listen to some music and we'll come back and talk about this game soundtrack because it is special, the soundtrack of god and a really diverse soundtrack. That's the 1 thing that I like about playing the game. And then the songs that stuck in my head all kind of fit. Well not all that's a lie a lot of them fit neatly into this like I would describe it as like heavy surf rock especially like the main menu theme and then the theme of the first level which then gets turned into your ultimate God Hand theme. Um, those are the songs that really stuck with me but then I listened back through the soundtrack over the last couple days. There is a lot going on in the soundtrack. So many different genres and moods and I guess like the 1 throughline between them is there like it's mostly upbeat and fun. Ah, but different genres. 37:25.89 Derek Yes, yeah, the music adds a lot to especially a lot of the boss tracks right? Um, so many of these boss tracks' music can really change the atmosphere surrounding you know if you're. 37:30.87 Dave Yeah, yeah, but. 37:42.28 Derek Fighting a boss for the second time is like a cemetery and you know it's dark and etc. Um, but then like ah ah your music track can lean into a creepy spooky vibe or you can just go full wackadoo. 38:01.50 Derek Um, and very often this game chooses the latter it chooses to lean into the absurd. 38:05.13 Dave Yeah, absolutely so back to Elvis when you fight Elvis and you fight him multiple times. When you fight Elvis the first time you fight him you have this clubby dance song happening in the background. But. The vocals are Elvis Impersonator vocals over the top of a song in which it barely fits. It's like they were like okay we have this song someone made this song. Okay now wouldn't it be funny if there was some guy going boo boop blue over the top of this song. And they were right again. It's very good. Yeah. 38:40.80 Derek Yeah, Fake Elvis scattering on top of like a club beat is it turns out a tonal dissonance that really sets the mood. 38:49.51 Dave Yeah, and then later you fight him again and some stuff has happened with his character and I would describe the music as like organy castlevania type music. But those Elvis impersonator vocals are still there. 39:02.60 Derek Still there. Oh. 39:08.53 Dave It's so good and then you talked about wacky shit. Ah when you fight the gorilla that we talked about you have this big bombastic Carnival music happening in the background and it's just insanity. Yes, yes. 39:18.19 Derek Yeah, not just a gorilla a gorilla luchador I do think that that's an important piece of context for listeners who have not played the game. Um, Shannon's Shannon's fights are also really, really interesting tracks because you would expect for them to go like that. 39:25.87 Dave Yes, correct. But 39:35.48 Derek For a very sexy , pounding base like again very like a club kind of trance sound I think stereotypically you're talking Boss fight against a succubus. You're going to expect to hear I don't know something like out of darkstalkers right? Um, and instead. 39:48.65 Dave Okay. 39:53.50 Derek It's very what genre would you even call Shannon's Shannon's boss fight um the first time you fight her in the circus tent right? It's like listening to it. 40:05.49 Dave Um, I'm having trouble remembering that song. 40:11.92 Derek A toddler with a synthesizer. It's so dissonant and yet it weirdly fits the idea that I'm fighting a Valley girl Succubus inside a big top. 40:22.88 Dave Um, yeah, ah there it is. It's a special soundtrack. There's very little like. 40:37.99 Dave Where they seem to have like matched up with what you would expect from a video game like the only thing that really I think fits your expectation of what soundtrack is going to happen is like maybe when you fight the final boss or when one of those demons spawns up from a downed body like the song that starts playing there. Otherwise it's a total wild card as to what the soundtrack is going to do and I think if I went back and rewatched my streams of it there'd be more than 1 hand's worth of times when I laugh when music starts because it's just so unexpected and weird. But awesome. 41:08.88 Derek Oh for sure I It feels like the running point with this game was to make you laugh at every opportunity and with every tool they had at their disposal. 41:26.95 Dave Um, yeah. 41:28.37 Derek Um, whether or not you understood why you were laughing or not so that can be the enemy designs. It can be the writing gags. It can be. You know the style of the music coming out of nowhere in a genre switch up. It is a master class in. 41:30.10 Dave Yeah, yeah. 41:48.40 Derek Constantly subverting your expectations. 41:48.69 Dave Yeah, absolutely and I'm not going to go too much into this because I do feel like people should experience this for themselves. However, they want to experience it whether you finish the game and hear the end credit song or whether you make the decision to go look it up the end credit song of this game. 41:57.67 Derek Yes. 42:07.31 Dave I had heard so much about this song at the end of God Hand and I had thought in my head. Well I'm sure it's good, but there's no way it's that good and it is that good. It lives up to the hype. It's the weirdest and most incredible shit. At the end of the experience of playing God Hand I I've been going around my house singing for the last couple days to myself. 42:31.94 Derek Um, it's this wonderful weird like campy thing. It is a parody of like 1960's anime opening music in a lot of ways. 42:48.32 Derek It is very specifically a parody of the original MazingerZ Opening song in which I will have to Dm you see you can listen to it but you will immediately like they even ripped the main riff is like the last two notes of the rif are changed for legal reasons. But otherwise it's that. 42:56.95 Dave Okay, yeah. 43:05.11 Dave Um, okay. 43:07.89 Derek Um, but like also like it fits into the vibe of old 60 You know some character would go on talking about how how you know tough they are and how much they're going to beat up the bad guys and constantly name their super attacks and stuff like that. Um, but yeah wow what a that at the end of that experience. 43:18.69 Dave Um, yeah. 43:25.40 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely because you know it the end credits of God Hand are max 45 seconds after you finish the final boss fight and the final boss fight is an. 43:27.41 Derek Does make you feel like you're dissociating. 43:44.70 Dave Absolute endurance test slog long fight. So when you get to that point like you're you're broken down and you're ready to just have that hit you right in the face when it starts so it's. 43:59.52 Derek Yeah. 44:01.52 Dave We'll ah we'll we'll get into that more in the spoiler section when we talk about you know how that fight goes and all of that stuff. But for now I just want to acknowledge all the people that played God Hand and know what we're talking about. Yes, it lived up to the hype. Absolutely. 44:11.92 Derek Yeah, 10 out of 10 games to experience derealization with. 44:21.10 Dave Ah music I well will just take a pause here I don't have anything to say about the visuals in this. Do you. 44:24.77 Derek Yeah I mean like in that it's kind of Capcom's in-house style at this point right? it looks like onimusha. It looks like the Devil may cry. It looks like um. 44:41.19 Derek Oh shit, what's that one? um capcom horror game on the PS 2 with the damn haunting ground. That's it. Um, it's a very Capcom visual aesthetic. I don't know how to explain that. 44:56.20 Dave Okay I guess I guess we'll bring it up. Yeah yeah, so. 45:05.32 Derek Um, yeah. 45:12.10 Dave Visually I think that not a lot in God Hand really stood out to me other than ah the things that you need to see are really apparent like they stand out really? Well, they're all goofy as fuck like you need to see your health pickups. They're giant pieces of fruit laid against this. 2006 looking game where there's not a whole lot of like color in anywhere except for that giant strawberry floating around. Um, yeah. 45:37.55 Derek It's intentionally a very brownish like drab color palette. I think it's very , very inspired actually god I've got more about this to say than I thought I did. It has a little bit. The Capcom house style for lack of a better term right? like you can see genes fitting in directly alongside. Um, you know like Devil May Cry um you know it's an aesthetic that you see in like Resin evil and haunting ground and onimusha. Um, but. 46:07.60 Derek Game clearly pulls a lot of visual inspiration from like fist of the North star. Um, both in its palate and in its aesthetic. It's kind of weird west that it's going for. Um, you know it's. 46:09.63 Dave Okay. 46:15.83 Dave Yeah, yeah in the early levels. It does have that weird West kind of field to it and then eventually you get into castles and stuff like that. But yeah. 46:28.40 Derek Yeah, um, and then and then um, you know the enemies are there was a note somewhere that I remember saying about how weirdly tall a lot of enemy characters are given that Gene's not a small person himself. 46:40.70 Dave Yeah, yeah. 46:45.60 Derek But of course the enemies are huge. It makes them bigger targets for this brawler game where you play with tank controls. Um, so there's a lot of yeah big Mr. Gold Mr. Silver are like nine feet tall willowy. Ah. 46:48.90 Dave True. There's some that are comically large like if you imagine Gene as being six feet tall or something like that. These enemies are nine feet tall yeah Yeah 47:03.71 Derek You know nine feet tall willowy bald black dudes and giant feather boas you know, um. 47:07.83 Dave Yeah, yeah, the costume design I guess for the enemies is 1 visual thing that really stands out. Um, will you? you describe them. But I would describe most of the enemies in the game as being some mix. Some mix of punk rock and or like bdsm ish designs. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. 47:26.80 Derek It's like heavy metal right? like it's this weird like Barbarian wasteland leather kind of aesthetic. Yeah I mean and then you get the gorilla in the Lu cha or costume and the dudes dressed as the power rangers and. 47:35.99 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 47:40.93 Derek You know again like you establish a baseline and then you break it as often as possible. 47:44.74 Dave Yeah, there's a just I Just remember the guys that have the they look like mad max ish like villains with these big glowing Blue Mohawks and then they throw their mohawk at you. 47:58.16 Derek Yes. Ah, what is this game man? 48:05.35 Dave Ah? yeah, yeah, there's not like a ton to say about like visuals like there's not a lot that is super striking about it. But that's not the point of this game. All the stuff that they want you to pay attention to they clearly like. Took time designing or making sure it stands out the environments and stuff are as bland as they could be because I guess they don't want you to stop and smell the roses Really,, you're Moving. You're punching people in the face. You know. 48:31.96 Derek Yeah, it's pretty fast paced so it would be a lot of wasted detail on a level that you're blazing through. 48:42.67 Dave Yeah, exactly so speaking of punching in the face. Let's listen to some music and come back. We'll finally get into the gameplay in God Hand so god hand is a third person brawler. It's set ah in that. Resident evil 4 type camera behind your character who is over on like the left side of the screen again. There's comparisons to a e four come back up as if this is the melee version of that game in my opinion so things that kind of made me think of that you control this game with tank controls. But since it's behind your character I always find these types of tank control games to be much easier than the fixed perspectives from early resident evil etc. Um, this game has a quick turn on l one. You'll do a quick one eighty turn which is super. 49:25.60 Derek Um, yeah. 49:33.66 Dave Ah, helpful both with the tank control setup but also because you're surrounded by people and you're trying to fight and the camera perspective only shows you half of the view. Basically so that quick turn is really really good. Um, and then you press square to attack. Combo you're attacks together. There's only when you're making combos if you want to like think about this as a fighting game if you're used to fighting games or a beat em up. You're really just pressing square to go through this multi hit combo and I think ah. Later parts of the game I think it's 6 hits in the combo maximum and the thing about this game is that you will pick up skills as treasure or you can buy them in the shop and you can individually swap these in and out so like you're like I want the first hit in my combo to just be a jab and then my second hit to be a hook and then the third hit to be a kick or any number of like the hundreds of skills you can pick up in this game. The customization is wild. 50:34.16 Derek Yeah, imagine getting like every move that's available to imagine playing something like street fighter right? and you are given every move that you can do. But the only attack button is the square or or. 50:52.90 Dave Yeah yep, right. 50:53.39 Derek Ah X button and you're just told pick six of these and put them in an order and he'll do that whether it works well or not ah and some of these attacks are like you said like a simple jab. You know, ah a hook and uppercut a low kick. But then some of these attacks are like a ridiculous two seconds long. Ah, spitting drop kick that leaves Gene on the floor. Um, and you can make completely useless combos like the complexity comes from toying with what moves you're putting into the combo and how you're leading them together. 51:14.50 Dave Um, yeah, yep. 51:19.18 Dave Oh yeah. 51:26.90 Dave Yeah, and so I ran into situations throughout the game where it was like I found a set of 6 moves that I really like and it carries me through a couple levels and then I get to a level later where it's just not working anymore and I have to go and customize and switch things out and think like. Okay I need to get them into a stunlock. So my first hit in the combo I want to have some more reach there. So let me put a move with more reach in number 1 or hey they're throwing up their guard when I get to like move 3 or 4 in the combo. So let me put a move that has the guard break effect. At that point in my combo you can really really customize and tailor what you're trying to do to whatever situation you're in. Maybe you're fighting a boss and you're not going to guard and break this boss because it's not human. So let me take that guard break move out because it's not doing shit and I just need to put something in that's gonna get. A bunch of like dps in there. That's what I really need. Yes, exactly? Yeah, so um, this customization really really enhanced the experience for me. This is really cool and. 52:24.55 Derek Yeah, it turns out you can't guard break construction equipment. 52:41.74 Dave I'm not somebody who likes getting down with complicated combos like a bayonetta or something. I just kind of button mashed things that feel good in those games and I don't do fighting games. I'm horrible at those games. 52:56.11 Derek Yeah. 52:58.56 Dave But this one the fact that it's all simplified to one button and you're just controlling the order of the moves that you do and what those moves are it's simplified. But it's as deep as you want it to be for each situation. 53:09.53 Derek Yeah, well, especially because there's more complication and more decision making from other like decisions you will have to make in combat. So it's treated as okay, no basic attack is the tool you could decide how that tool works itself out. 53:18.18 Dave Yeah. 53:28.17 Derek But you don't have to remember combo strings or remember that this attack only happens if you pause briefly after the third attack hit and then come in. You know it's it's yeah, it's very simplified in a way that I think makes it more friendly. 53:30.60 Dave Yep. 53:44.18 Derek Um, for people who are willing to put up with experimentation. 53:45.88 Dave Yeah, if you're willing to think about the moves in the combo and think about what's working and what's not working and what might be a better move then you'll be rewarded for that in this you can. Also there's a couple others like quick move So Like. Maybe you just don't want to get all the way to the end of a combo to use like a really powerful move.. There's a couple of things like if I press down and X then he'll do this big kick attack and it's not related to my combo but there's very limited spots for those.? Ah yeah. 54:18.00 Derek I Love the the running the dive role attack thing. I Just do that. That's just how I move. That's like back dashing is alu card in Symphony of the night. That's my regular movement is the dive roll. 54:24.41 Dave Ah, yeah, that be. 54:32.21 Dave Oh yeah, that became a big part of my strategy to che some really difficult bosses later in the game is just chip damage them with that running dive about 40 or 50 times. So um, let's see after you've damaged and no. 54:39.78 Derek Yeah. 54:49.89 Dave Ah, restart that one key thing also is that if you are clearly never going to use one of these skills again like maybe you found a better version of it or maybe you tried it and you just don't like it at all, you can sell any skill back to the shop. That you can buy them back too. So if you make a mistake you can buy it back. But at the shop you're going to buy health upgrades and stuff like that so you need money and the fact that you can sell back the skills that you're not going to use anymore was really really helpful too. Um, and at the end of the game I was so. Like desperate for the last health upgrade that I sold every move that was not currently in my combo. But 55:37.66 Dave Um, once you damage enemies enough. You will usually put them in some kind of stun state and unlock those Qte attacks that we talked about earlier like um. 55:53.76 Derek Like the repeated neck breaking or the stomping or. 55:57.79 Dave Yeah, like the repeated neck breaking the spanking the stomping there's a suplex that you can do again remind me of Ari for there's ah you could do these cool like dragon ball kick flurries where gene is. 56:04.35 Derek Um, yeah. 56:07.55 Derek I get the feeling it started with that right? like with the Dbc like punch and kick like rapid fire and then they went well what other things can we just do over and over again very quickly and it be funny and thus we got breaking somebody's neck 120 times or. 56:12.48 Dave Yeah. 56:20.27 Dave Yeah, it's yeah, exactly. Yeah, so you can do those? Ah those are good for damage and you're invincible for a little while while you're doing those so it's good to just kind of chill out and ah. Button mash I mean I don't love button mash q t es in this day and age. But this game has them and then you have a couple of really powerful moves too. You've got what they're called the roulette skills that you use with r one and there's a currency called. Roulette orbs you start the game with one then you get 2 and you end the game with 3 of them and you can use these really powerful skills if you find the item that refills those orbs and they're great. They're game changers. They can turn a boss fight around if you can get a really powerful one off, um. For later bosses. They're basically essential to use them wisely, like use the right one and use it at the right time. Stuff like "Did you have any favorites of these just to give people some examples. 57:27.38 Derek Yeah, so um I think we both list. Our absolute favorite is the Dragon kick right? because you kick somebody and they like fly off into like a twinkle in the distance. Um, what's incredible is if you do that to a boss. 57:31.11 Dave Yeah, Absolutely yeah. Yeah. 57:42.24 Derek Most games would make it where you can't do something like that to a boss a one hit kill move what happens with the bosses you kick them and they fly off into the distance and then they very quickly like fall back like like they were shot at like like a meteor right and land again and take a chunk of damage. Incredibly funny. 57:43.69 Dave Right. 58:01.41 Dave Yep. 58:01.63 Derek Um, in terms of like utility La Bamba I used a lot. That's the one where he slams the ground and makes the big ah like ground shockwave that knocks people into the air. Um ballbusters. Great Yeah, not every woman isn't affected by it. 58:12.40 Dave Um, oh yeah, he Gene just goes over in a sack taps the enemy right. 58:20.85 Derek Um, one particular I don't remember if it's Mr. Gold or Mr Silver. 1 of them is not affected and it's because he lost his nuts in the war. 58:26.67 Dave Right? Yes, exactly 1 of the one of genes classic one liners after you fight a. But after you fight a boss. Um. 58:33.84 Derek Yeah. 58:38.98 Dave Yeah I liked those. I liked the home run swing which is just the upgraded dragon kick but he just hits them with a baseball bat. Um, there's one called the Shaolin Blast later that is this giant hand. Ah that just you shoot it off and it goes in a straight line and just wrecks anything in its path. Yeah. 58:42.70 Derek Yeah, excellent. 58:53.98 Derek Incredible for crowds. Yeah. 58:58.39 Dave And then there's one ah called I think I Forget what it's called I Oh It's called Grovel where you can um, get down on the ground and beg for forgiveness for the enemies and what this does is it lowers this like difficulty gauge. That's it. Ticking up and up as you fight if you're doing well and that will lower the difficulty gauge down. I never use that despite we'll talk about the difficulty thing. I kind of hate it. But I never use that because these attacks were so precious I needed those like damaging attacks. 59:29.72 Derek Yeah I Want to ball bust somebody I don't want to get down and and beg and and make it easier I want to kick somebody's ass. No, that's not very much money at all. 59:33.24 Dave Yeah, exactly? yeah, that's not very god hand to get down and ask for forgiveness and then yeah, the other big skill that you have is if you press r two when your like ultimate meter is filled up. You'll go into god hand mode. Where the gene goes invincible for a while he attacks faster. He does more damage enemies get stunlocked the music speeds up as a sped up version of the first music or first level music. Um, you can refill this by taunting by I think pressing l two Reg Gene will just stand and. Do a little you know, boring at the enemy and it'll increase your meter a little bit. Um this is essential later in the game managing this and using it at the right time you well I don't want to say you won't I would not have beaten the game without. 01:00:21.75 Derek Oh yeah. 01:00:30.59 Dave Taking full advantage of all parts of this God Hand mechanic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you refill that meter by hitting stuff or finding porno magazines around and um. 01:00:31.90 Derek I Could not imagine trying to not take full advantage of God Hand mode. It's a necessary part of your kit. Yeah. 01:00:48.62 Dave This game has a great dodge. I Really like the ah the dodge uses the right stick to dodge in directions. Yeah um, you can dodge left and right or you can do a backflip or my personal favorite once I figured out how good it is if you press up on the right stick Gene will do a little like. 01:00:51.69 Derek Super unique. 01:01:06.99 Derek He does that he does if you just mash it up. He just does the dempsey roll. He just he just dips and and weaves in place. Yeah. 01:01:07.83 Dave A little dip or a little juke to the side. 01:01:13.14 Dave Yeah I I wrote in the notes that you do the Muhammad Ali just dodging every single punch thrown at you and it is that powerful too. Once you figure out that you can do it. It seems broken but like the game lets you do it so go ahead. 01:01:26.52 Derek Yeah, what you need it. You need those tools because this game's hard and this game is built to like it's built. You're gonna We're gonna get into this I guess now. But like the game is. 01:01:31.70 Dave Um, yes, it is. 01:01:38.80 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:01:44.90 Derek It has dynamic difficulty but instead of you know you bring up the example of Residue before it is a very famous example of dynamic difficulty where if you're struggling the game gets easier and this game's attitude is on paper. It's not that different. 01:01:56.28 Dave Yeah. 01:02:02.90 Derek Right? But its attitude is if you're doing good. We're cranking this difficulty up. Um, it's less about forgiveness for people who are struggling and more about punishment to people who are doing really good. 01:02:04.69 Dave Yes. 01:02:15.90 Dave Yep, this game will knock you off your high horse. The second it gets the chance. Yeah, you start feeling good about yourself. You're going to get humbled by one of the things that happens. So as you fight. I mentioned it has like this difficulty meter that fills up and it starts at level one then goes to level 2 and then level 3 and then I think above level 3 is like death mode or some shit I never got that high because once I got to level 2 I would usually die because ah. Downed enemies will start spawning these demons and the demons are at least 10 times harder than a regular enemy. They're very difficult. It was only later in the game that I started to like being good enough to fight them without automatically hitting that God Hand invincibility mode. 01:02:52.80 Derek Um, oh yeah. 01:03:04.31 Dave Whenever one shows up but it's tough and like even without it getting harder when you're doing well. The game is never easy. This is very difficult. It's one of the hardest games I've played in recent memory. It's very difficult. So. The fact that it just gets harder when you start to like getting into a groove. I Really didn't like this game's approach to dynamic difficulty like just let me live for a couple minutes. Man. 01:03:33.34 Derek Ah, this is like an old arcade game, right? I mean again, given what it's pulling from the eras of like streets of rage and stuff like that. Um, but yeah it is it. It is sadistic. 01:03:35.52 Dave Yeah. 01:03:48.57 Derek Um, and it wants to hurt you a little bit. 01:03:50.14 Dave Yeah I would rank this as among the hardest games I've completed at least like in the run of this podcast. We'll say 110 or however many episodes this is one of the hardest ones for sure. And I'm pretty happy with myself that I made it through it without doing what I do sometimes where it's like okay this is really fucking hard in this boss fight if I fight well for 30 seconds I'm safe stating and then I will restart the fight at that point I didn't do that in this game and I feel like. A little sense of accomplishment that I did beat it straight up because again a really hard game and I had heard that beforehand and I was a bit ah worried about it and ah it did turn out to be as hard as people said it would be. 01:04:24.45 Derek You should. 01:04:39.53 Derek Yeah, this is why I've never liked chucked a controller in rage. Um I'm too poor I can't replace controllers but I got to tell you even at like 17 or so. 01:04:44.94 Dave Um, ah yeah, right. 01:04:53.76 Derek Ah, well past the age where you should have grown out of those sort of ah tantrums that I never threw this game might be the closest I've come to that point. 01:05:05.74 Dave Um, yeah, yeah I think that playing it on Stream helped me stay level headed too because I'm a much like I haven't thrown a controller since I was a little kid. 01:05:19.49 Derek Yeah, yeah, and the fuck this game. 01:05:21.31 Dave Ah, but I do get really fucking mad sometimes and quit games and you know you know this is bullshit. Yeah, this is bullshit . I'll see you tomorrow as I slam the door. So um I think that playing it on stream helped chill me out a little bit because I am not the screaming streamer type I am. Pretty relaxed most of the time. So if I have people watching me that puts me in the mood where like oh some bullshit just happened and I died for the twentieth time. Let's just laugh that off and move on whereas if I'm playing. Ah you know in full privacy I might you know get real fucking mad. 01:05:48.57 Derek Yeah. 01:05:56.40 Derek There's no audience to laugh with. So you're you're just mad I have I will say this I have one very vivid memory of God Hand I mean have many but um, like I said I've never thrown a controller but this game I do vividly remember playing this game and getting so mad. 01:05:58.30 Dave Yeah, exactly. M. 01:06:13.67 Derek At this game at 17 that I had take my shirt off like I was I was overheating and like I needed to turn turn the fan on max and take my shirt off because I was I was fucking sweating I was so mad. 01:06:30.41 Dave Just so angry. That's how you know you're mad. That's how you know? Ah, maybe maybe I'll just turn that into my new stream personality like I'll play hard games and when it gets real rough I'll take my shirt off. 01:06:31.72 Derek But the worst version of going super say and man I just got hot and sweaty. 01:06:44.72 Derek Um, just no. 01:06:48.94 Dave Ah, man that's ah, that's fantastic and I don't have anything else to say about the gameplay after that I think we covered it. Um, but yeah, exactly that's true. Yeah. 01:06:55.10 Derek Yeah, yeah, you know what punishment you're signing up for there's dominatrix is in this game for a reason. 01:07:06.29 Dave So let's wrap up the non spoiler part of this episode by kind of recapping, summarizing and then answering the question who would you recommend play God and. 01:07:19.22 Derek Oh man, Um, so and again, it's like we said at the beginning right? like this is this is such an interesting weird character action game. It's so Funny. It's so brutal to Play. Um. But I think it's also worth experiencing to see like ah, an era of Auto were driven experiences that don't exist as much outside of like the indie space and even though there's almost nothing quite like this. Um, pretty much. 01:07:50.59 Dave And like ah like kojima is still carrying that flag if you are, he's making real weird shit and it's basically just him doing that kind of thing. 01:07:55.00 Derek Pretty much and just him almost? Yeah yeah, but like I think playing this game gets you the Dna I would I would say if somebody played this and then played like Bayonetta and then like Devil may cry five maybe went back and tried like mad world like you would see where. Um, you know these designers that came from clover studios as well as like platinum games coming after them like where that mark on the industry probably comes from because it's not Viewtiful Joe where Okami that really defines. The direction that these people took it's god hand in a lot of ways. Um and who would I recommend to oh people with good hands. Yeah, good strong hands. Um, people who are ready for a challenge. 01:08:39.54 Dave Yeah, good strong hands. Yeah. 01:08:51.70 Derek And will not throw a temper tantrum or break anything expensive. 01:08:56.14 Dave Yeah, yeah, I would agree with that. It's um, it is a real challenge. The challenge lived up to the hype. And yeah I think that I would echo what you said like if this type of game. Interests you this this weirdo type of game that you play it and you're like 1 person thought this was really funny and that's why it's in the game because that one person was making the decisions like if you like those kinds of games then you will like this if you are a big fan of action games with deep customizable. Action mechanics I think that God Hand has a lot for you as well. I didn't mention this in the gameplay section because I got distracted by the story about taking your shirt off playing it. But this game does get pretty repetitive in regular combat. It's. 01:09:47.10 Dave Probably too long but there were a lot of other things that pull you along through that like the next story cutscene that you see or the next time you drag and kick somebody into the moon like that stuff I think is going to keep you going So It is not a perfect game. It's probably too long. But it is a really enriching action experience. If you're up for a challenge, if you like overcoming a challenge then if you just like stories that are campy and goofy as shit I think that God Hand has a lot for you there so pretty like not. Not a super easy recommendation but like I Love this game I had a great time with it and I think that it will appeal to a lot of people as well. So Yeah God hand there we go So Let's do some Absolutely so let's do some housekeeping here before we get into spoilers. 01:10:26.40 Derek Yeah. 01:10:32.48 Derek Truly love this weird ass game. 01:10:41.14 Dave Always start by having the guests talk about their shows. So I mentioned at the top Derek is part of super deluxe games cast and Castle Bravo Podcasts so tell the people about those projects and maybe point them in the direction of a place to start if they want to check them out. 01:10:55.99 Derek Yeah, so um, super deluxe games cast which is usually just shorthanded to SDGC is a ah pro- Laborbor pro inclusion Progressive I Guess you just say gaming podcast. We discuss the latest news headlines. We do the usual thing about talking about what we've been playing. 01:11:14.85 Derek Um, but it's very news and new release oriented for the most part. Um, we do some streaming and some reviews when we get codes we're going to be at Pax East for example and we're going to get a bunch of interviews on the ground with indie devs there. Um, you can find SDGC on Twitch as officialsdgc. 01:11:34.35 Derek Ah, you can find it on basically any podcast service those are the primary ways that we publish castle bravo: a Godzillaverse retrospective is my other podcast that is a ah it is a movie podcast where we started with the original one 54 Godzilla and the plan was to work forward through Godzilla and the like specifically ah Godzilla related movies and talk about the ways that this franchise started and evolved over time as kind of the original cinematic universe way predating the Marvel cinematic universe. 01:12:11.89 Derek And I ended up learning a lot about the creators of the original Godzilla and finding a lot to talk about in terms of the social and political messaging of a lot of these campy old sci-fi movies. Um. So it kind of turned into something very different from my original plans. But it's Great. You don't necessarily need to watch the movies to listen to the podcast but obviously I'm trying to get people to engage with art and enjoy old films, even things that they deem Campy. Um. 01:12:43.70 Derek But you can find that on any podcast service is Castle Bravo: A Godzillaverse retrospective and the social media followings. Those shows do not matter Twitter is not real that shit is dying who knows where we're going to be in a year so 01:12:58.15 Dave Ah, right? Cool? Well ah as ah, someone who recently got turned on to super deluxe Gamescast. It's a good time. Um, you know I Just like the general approach that you all bring to the talk around games. There's a lot of shows. You know that do the news and. New releases and stuff. But I Just like the way that you all approach that um I like your vibe and ah everyone on the show is informative and funny. Funny shows too like it's not super serious all the time. 01:13:24.80 Derek Yeah, yeah, it's sometimes difficult like this and this is getting behind the curtain a little bit right? It's sometimes difficult to find like progressive media podcasts that are both funny. Um. 01:13:40.60 Derek But aren't like dirt bag funny a little bit right and like but also aren't overly preachy about stuff that frankly, a lot of us already know and understand why a lot of this stuff matters. So like for us it's about finding the right tone of when we talk about a news story. 01:13:42.28 Dave Um, yeah. 01:13:57.40 Derek You know we're taking that pro-labor approach right? But like I'm also not here to give you the 1 oh one on why it matters that black people are in video games right? like I am assuming we're assuming you're already on that level that you're not here to be preached to and we're just going to talk about gaming and. 01:13:57.97 Dave Yeah. 01:14:16.24 Derek And the industry around it. Um through that lens but still keep it like a little casual kind of fun. You know it's it's It's a it's a balance for sure. 01:14:24.15 Dave Yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, and it's good stuff so I will put down in the show notes links to both podcasts and we'll throw some ah social media stuff down there twitch Channel of course so people can go find the shows. 01:14:34.35 Derek Yeah, we'll have to, we'll have to have you on sometime to guess if you'd feel like it if your Thursday nights are ever free now. Yeah, it's easy enough to see. Yeah, well we'll circle around after packs. 01:14:44.80 Dave Oh they are often free so that would be cool would love to cool, cool, cool. So ah for this podcast which if you would like to support you can do so by leaving a rating and review on your favorite podcast app you can do that for. Sdgc and Castle Bravo as well. Of course on your favorite podcast app if it's Apple Podcasts Spotify or podcast addict you can leave ratings and reviews. So if people search God Hand in the search bar which I know they're doing it will help them find this episode. You can also join the discord server, come on in and chat. With a bunch of cool welcomes. Friendly folks about video games and movies show us pictures of your food and your pets. We would love to see it if you want to listen to my other podcast. It's called a top 3 podcast where we do top 3 lists. We do drafts of weird topics that one's a good time and finally. If you want to support monetarily you can do that at patreon.com/real Dave Jackson you'll be able to vote in some polls for what games I do on the show. You'll get some bonus content and cool stuff so we are going to take a break when we come back. It's full spoiler time for God Hand. 01:19:01.11 Dave ok Derek and I are back and we're talking spoilers for god hand. 01:19:06.23 Derek Brings the weirdest out of us. 01:19:19.30 Dave And although if you're going to blow through the spoiler wall and keep listening this game doesn't exactly have a story that's going to change your life in either direction. Ah but it does have a lot of memorable boss fights that we didn't want to get too deep into shop talk you know during ah a non-spoiler part. So we'll start out the spoiler section by talking about the memorable encounters or boss fights throughout the way and then we'll kind of talk about where the story ends and things a little bit later on but let's start with some of those boss fights. So Derek what's one that you. You played this a long time ago. So what's one that you carried with you. 01:19:58.35 Derek So um I mean I think the ones that stand out. We'd already talked quite a bit about like I think the first time you fight gorilla mask is ridiculous. The first time you fight the um, the power rangers is very what am I doing with my life right. 01:20:04.77 Dave Yeah. 01:20:15.79 Derek Um, but I think for me, what's interesting is the game does a really good job. I think the final fights with each of the davis are the ones that stand out the most to me and they're the ones I didn't get around to in this replay. But um. 01:20:24.94 Dave Yeah. 01:20:33.42 Derek Like my memories of them are super super fond like you have these these 2 fights with Elvis that are very silly with a very silly version of the character right? and then you get into your final fight with Elvis and he's transformed into this demon monster and he's got like the belly mouth and his hands are like boxing gloves that are also mouths. 01:20:38.99 Dave Yeah. 01:20:53.10 Derek And the castle music is blaring and it's this great tonal shift for a joke character. You know it's suddenly taken much more seriously as a threat. Um you know I think it's. 01:20:53.86 Dave Ah, yeah. 01:21:05.83 Dave But all the while you still have those ah the Elvis Impersonator scat singing over the top of everything so it's rooted in like the bizarreness that came before even though he's fully transformed into a demon. 01:21:09.21 Derek Yes, yes, it's bizarre. Yeah, and it kind of it's interesting I would say actually the 4 Davis are their final fights are. The and of course the final boss are the most memorable ones and that seems boring in a lot of ways to say but I think it's fantastic. How to fight these bosses multiple times over the course of the game. Um and then getting to the final fight in the ways that it plays with how you see that character. 01:21:46.32 Derek Um, Shannon's another great example right? Shannon is who man that the final boss fight form is so weird. How would you even describe that it's the one where she's like a velociraptor. 01:21:57.70 Dave Shannon's final boss I got to look this up real quick. 01:22:04.20 Derek Thing with a tentacle mouth face but her Torso is coming out of the back like she's writing it super Bizarre ah form and fight. Um. 01:22:07.96 Dave Ah, oh yeah, right? Yeah okay I remember that now that I see it. Yeah, that is ah it's hard to just you can't map it onto like any real animal. 01:22:23.35 Derek No, it's weird and uncomfortable in a way that like Shannon has not been to this point right? Shannon suddenly turns into a resident evil boss. 01:22:25.10 Dave Really like it. 01:22:32.50 Dave Yeah, she's been all. Yeah when up until this point she was all you know sexy comic relief. Basically yeah, she kind of looks like a scorpion like a scorpion mouth but it has these 2 big muscular arms holding it up real fucking weird. 01:22:42.78 Derek Um, yeah. 01:22:51.40 Dave Yeah, the ah the the leader of the devas was his name again. Belze. Yeah oh that's right, yeah in his final boss Good Ah good nematic device there I should. Ah. 01:22:51.83 Derek Um, yeah, yeah, um I. 01:22:59.13 Derek But it belze it because like Beelebub because he turns into a fly. Yeah, that's how I always remember. 01:23:10.88 Derek Yeah, yeah. 01:23:11.41 Dave Well I guess it's too late now. But um, his final thing where he turns into a fly was a really tough fight but I had a good time learning it. It was one of those where it probably took me 20 to 30 tries but I had a good time making. 01:23:20.33 Derek Yeah. 01:23:30.70 Dave Steady improvement each time you know I get better at dodging one attack this attempt and then like the time when he beats me. It was really no question whether I was going to beat him or not. 01:23:39.70 Derek Yeah, it's a tough fight. It's an interesting one to learn. It's probably the most pure like this is a late game Capcom boss fight in terms of actual encounter design but that plays with your expectations because you're expecting that at some point. You will have gotten more of a look at belze like more personality out of him more anything and your expectation is obviously that he's going to be the last 1 right? And of course he's not you take him out and then you move on to um, ah azel as ah, how you pronounce his name. 01:24:01.60 Dave Nothing. Yeah. 01:24:15.95 Dave Yeah I had said Azel but who knows yeah and I don't remember them saying bells' name out loud either. So. 01:24:18.26 Derek Um, it's Azel yeah I don't remember them saying it ever actually out loud. Yeah, but um, but like the rival type character is the last of the 4 to fight instead of usually the penultimate right. 01:24:34.66 Dave Right. 01:24:36.74 Derek Um, if you were thinking about following the tropes but also like the all fight is interesting because by the time you get to Azel’s final fight. He doesn't change very much and he goes from being this very cool rival type character with the devil hand to being like dude. 01:24:44.67 Dave Great. 01:24:53.33 Derek You dip shit. Do you not understand where this is headed. You know you're kind of almost screaming at him for being so thick headed as to what is about to happen. Um, you know which is not where you normally think of going with that character. 01:25:06.58 Dave Yeah, and right? and ah, it's interesting. Fighting him twice and the first time you only have to get half of his health down and it's really tough to do that. 01:25:12.42 Derek Yeah. 01:25:22.96 Dave Ah, once you get it halfway down. He leaves the fight and it's over. Yeah um, and then the second time you fight him he has like the normal you know multiple health bars and stuff but he um in his second phase he can use the God Hand power to and get like. 01:25:25.45 Derek It's a brutal first fight. 01:25:41.61 Dave Ah, super fast like I don't know if he's actually invincible because I ran away from him every time he did that because I wouldn't fight him straight up. Yeah I know what that shit does? Yep ah. 01:25:46.17 Derek Well because you've had the god hand power this whole game so you see him do the same shit and you're like Nope I'm out let the timer run out. 01:25:55.84 Dave He uses roulette moves on you just like you've used so like a big part of learning his fight is learning ah which moves he's about to use and how to dodge it like he'll use that shaolin hand on you and I've been destroying stuff with that. So I Know what that does if I get hit by it. Um, so. Yeah, that was a fun fight before we talk about the final boss. Let's talk about some others. Yeah, some of the mini bosses um with the Gorilla I had written down a couple of voice lines that really made me laugh. So. 01:26:19.42 Derek To these mini bosses. Yes. 01:26:34.32 Dave The first time you fight it you walk out. It's in this thing and you see this gorilla there and I think he's sitting on a bench reading the newspaper. Yeah yeah, so you see him there and ah gene goes. 01:26:39.69 Derek Like a bus stop bench or something like that. Yeah. 01:26:47.52 Dave Hey, you're not human. Are you in? The Gorilla does this this mime is like pointing at himself like me ah me then you fight after that there's a bunch of ah like the Gorilla does a bunch of wrestling moves because it's a Luchador Gorilla And. Ah, you have a bunch of um like you have a specific instead of suplex Move. You have a Gorilla suplex Qte which is just a suplex but it's on a gorilla which is yeah, really funny. Yeah, so that one was good. 01:27:15.54 Derek Right now with the hat. 01:27:24.52 Dave Then you fight him again later I just thought like the animations on the gorilla were really funny and then afterwards you find out. It's a guy in a gorilla suit. I'm not sure why you fight him again, he's still in the gorilla suit but hey it's God Hand so don't ask questions. 01:27:37.31 Derek Yeah, exactly look you're going to fight every boss twice at least so. 01:27:44.25 Dave Yeah, yeah, um, the power rangers. The second time you fight them by the way. The first time I fought them I had a really hard time with them because there's 5 of them. Yeah. 01:27:52.93 Derek Oh it's 5 of them and they are the zippiest little motherfuckers. 01:27:58.91 Dave Yeah, they are but the second time you fight them at the beginning one of them keeps saying like I have the killer hand and gene does like the I have the killer hand and they're like in each other's face like little kids going back and forth. It's the dumbest. 1 of those times when like you said it starts happening and I just kind of like look off to the side like what the fuck is this? Yeah by the way I had just played killer7 for the first time a couple months ago. Good good good I hope you enjoyed it. 01:28:21.40 Derek Yeah, what? What am I doing with my life? I saw that I actually listened to that episode today. Yeah I thought it would be great because it's similar like you play that game and you definitely dissociate a little bit. 01:28:42.60 Dave Yeah, absolutely and both games have you fight the power rangers both Capcom games within like two or three years of each other with some of the same creatives behind it. Um I saw a grasshopper manufacturer in the credits for God Hand and I was like okay. 01:28:44.11 Derek Yeah, that's true. 01:28:56.68 Derek I think they must have done some support work because if I remember correctly um God Hand started while Okami was still in development and clover wasn't that big of a team so it would not surprise me to hear that people outside of clover were brought in to help make it. 01:28:58.90 Dave Things are coming together. 01:29:09.15 Dave Um, yeah. 01:29:16.67 Derek Because Okami was the big game that clover made, that was the one that all the money and all the work got put into in their very short time on this earth. 01:29:17.57 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, so yeah, just ah, very surreal to play 2 different video games where you fight the power rangers within a couple months of each other. Without knowing it was going to happen to you in either one beforehand. Um, the 3 evil stooges are one of the first bosses that you fight and then ah in the first fight you fight them one at a time and it's okay, you know you're your you're. 01:29:37.84 Derek Um, yeah. 01:29:45.26 Derek Um, oh yeah, yeah. 01:29:54.24 Dave Figuring out their move sets. It's fine. The last time you fight them you fight all 3 of them at the same time and it's brutally difficult really. 01:30:01.95 Derek That's a fantastic boss fight and you're so grateful you fought them all one at a time so you know what they can do. But the fact you're having to deal with them simultaneously and mix their capabilities together like that. Oh. 01:30:07.00 Dave Um, yeah. 01:30:14.20 Dave Yeah, ah, part of that fight is figuring out which one is best to take out first and I tried every combination of taking them out before I finally found one that worked. That's one of those where I was on the stream like having a bad time. 01:30:29.63 Derek Yeah. 01:30:32.16 Dave But and if I wasn't you know in public so to say I probably would have been like fuck. See you tomorrow. Yeah exactly I think I incorrectly labeled this one as the one where Gene talks about someone losing their balls in the war that's Mr. Gold and silver. 01:30:36.10 Derek Yeah, shirts off. Let's go. 01:30:46.50 Derek Yeah, that's Mr. Golden Mr. Silver for sure. Yeah. 01:30:50.34 Dave Yeah, what ridiculous? Ah what a ridiculous thing to say to somebody. 01:30:55.62 Derek Um, yeah, ah man this game is a lot. It's a lot at once. 01:31:04.10 Dave Yeah, there was only 1 boss fight that I thought was bad and unfair in a way and it was the one where you fight the old sword master. 01:31:17.17 Derek Oh yeah, dude that is ah yeah I was really glad I didn't get up to him in the time when I was replaying because I specifically remember that I think that's the boss fight. 01:31:23.50 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:31:31.56 Dave It wouldn't surprise me. Yeah. 01:31:31.98 Derek That made me take my shirt off. I think that's the one. Um I cannot confirm that for sure because that part is not in my memory but like oh it feels right. 01:31:41.58 Dave Yeah, yeah, it sucks, it sucks real bad. That's one of the fights where I use the strategy in a lot of boss fights. They have like the crates around you can go and you pick up the crates you throw them. They do some chip Damage. You get some items that were one of the fights where I exhausted all of that. I used all the items that I got. I got some decent item luck with what drops because they're not always the same and then he's at like half health and I just cheese the rest of the fight with that running dive over and over and over and over again, you know like. 01:32:14.76 Derek Yeah. 01:32:20.81 Dave TwoHP at a time taking him down because that fight sucked and I just wanted it to be over so though 1 funny thing about the sword master because everything in God Hand has to have some kind of comedy to it during the fight. 01:32:25.40 Derek Yeah, yeah, the old sword Sword Master sucks. 01:32:39.41 Dave 1 of your biggest windows to attack him is he does this big attack and then he kind of just steps back and recites a proverb to himself and he's completely wide open to attack for like 10 seconds while he's doing it. It's the goofiest thing but much appreciated. But so. 01:32:53.61 Derek I'd completely forgotten about that. But yes, the 1 window you're going to get. 01:32:58.78 Dave Um, yeah, exactly I mean it's just like you're fighting a dude with a sword and you've got your fists and only you can throw the boxes and in the boss Arena There's a like a picnic umbrella you can pick up but it's so slow you might as well not have it. So um. 01:33:15.30 Derek Now. 01:33:17.95 Dave Yeah, before the final boss I just want to just say that this game is broken up into stages. There's 8 stages and then there's the final boss in stage 8 is horse shit it's absolute horse shit I hate it so much. 01:33:31.80 Derek It's you like traditional hey this is a beat him up. So for the last stage we're just going to throw a million enemies or like 7 sub bosses at once at you and ah enemies that used to be bosses are now regular enemies. 01:33:37.89 Dave Um, yeah, yep, so yeah, and there's 16 of them so go have fun with that. Yeah, that was awful. 01:33:48.26 Derek Yeah. 01:33:54.71 Dave When I was streaming I started at stage 8 and I was like okay stage eight I will fight a couple of boss fights and I'll be done with this in an hour and it took me 4 hours to do it because I spent at least 2 just on stage 8 in these combat arenas where it's like you said it's like they took. Things that used to be mini bosses and now there's 3 of them and you don't have any items. Good luck. Go fuck yourself. So all right? that final boss. So what happens at the end. 01:34:19.31 Derek Yeah, yeah, indeed. 01:34:28.77 Dave I guess we should talk about what happens in the story before the end so you basically fight off the davis. Um, you reach a zell at the end he kind of realizes too late. What's about to happen. He realizes that he's whoops I'm summoning the Demon King my bad but it's too late to stop it. 01:34:43.89 Derek Yeah, I should have thought about this before now. 01:34:48.34 Dave Ah, yeah, so you fight him, you beat him afterwards. Ah he he's being pulled down like a portal and this is like the goofiest fucking thing he rips off his god hand his arm he throws it to gene it magically replaces Jean's normal arm. So now Gene has 2 god hands at the end. 01:35:07.65 Derek And Gene Bill why does your mom let you have 2 god hands. 01:35:15.30 Dave So that's yeah, his last ah his last act of good is to give gene a second God Hand so for the final fight you fight the demon king that gets summoned and it's huge. It's like this arena filling final boss. 01:35:28.75 Derek Um, like it's it's like a fucking Devil Dragon Night Satan coming out of a portal wild wild shit. 01:35:36.76 Dave Yeah, yeah, so you fight this thing you have 2 god hands so you get this new move called the double shall in hand that takes all 3 of your orbs but does like I would say wild damage but this final boss. Has the most hit points like an unreasonable amount of hit points the time that I beat it. It took me twenty solid minutes of fist fighting to beat the boss. 01:36:09.43 Derek Who it's brutal. Yeah, it's it's It's a very cool fight. There's so much spectacle to it. You are fighting the Goddamn devil. Um, but God man by that point, especially after the. 01:36:18.23 Dave Um, yeah. 01:36:26.51 Derek Brutal slog and gauntlet that stage 8 was and then the fight with Azelle you're ready man you're ready for this game to be over with. 01:36:33.76 Dave Yeah, and what you're met with is this just insane endurance test, as if the fight against a zell and stage 8 were not already intense endurance tests. This is so fucking long and he has 2 health bars. 01:36:45.43 Derek Right. 01:36:53.47 Dave The double shaolin hand. That's the strongest attack in the game . I think it takes 3 roulette orbs, maybe two I don't remember. Regardless, it's the strongest attack in the game. It takes off one third of a health bar and he has two health bars and it's just. Like it's like to the point where you punch him. You don't even see the health bar move. It's like yeah and so the way you have to do that is he summons in those demons that used to rise up from the old ah from the dead bodies and every time you beat one of those they drop an item. 01:37:16.67 Derek You're basically just building a meter to do the double shall in hand. Yeah. 01:37:31.69 Dave So it's basically just like your strategy is to learn to dodge every attack. Everything doesn't get hit and then when those things get summoned out. Go kill them. Hope you get a good item basically and then he has a second phase that introduces this qte. Where he he yells some shit at Gene I forget what he yells but it's very easy like he has this big voiceline anytime during the voiceline press circle you'll stop this big attack. You'll do a little chip of his damage. So. The second phase is oddly easier than the first phase but it's still like a 15 to 20 minute fight where you cannot really make a bunch of mistakes. 01:38:13.87 Derek Yeah, immediately after another fairly tough fight immediately at the end of a really long and brutal stage so you spent easily a good hour and a half right stage 8 onward um, you know. 01:38:16.51 Dave Yeah. 01:38:27.80 Dave Oh yeah, yeah. 01:38:31.57 Derek If not potentially more depending on how much trouble you're having then you beat the demon King and then within minutes you were hearing that end credits the like. 01:38:44.30 Dave Yeah, so what happens is you beat the Demon King Gene rescues Olivia because she had been kidnapped. He makes fun of her. She gets mad. She takes out an axe and is running to try and cut his arms off. That's the end of the story. That's how the story ends and then. 01:38:59.16 Derek Um, yeah. 01:39:03.82 Dave Credits role and like you said you have just spent. Maybe if you beat that final boss on your first try that was a 15 to 20 minute boss fight like your nerves are frayed. You are maybe mad because that boss fight took you an hour plus to beat. Whatever you're feeling at the time you were not ready for that final boss fight. Yeah, and then the guy starts singing and like it's not the whole song but the first line of the song has a very Randy Newman ass like. 01:39:22.30 Derek Yeah, and then suddenly the horns go but ba ba ba but bad, a bad up up. Ah bum. 01:39:38.78 Dave Twang to it and so like that I was like what it's not the whole song. It's just the first line where he's like god, a demon like that. But it's this weird song like this amateur sounding song where he sings the events of the game. 01:39:45.90 Derek Yeah. 01:39:58.61 Dave Talks about what he did to enemies along the way like there's the line Dragon kick your ass into the milky way I heard let me sing that he goes Dragon kick your acid to the milky way and then there's a backing vocal that it's like it's someone in a falsetto just going milky way. 01:40:16.91 Derek Yeah, all right? So look. We're on the subject of the credits. Um, we got it. We got to do this real quick all right I would Dm to you the the intro 01:40:17.98 Dave Yeah, okay. 01:40:30.32 Derek The original, like 19 I think it's early 1960s mazinger Z which is a tremendously impactful old anime I want you to listen to that and think about those end credits. 01:40:40.91 Dave Um, okay. 01:40:43.45 Dave Um, okay I got it playing right now. Oh yeah, can hear that horn line is basically the same. 01:41:01.14 Dave Oh yeah, this is basically the same thing. Yeah. 01:41:04.99 Derek Um, yeah down to like calling out the like special attacks by name in the lyrics which is in Japanese you're not going to catch as well Obviously but it's like tonally you're hearing. 01:41:09.11 Dave Yeah, this. 01:41:16.41 Dave Right? Ah, yeah, it's very good. There's 1 line in the God Hand song where he sings the Mike Tyson speech where he says my defenses are impregnable. My style is impetuous. 01:41:19.33 Derek They just rewrote the lyrics to this. 01:41:32.77 Dave During the God Hand song. So the point is like this song is goofy as shit. It's catchy like the horns are really great. It reminds me of how Bayonetta games end. They all end on songs like this. There's a kickline like the enemies and stuff are doing kick lines and shit. 01:41:33.24 Derek Um, yeah. 01:41:52.49 Dave In this. So. It's just like the goofiest possible way to to end the experience here and again this is coming after like brutally fucking difficult action game boss fights and then suddenly Bam. This is what you're listening to. 01:42:11.67 Derek You're just again like you can feel your but your soul leaves your body a little bit as you're just like what is happening. What did I just spend. 01:42:15.61 Dave Yeah. 01:42:22.62 Dave Yeah, it is a perfect choice. Yeah, and what the fuck is happening right now. So yeah, ah man. So um, that's God hand. 01:42:25.78 Derek A dozen hours of my life doing yeah, what year is it help me. 01:42:40.42 Dave And what an experience truly. 01:42:40.76 Derek Yeah, what a game? Um I said that they that you they they you cannot make a game like this anymore. Um, and it's. 01:42:52.87 Dave Um, yeah. 01:42:55.87 Derek I mean you can right because in the indie space anything is possible if you just are willing to take a chance but none of the big publishers. Not even Capcom would be willing to give a director with this kind of like authorial voice the right to make something this unhinged and this weird and this messy. Um. 01:43:15.60 Derek You know something whose controls should not work by any stretch is a brawler with tank controls where you dodge with the right stick but it yeah and and pick which order your attacks go in even if that means you picked. 01:43:25.79 Dave Yeah, an attack with 1 button. 01:43:35.10 Dave Yeah. 01:43:35.16 Derek The worst order possible. Um, this breaks every rule and what the end result is is something very brave and weird and exuberant kind of um and I truly like this is to me. 01:43:45.95 Dave Yeah. 01:43:52.32 Derek This is the origin of what people call Platinum games energy which of course Platinum games is formed primarily from people who spun out of Clover Studio right? Um, famously you either went to Platinum or you went to Tango gameworks. Um, but like that. 01:44:10.90 Derek God hand is where it comes from. Maybe if you go a little earlier. You find some of that energy in product number 3 but product number 3 is a game even fewer people played and it's not anywhere near as funny or wacky. It's just weird to play. So. 01:44:11.29 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:44:21.20 Dave Yep. Yeah, it's interesting to kind of close this out. It's interesting coming to God Hand after all these years after it flopped so hard like to the fact where you said like people stopped buying it so they were like we're not We're not making anymore like no one's buying this. So it's ah it's a rare game because no one fucking bought it not because it's like ah you know some niche thing like it was not supposed to be that way but now almost twenty years later 01:44:42.78 Derek Yeah. 01:44:59.60 Dave I Don't really hear a lot of negative talk around God Hand anymore. It's a perpetual like hidden gem type of game for a lot of people. 01:45:00.96 Derek Yeah, if you want to talk about bad sales right? This is a game that sold nearly 60000 copies right? We're not talking this game didn't hit a million. 01:45:14.70 Dave Yeah, that's brutal. Yeah. 01:45:20.73 Derek This game didn't hit 60000 um it's I mean finding a copy in the wild today would be nearly impossible. 01:45:23.33 Dave Um, yeah. 01:45:30.42 Dave So I'm glad that as time goes by this happens a lot of time. But as time goes like this it kind of had a little bit of like indie Resurgence I Guess you know our underground resurgence like the. 01:45:41.49 Derek Yeah. 01:45:47.37 Dave I don't think that you would listen to a podcast of 2 people that played God Hand and they give it a 3 out of 10 anymore you know like it. 01:45:52.95 Derek Right? People recognize that this is something crafted with a lot of intentionality and something that really achieved being exactly what it was meant to be, it just was meant to be something. 01:46:01.66 Dave Yeah. 01:46:11.80 Derek For a very small audience of people probably um, but yeah, the respect is kind of come back around to it. Um, and I think it's like maybe 1 of the best games out there to use as an argument for the importance of games preservation right? I mean this is a game that sold maybe 60000 copies total. 01:46:12.10 Dave Yeah. 01:46:31.40 Derek On a single console that is multiple generations old. It's never been made digitally available on any platform right? It's never been remastered or ported. It's gone. This game is dead. There is basically no way legally to play this game anymore which puts people in. 01:46:41.70 Dave Um, yeah. 01:46:50.99 Derek A real bind and yet it is a game that I think is very important for understanding like this through line of gaming history right? seeing how Capcom staff transition to being Platinum games 01:47:01.49 Dave Um, yeah. 01:47:08.43 Dave Yeah, for sure and then just the cherry on top as an action game. It's a pretty damn good one. So like there's a lot of factors working in its favor for this kind of resurgence will say it's just a shame like you said that it is. 01:47:18.16 Derek Um, yeah. 01:47:27.72 Dave Basically gone if you want to play it in a legal way. So yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. So this has been a good time Derek thanks for coming on talking about god hand with me. 01:47:29.62 Derek Yeah, there's no way to give capcom money for this and if I could in a heartbeat I would gladly sell. 01:47:44.72 Derek Yeah, thank you for having me this is a blast. Ah, wonderful way to spur revisiting a game that I otherwise might have only thought fondly about and you know it's it's It's a hard game to come back to? admittedly. 01:47:47.00 Dave Good. 01:48:00.86 Derek Know what? you're signing up for once you've beaten this game but yeah, a magical time to be sure. 01:48:01.00 Dave Um, yeah, yeah for sure. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, this has been great. Um again I appreciate you taking the time. I always thank people for taking the 2 hours plus sometimes to come on and talk about these games. Ah, but I'm glad you jumped at the opportunity to to talk about god hand because this has been one of those games that like ah I think I told you before we started recording. It's all run together now. But it's been like on that list of games I could play at any time I just didn't and I put it on my. In the Discord server we're doing a backlog resolutions challenge this year and so God Hand was one of the first ones I put on the list of like okay Dave you. We're doing this challenge. This is the year fucking play. It. So I'm glad I did glad we got no absolutely not yeah. 01:48:46.96 Derek Yeah, and you'll never forget it. 01:48:54.43 Dave And I hope that people are still listening. Never forget the things we've talked about in this podcast. We appreciate everyone who's listened all the way to the end as always check down in the show notes one more time for links to super deluxe games cast and Castle Bravo Fine podcasting content there. And as always, tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.