"You know, there are many different approaches you can take to game design. One approach, which we took in SF3, is to design your game around "unanswerables." I think with any game, players will search for the best tactic, the best strategy... like, if X happens, you should always do Y; if you do this here, you'll always win. There's competitive games like that, where the match is essentially a confrontation of theoretical knowledge that each player has built up. But Street Fighter 3 is a game that, by design, doesn't have a fixed answer to those questions. There is no "best" tactic; you can spend your whole life trying to find the perfect theoretical approach to a situation in SF3, but it will never be quite right. You always have to be reading your opponent in the moment; you can't just fall back on your theories. It's a game that lets you search for answers... Forever."
- Shinichiro Obata, Street Fighter III planner, Capcom Japan

everyone knows this game is great. I'm here to tell you WHY. the REASON, it came out great, not what makes it great.

Shinji Mikami is a game designer first, director second. RE1, REmake1, RE4, Vanquish and God Hand were conceived as things he'd seen or played that he HATED so much of how bad they were, he wanted to solve their issues with his own version of them in game form. He UNDERSTANDS games, he knows what makes games good and what makes them bad, and he is the KING of innovations because he has this eye for it.

the thing is, God Hand was one of the smallest, and more importantly, shortest, project he had done so far (with experience as a designer and director). It allowed him to not worry about expectations and just be creative and have fun. THIS is him being a director first and a game designer second.

and what's sad, is that he never got the chance to have that admosphere of development, that small scale project again, and fuck, HE WANTED to, he was PISSED how all his other pitches to smaller and simpler projects were rejected because people just wanted more RE1 and RE4 from him. a lot of his future and the things he did were because of his experience that he had in God Hand

the reason God Hand came out as a great game, is because mikami gave his all just once to want a chance to fully express himself.

but there is a good part of this story, and it is YOU can find more games like this RIGHT NOW!

THIS game is in the dictionary as THE synonym for weird, awkward and obtrusive. so take in Mikami's desire and EXPLORE WEIRD OBSCURE GAMES that you would never in A MILLION years expect to like, and don't just try them for an hour, give it them a real chance, because Mikami WANTED you to give him that chance before but unfortunately his art was too advanced for our time, but for other creators... the time is NOW!!!

shallow characters, boring puzzles, exposition, exposition and more exposition. the most fun I had playing this game was trying to do bunny hops while using trevor.
also I HATE it when white people write "hispanic" characters and all they do is make them speak spanish at random every once in a while, yeah, remind me that you are puerto rican, yeah, love it when they use it to excuse when the character doesnt have a personality, just make them a minority, that will work, that will make them interesting!
atleast the ending is good, which is not a big deal since is very underwhelming and not worth it for what you have to go through

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门

platformers are not a series of hundreds of indexes to choose from to press the right buttons at the right time to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. platformers are first and foremost, movement, and secondly, context.

the context of being catapulted over a pit passing different hazards falling on you. board a boat in order to enter a pirate ship, find a way up and confront the captain in the plank. accidentally enter a world with all its fauna simply navigating through while you go to your destination, climbing on top of each of them to navigate the terrain.

platformers are about the feeling of navigating in a world that is constantly asking you, are you here, and answering it directly, that yes, you are here. living and experiencing the world, passing through your senses, embracing you, thanking you, for being in here with them.

the inclusion of the double jump is genius. it gives you a degree of freedom that makes the game super fun, because it's a jump that you have to commit to, but you can still modify your trajectory to the options the game gives you WHILE wrong decisions punish you for not having strategised adequately. every decision you make with the jump has future consequences with risks and rewards depending on what you choose to do.
including the typical GnG gameplay loop about showing you a challenge with minimal randomisation to maintain variety while setting on stone how you can complete it, it hooks you in... Simple- challenging fun!

the fundamental mechanics are not well thought out, after the usual main back and forth there are not many things that keep the game interesting besides the gimmicks because the design asks so much of the risk and reward dynamic so straightforward.

in games, decisions go beyond solution = problem. you go into intricacies where future and past decisions affect the way you move, interact, and the world changes. etc, etc. the closest the game comes to this is the weather system and the ship's camera mechanics, that absolute carry the game btw, one of the best things it has to offer.

if the game starts to design and focus more on how to make the game NOT break down and run out of replayability after a week maybe the game will transform into something really special, in the meantime, it is worth seeing the potential it has to offer

I think I'm not the only one who was attracted to this game for it's supposed exploration of taboo concepts. many games nowadays and media in general are cowardly in exploring "uncomfortable" topics.
I think games like these should be made even if they are disgusting and repulsive. even if what they have to say is basic or inconsequential, helps the medium we love so much to evolve and give us new things to talk about, to explore, to connect with.
this game is bad though, but that just means that someone else will play this, be inspired to make something similar and good, and we'll have more games worthy of being proud to call art.