It's pretty good! It's a lot more freeform than Zelda though, and I think there are more minuses to that than pluses. Without many real dungeons, there is a pretty bad ratio of bosses and minibosses, whom repeat more than necessary, as well as puzzles, which there are scarcely any of. I suppose that could be becuse they otherwise made beat 'em ups, but I mean, at one point you have to fight a boss 5 times. And you have to travel to different parts of the map by yourself to do so, just to sort of collect him together. That wouldn't be acceptable even in a beat 'em up, where I expect to fight the fun bosses several times, and gladly did so in God Hand.
So yeah. I think it's probably the best of the Zelda-esque games I have played(Darksiders, Starfox Adventures and Beyond good and evil). I still wouldn't put it above any of the Zelda games, because it really phones it in with the puzzles and the dungeons. The combat is more fun than Zelda(and pretty easy, especially once you get the ability to stop time for a few seconds), although it paces itself weirdly. I think none of the dungeons had more than probably 3 fights beside the final boss, but there are tons of semi-random encounters just roaming around in the overworld. The pacing could go doubly for the game itself, because there are 3 main villains, and you never hear about the next one ontil seconds before or after you beat the last one. I took a long break after beating the first one just because I felt so content that everything was all right.
The real strength is in the art design, the music and the characters. Despite the flaws I just mentioned, I got very invested in the world and cried during a certain scene in the very final stages of the game. It also played well on the PS2.
Tip: There's an odd deal with characters having more to say to you immediately after you finished chatting them up. One told me how he lossed his fishrod, so after trying and failing to mend it with paint I went looking for one with one luck. Returning to him, what I was supposed to do was talk to him one or two more times, for the game to activate a scenario in which you could mend his rod with paint. A bit frustrating, but I never fell for it again during the rest of the game.
So yeah. I think it's probably the best of the Zelda-esque games I have played(Darksiders, Starfox Adventures and Beyond good and evil). I still wouldn't put it above any of the Zelda games, because it really phones it in with the puzzles and the dungeons. The combat is more fun than Zelda(and pretty easy, especially once you get the ability to stop time for a few seconds), although it paces itself weirdly. I think none of the dungeons had more than probably 3 fights beside the final boss, but there are tons of semi-random encounters just roaming around in the overworld. The pacing could go doubly for the game itself, because there are 3 main villains, and you never hear about the next one ontil seconds before or after you beat the last one. I took a long break after beating the first one just because I felt so content that everything was all right.
The real strength is in the art design, the music and the characters. Despite the flaws I just mentioned, I got very invested in the world and cried during a certain scene in the very final stages of the game. It also played well on the PS2.
Tip: There's an odd deal with characters having more to say to you immediately after you finished chatting them up. One told me how he lossed his fishrod, so after trying and failing to mend it with paint I went looking for one with one luck. Returning to him, what I was supposed to do was talk to him one or two more times, for the game to activate a scenario in which you could mend his rod with paint. A bit frustrating, but I never fell for it again during the rest of the game.
R no
