Clover Studios (2004-2007) is no longer with us, but in the time we were able to share together, the Capcom developer produced a few of the generation’s most memorable titles. God Hand, their final game, is a 3D action game that merges the gameplay of a classic arcade beat ‘em up with a modern fighting game, successfully bringing the brawler into the 21st century with some appreciated new depth. While some serious technical failings are detrimental to the overall experience, the game has so much personality and heart that, frankly, it’s hard to care.

From the onset, it’s clear that the fine folks at Clover Studios have a soft spot for the beat ‘em up games of old. God Hand plays up the inherent absurdity in genre classics like Final Fight and Streets of Rage, providing a flimsy story that’s little more than an excuse to punch people. The narrative includes a gorilla wrestler in a lucha libre costume, a quintet of Power Ranger-inspired munchkins, and a parade of other oddities that makes a wrestling mayor and boxing kangaroo seem positively dull in comparison. In fact, God Hand spends a great deal of time celebrating and mocking its strange heritage in equal measure, often with hilarious results. A Street Fighter-inspired challenge sees you destroying a car with your fists as quickly as possible while Gene, the game’s protagonist and playable character, exclaims, “Finally, a boss fight!” when he finally meets the game’s first major boss.

Actually, God Hand is a real rarity in gaming; it’s a comedy game that’s genuinely funny. The entire game has a so-bad-it’s-good, B-movie quality about it with pitch perfect terrible voice acting to match. The game’s environments feel like old movie backlots that have seen better days – a dusty old west town, a ruined castle, a Venice-like city crisscrossed with canals – making for an odd mashup of locations that don’t make any logical sense. This is a game that drops any pretense of logic and instead creates a world in which poisonous Chihuahuas are the most dangerous animals. The game’s characters spit one-liners at one another rather than actually converse, quoting Mike Tyson and Dave Chapelle. And God Hand features two separate “giant enemy crab” jokes, poking fun at Sony’s infamous 2006 E3 press conference.

Clover’s love of the beat ‘em up is also reflected in God Hand’s design. The game is subdivided into bit-sized, brutally difficult encounters, usually representing about five minutes of gameplay and including only a few enemies or a single boss fight. The words “move on” never appear on screen in neon font, but these small levels serve the same purpose as beat ‘em ups’ carefully designed ‘screens,’ providing you with delicately balanced encounters that never overwhelm (or underwhelm) you. You can save between levels and continue as many times as needed – think of it as an arcade cabinet in free mode – making for an experience that’s challenging but never frustrating.

Still, God Hand isn’t an easy game, even on its default difficulty setting. Even the weakest enemies can make short work of you if you’re not careful, always keeping you alert and on your guard. Thankfully, you have over 100 moves – mostly punches and kicks – to put a hurt on your opponents. Some moves also come with additional qualities like the ability to launch an enemy into the air to break through a defensive pose. You have full reign over the controls and are able to assign any move to any face button, including a custom combo you assign to the square button. The right analog stick is reserved entirely for dodging, but also allows you to cancel another move at any point in its animation, allowing you to really dish out some impressive combos. Obviously, God Hand features the sort of combat depth usually reserved for fighting games.

Besides the basic punches and kicks, you’ll also have a large repertoire of special abilities to help you down the more difficult enemies. The titular God Hand, for example, allows you to unleash its strength once you’ve dealt or taken enough damage, providing you with limited invulnerability and attacks charged with the power of a god. It recharges quickly, never leaving you wanting in a dangerous situation. You can also unleash powerful roulette attacks, provided you have the orbs to fuel them, as well as context sensitive, button mashing onslaughts, including an aggressive spanking attack. As you defeat enemies you’ll earn gold you can spent between levels on new techniques and upgrades or, if you’re feeling lucky, you can risk it in a game of chance in a surprisingly addictive casino that features slot machines, poker, blackjack, and Chihuahua races.

You’ll need to fully master this wide range of skills and abilities to stand a chance against the game’s challenges. The boss fights, of which there are many, are particularly difficult and engaging, serving as real highlights. The better you do, however, the harder the game becomes. God Hand feature a dynamic difficulty level based on your performance; the less damage you take the harder the game becomes. You begin ranked at level one where enemies are comparably docile, but should you reach level DIE, chances are you’ll do exactly that. The game rewards you with gold for reaching and staying in the harder difficulty levels, but the experience more or less breaks down at level DIE, as all the enemies begin to rush you, pulling out their cheapest tricks. Thankfully, you take so much damage so quickly, you’ll soon find yourself back at a more manageable difficulty.

Taking further cues from a fighting game, God Hand’s camera remains directly behind you at all times, like a fighting game’s camera loosed from the constraints of small arenas and one on one match-ups. This Resident Evil 4-inspired camera system (Shinji Mikami directed both games) keeps you focused on the current opponent and not much else, often leaving you open to surprise attacks from just a few feet away. Rather than being annoying, however, this limited view keeps fights intense, forcing you to keep track of your surroundings as the game doesn’t do it for you. Thankfully, the character models are extremely impressive and detailed, as you’ll be spending the entire game up close and personal with them.

Unfortunately, the character models are really the only graphical aspect of the game worth complimenting. While the environments are varied, they are sparse and bland. God Hand looks decent enough in indoor environments, but appears laughably basic and underdeveloped in any area that’s not supposed to be small and boxy. Additionally, the camera annoyingly clips through everything, causing walls and background elements to disappear entirely when the camera so much as nicks them, revealing the weird, untextured existence behind the world. While it’s distracting and ugly, it doesn’t interfere with gameplay for the most part, but there are a few rare occurrences when you’ll find yourself rolling backwards into invisible walls, unaware there’s supposed to be an obstacle in your way.

Such widespread technical issues could severely harm a lesser game, but you’ll be having too much fun with God Hand to mind. Even after the ‘60s-inspired credit sequence on par with Portal’s closing runs its course, you’ll find yourself hard-pressed to shelve the game. There are 50 additional caged and wrestling matches, each of which rewards you with a hefty sum of gold; costumes, new moves, and difficulty levels that only become available after beating the game; and of course the casino where it’s easy to lose hours of your time (and thousands of your hard-earned gold). Even the game’s funky soundtrack is worth unlocking by collecting CDs you can play in the casino’s jukebox. As clichéd as it is to say so, you really will find yourself humming the game’s tunes – especially the boss fight music to which the bosses themselves hum along – for days after finishing God Hand.

It’s hard to imagine a better swan song for Clover Studios than God Hand. Moreso than Viewtiful Joe or Okami, God Hand perfectly encapsulates Clover’s ability to reinvent a seemingly stale genre with modern depth and a kooky sense of personality. Rather than lament the developer’s passing in sadness, celebrate their short life with God Hand. Remember that for a few years there was an unrelentingly creative developer named Clover Studios. And it was good.