In today's episode of Notes On GOAT Hand, I want to highlight how incredibly good the implementation of contextual attacks is in God Hand.
Enemy States
One of the things that makes the contextual attacks so good is how simple & elegant the mechanics are. Essentially the game has 3 enemy states which dictate whether (non-prompt) contextual attacks are available or not - the enemies are either on the ground (fallen, crawling), standing/at the player's height (neutral, attacking, whatever) or are in the air above the player (jumping, falling, getting juggled, flying).
These properties are really simple and apply to basically every enemy state, which they will flip through constantly during normal gameplay. As a result, you get a really consistent and versatile set of moves, instead of moves that are only used in a specific, pre-baked context. You don't need to have juggled an enemy to do a jumping kick or uppercut follow up - you can do it on enemies that are jumping down from platforms or even flying bosses like the old dude on a rock. The "on the ground" state also applies to a whole bunch of things - enemies being knocked down lets you charge your axe kick, but so do girl enemies crawling around on the floor.
Player States
While the varied context is nice, the really great thing is how God Hand implements its context sensitive attacks - they aren't paired animations that only allow Gene & a single enemy interact. No, they are essentially like proximity normals in fighting games - they are programmed like normal attacks with their own frame data & hitboxes, just ones that activate under specific circumstances.
This means that the attacks have all the depth of normals - they can hit other enemies & entire groups, they can get interrupted by other enemies, the position from which you start them matters because the game doesn't move you, and the enemies that are meant to be victims of your attack can outright dodge out of the way or be in too awkward of a position to hit, making you whiff.
So you essentially have beat 'em up ground attacks (which are always great to begin with & need to be in more games) except with more flexibility.
Charging
If that wasn't enough, Shinji Mikami blesses us with a great solution to charged attacks & incorporated them into the context sensitive actions. A solution so brilliant that he was too afraid to apply it to the numerous busted charged attacks that aren't contextual which exist in the game, fearing that he might make God Hand far too good. :)
The usual issue is that in games with charged attacks, moving away, charging & punishing enemies that walk towards you is an extremely good strategy unless it's offset by things like timers. Making these charge moves contextual solves this - you need to put yourself into a dangerous, proactive situation to even get access to charged moves.
Furthermore, even though it's not the most important thing ever in God Hand, charge times make the contextual moves more situational - you don't have to charge much to launch lighter enemies, while for heavies you need to delay your axe kick charge longer. Though even a partially charged axe kick still allows you to use powerful options like wall kicks (which sometimes might even be better than kick launches, if you're fighting a single enemy). Even cooler, the charge can be used like a normal charged attack - you charge your move, an enemy rolls away from you, you stand around charging the move waiting for another enemy to come close enough that you can punish them instead.
Chefs kiss.
So to sum up, the context sensitive actions are good because :
- They apply to a lot of enemy states, even ones that you wouldn't think they would, not just 1-2 specific pre-baked states. That creates varied application & dare I say depth.
- The actions themselves are more like proximity normals than the usual canned finisher animations you see in modern games, with their own frame data/hitboxes/properties. They integrate positioning into the equation and reward situational awareness. They feed back into other aspects of gameplay as a result.
- They fix charged attacks by making them proactive and making fishing impossible, and the charged attacks create more flexibility within the contextual action. You get the fun & flexibility of charged attacks "for free" and the "to charge or not to charge" question isn't instantly answered by the fact that you can charge before moving into range.
I'll probably write more of these cause I can't stop playing God Hand, it's like returning home. 😌 Also maybe it'd be worth looking at Resident Evil 5's contextual attacks because they are also amazing.
