Total Freedom Wasn't Good For God Hand's Development

Shinji Mikami has recently commented in an interview with Edge magazine that he was given too much freedom when creating the game God Hand and which he feels contributed to the game not being the success he had in mind:

"I've released a lot of titles before and I feel that, perhaps specifically with regard to God Hand, I was given too much freedom to make that game just as I liked. It didn't sell too well."

He goes on to say that the experience from that release is something he has taken on board with upcoming title Vanquish which he and his team intend to sell in considerable numbers:

"We're definitely going for something a little more mass market that will appeal to a wide audience. Certainly a bigger one than God Hand had. We [Platinum and Sega] knew that these were points we had to address from the very beginning, and Vanquish is a result of that."

It’s a shame as God Hand was a really tough but good game that had lots of charm and humour about it. Sure it didn’t look the best of the crop but it did great in the right areas (gameplay and comedy). Hopefully if Mr Mikami ever considers making a sequel he can get the team that worked on Bayonetta to make a good game graphically beautiful. Then we’ll have the best of both worlds (fingers crossed).