God Hand, directed by renowned Resident Evil designer Shinji Mikami, is a wacky cocktail of hardcore beat ’em up sensibilities, surf rock, and oddball slapstick comedy that remains a cult hit to this day. The only thing that could’ve made this game more Japanese is if it was only available in vending machines.

Players step up to the plate as Gene, a drifter who awakens one day to find one of the two legendary God Hands attached to his arm in place of his own. Gene must use the power of the God Hand to prevent a posse of demons called The Four Devas from successfully resummoning a demon lord who enslaved mankind centuries ago. It’s probably worth pointing out everyone’s dressed like they’re apocalypse survivors and the only clothing they could find left on the planet was from the wreckage of a horrible head-on crash between a bus full of glam rockers and a bus full of S&M sex fiends.

Oh, and it has chihuahua racing.

Clover Studio, officially founded in 2004, was designed to be a semi-autonomous operation focusing on creating and developing new IPs. Clover developed Viewtiful Joe 2, Okami, and God Hand.

Unfortunately, while Okami became a critical darling it did not meet sales expectations. God Hand, which was also largely well-received, was a commercial fizzer too. Capcom subsequently attempted to merge the studio back into their internal R&D but, after a series of high-profile resignations in late 2006, Capcom instead decided to dissolve the studio.


http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/18/5-defunct-developers-who-went-out-with-a-bang