Take a good look at the cover art of God Hand. It reveals the two primary ingredients of the game: fist and face.
Even plotting takes a backseat to the good stuff. In between the various stages (They are called stages. Wonderful, I know), the occasional (and thankfully brief) scene pops up about our hero Gene and the gift he received in his mighty god hand. Poppycock. What you need to know is learned in the gameplay. Your enemies don't fight fair so neither should you. They'll wait in ambush behind doors, play possum, deliver crippling nut shots, use makeshift weaponry, and do anything else to gain the edge. In this untamed world, anything could pop up. That includes western saloons, tiny power rangers, poisonous chihuahuas, luchador gorillas, space ships, and demonic altars. Anything.
Whatever comes your way, expect to punch it or punch your way through it. Clover Studio never forgot what made the 2D beat 'em ups so fun. Special attacks that are powerful enough to turn a tough situation for Gene into a one sided slaughter in his favor but rare enough to not be exploited make for huge shifts in the tide of any battle. Enemies do hefty amounts of damage and also take a beating themselves, so any successful stage will be only happy memories of few failures and many successes (all of them earned). Even the rhythm of the combat matches the steady button mashing of yore.
However, God Hand is more than a throwback. The combat is actually pretty involved (key people from Resident Evil 4, Okami, and Viewtiful Joe had significant roles in its development). Besides Gene's slow turning that is mostly offset by radar and a nimble dodging mechanic, it all handles very smoothly. Repeatedly hitting the square button for combos will be your bread and butter, but you can customize those combos. You'll find hundreds of attacks to choose from and you'll probably want fast strikes to start with and then work your way up to slower yet heavier hits. However, there are still other factors to take into consideration like how vulnerable the attack leaves Gene, its range, or whether it launches the enemy or breaks their guard. For those willing, there is room to pull off some extremely difficult maneuvers.
Your rewards for taking out the small time thugs are even harder boss battles. Each battle translates the character from the cutscenes (again, please forget those exist) into gameplay terms surprisingly well. I'm not saying these are great characters, but they are certainly colorful opponents that fight like they should. It's careful design when the characters are fetish controlled demons and delusional 80's garage bands.
That's not to say that God Hand is all brawling. There are a few light puzzles that would take a concussed orangutang about thirty seconds. Ladders exist to indicate where you can jump up. There's a section that vaguely resembles platforming. Okay, it seems that God Hand is pretty much all brawling. However, the campaign keeps to a tight ten hours, so it won't get old. It's more likely that you'll want to continue fighting in the additional (and even more challenging) cage match trials and earn some extra money for new attacks. If not, you can still gain any more cash you need from various gambling activities. My favorite is the chihuahua racing. You pick a particularly fast looking chihuahua like you would a greyhound or horse and hope for the best. One possible outcome either involves the dog tripping or taking sniper fire. I couldn't tell which.
For how light and mindless God Hand is aesthetically, I want to stress how difficult and mindless it is otherwise. The balancing that makes it so fun is also what makes it challenging. Taunting enemies will piss them off more than anything. Even if there's nothing wrong with you and you don't goof off, the difficulty goes up as you hit enemies without being hit. It goes back to what made those 2D beat 'em ups such a blast. It is some sort of hyper aggressive and competitive male machismo aimed at computer animated fantasies. I wouldn't have it any other way.