Well then, this game certainly came completely out of left field. There have been quite a few times where the games that shake me to my core are the last that I expect. When it comes to indie gaming, there will be plenty of cases of dark, horror masterpieces like Mouthwashing or MyHouse.wad getting the recognition that they deserve (I will be reviewing both of those btw), but even more will fall through the cracks. Hand of the Goddess is one of these games.

Hand of the Goddess comes to us from SCityDreamer, the developer of very uplifting and happy sounding games such as Slimes, and I Hate You, Please Suffer. They also run the gaming blog Indie Hell Zone, which I may need to take a look at since it’s not often I cover games made by other people who write about games. Hand of the Goddess is an RPG Maker game made for the 2022 Indie Game Making Contest: Rebirth game jam, where it came in 9th place.

So, question is, “if this game is so good, why didn’t it rank higher, and why haven’t I heard of it?” The answer to this question is, how the fuck should I know? I only just learned that this game existed on December 20th of 2024, how do you expect me to have intimate knowledge of a game jam that happened two years ago? Do you think I can see into the past or some shit? If I had to guess, it’s probably the presentation. ScityDreamer’s art style does have it’s charm, but it doesn’t have the look that people perceive as professional. The game uses most of the default RPG Maker assets and animations, and the main character design is literally just Brian from Quest 64.

Now this all makes sense because Hand of the Goddess is about deconstructing the “chosen one destined to destroy the dark lord” trope, but someone going into the game doesn’t know that. Again, I like this game, and I personally don’t mind this shit, this is just my guess as to why it’s not more popular. The game was quite literally made in two weeks, I’d say that blows my mind, but it occurs to me that a lot of development is often spent on graphics, visuals, and presentation.

That being said, Hand of the Goddess is more than worth a look even if it isn’t appealing visually, especially since it more than makes up for it with every other aspect of the presentation. The music I found especially fitting for the game. The music comes from the album Exploding Head Syndrome by Monplaisir, and it fits especially well. The music emphasizes tension with every beat, and perfectly emphasizes the mindset of someone whose life is defined by forcing themselves through intense pain and sacrificing their own health and well being to achieve their goal at all costs. There is little sense of harmony, and there’s constant strain and anxiety. I need to give special note to the tracks Kapow Pew Pew KrKrBrBrBr and Drive me safe, the semi final and final boss themes (though I can’t remember which one is which).

Hand of the Goddess stars an unnamed child who is tasked with a perilous journey to stop the resurrection of the Dark Lord, and to instead allow for the reverse of the Goddess. That being said, Hand of the Goddess is far more realistic, namely in the fact that the people that sent the protagonist on this journey are a cult, and that the protagonist behaves with all the trauma and dysfunction that someone raised in a dangerous abusive cult would. This leads to many typical JRPG tropes being re-contextualized in the lens of abuse trauma and religious indoctrination. For example, the main character does not speak because the cult would severely abuse him whenever he did, which leads to a morbid twist on the silent protagonist trope.

Throughout the course of the game, you meet more party members who help the protagonist on their quest, and you learn more about what our protagonist was subjected to at the hands of this horrific cult. You also see the dysfunctional way that our main character acts towards others as a result of his abuse. Many of these are behaviors that one would recognize as disturbing in real life, but are common in the lens of a JRPG protagonist. In other words, if you’ve every played a JRPG where a young boy is fighting a dangerous wolf, and made a remark about how fucked up it would be for a child to actually have to do this, then this is the game for you.

As a fan of JRPGs, I’ve often grown annoyed by “criticism” of JRPG tropes that is every bit as cliche as the trope it derides. I’m sure that hack game critics who have only played Final Fantasy and Persona think they are very clever if they point out that people in real life don’t go into people’s houses and take their shit, but shit like that has literally been parodied in JRPGs since the 90s. It’s the type of shallow criticism that makes it clear that they don’t care enough about the genre to actually explore it outside of the two that they played.

it is because of this that I have a great level of respect for how Hand of the Goddess critiques and analyzes JRPGs in a way that even seasoned veterans have likely not heard before. Traditional JRPGs often have the tendency to uncritically glorify monarchy and religious theocracy. Just think of older JRPGs where you save your game by talking to a priest. The act of worship is quite literally embedded into many classic JRPGs. Of course, the genre has been around long enough that there’s been plenty of games to subvert this, but it is embedded in the classics… by which I mean Dragon Quest. Do you also think it’s a coincidence that one of the people most involved with the series creation was Koichi Sugiyama, an extremist “traditional values” conservative who defended the rape of Nanking?

And to be clear, this isn’t to say that this detracts from the quality of many traditional JRPGs, but just that it’s something that isn’t often considered. Art is not made in a vacuum where the influences of one’s peers and culture doesn’t exist, it can simply choose to reaffirm or to challenge those values. Hand of the Goddess is a game that seeks to challenge the foundation of the genre it is based on, not through some hamfisted or bitter mockery, but through an understanding of both the genre itself, and the real world, and the often barely visible connections between the two.

As for the gameplay of Hand of the Goddess, it very much resembles and plays like a typical turn based RPG, but it actually is not one. It’s instead six individual turn based battles with cutscenes and very light exploration between them. There aren’t any dungeons, leveling, equipment, items, or any usual JRPG tropes, and the game is only one hour long. Based on this description, Hand of the Goddess may just sound like a simple walking simulator in the same vein as something like To the Moon, but that is not the case. The turn based battles will require the same use of wits and strategy as any standard RPG, and they require you to know how to use every character’s abilities to support each other and keep them alive. This not only requires the players to actually engage with the gameplay portion of this game, but it also reinforces the thematic importance of comradery through found family.

And that is perhaps what is most touching about Hand of the Goddess, in that it doesn’t simply feel fit to deconstruct the tropes of typical JRPGs, but to also reconstruct them. The “power of love and friendship” trope is one of the most highly mocked tropes in the genre, yet it’s played straight in Hand of the Goddess. However, after one has played an entire game about being exploited by some horrific cult to revive a Goddess by subjecting yourself to cruel and inhumane violence and abuse, a reminder that there are people who genuinely care for you and love you rings is what all of us need the most.

Hand of the Goddess is not content to cynically deconstruct JRPGs for the purpose of jerking themselves themselves off, because something like Hand of the Goddess is a game that can only be made by someone who took their experiences with past JRPGs to heart. In spite of the horrific abuse and cruelty this game portrays, it is something deeply beautiful and moving to witness. Even something as simple as naming your character, an action that normally occurs at the start, and is merely an after thought, is used to represent one choosing their own path and freeing themselves from the control of their abusers. And yes, they even explicitly confirm that MC being a trans girl isn’t off the table.

That last bit is the closest to a spoiler I will give for this game, because it really is best to go into blind. It is simultaneously callous and cruel, while also being beautiful, much like life itself, and we need games like this now more than ever.

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