Dante's Inferno Review
By - Craig H.
Dante’s Inferno follows the first part of Dante Alighieri’s poem, The Divine Comedy. The source material for Dante’s Inferno was almost tailor made for a video game. The Divine Comedy is an amazing piece of literature and thankfully the developers did not try to change or add too much to it. The story for the game is fairly simple. Players take the role of Dante as he travels through Hell to save (and absolve) his love, Beatrice, which he has damned through the sins of his life. Dante must travel through the 9 Circles of Hell which includes Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treason. Only after traveling through all 9 circles do you reach Beatrice and Lucifer. Throughout the story you will have a guide, Virgil, who explains each of the 9 circles and provides an insight into what Dante has done in each of the circles (as well as recognize some of its inhabitants).
The story is told through a mixture of conversations between Dante and Virgil, in-game cutscenes, CGI cutscenes and hand drawn cutscenes. Personally, I thought the hand-dawn cutscenes were an excellent choice and enjoyed watching each of them throughout the campaign. The story is delivered well and you really feel the pain that Dante has for damning his wife and his love for her. Each of the 9 circles of hell are rendered well and are all distinctively different. Each level has small touches, such as people impaled on poles twitching and squirming, that gets the player to really feel the pain and suffering that Hell is suppose to have.
Many will compare Dante’s Inferno combat to the popular God of War franchise (and for good reason). Dante’s Inferno does more than just take inspiration from the franchise, it copies it. The only problem is that it does not do any of it particularly well (or expand on what has already been done). The gameplay becomes mind numbing and tedious halfway through. Along with the classic hack and slash style of gameplay, Dante has the ability to use magic to dispose of his enemies. Most will ignore the majority of the magic though (aside from a very effective ice slide) and find a couple combos that deal the most damage and just stick with those the entire game. Each enemy that Dante kills gains him souls which can be used to upgrade Dante’s abilities through a skill tree. The skill tree has two sides, Holy and Unholy, which Dante can upgrade depending on how he kills his enemies. “Absolving” enemies will gain holy experience while “punishing” enemies will gain unholy experience. Also scattered throughout the campaign are relics that can be used as amplifiers for Dante’s abilities (such as extra damage from magic attacks, etc.). Initially you have 2 slots but have the ability to purchase 2 more with souls form the skills tree.
A couple glaring combat problems includes an insane amount of quick-time-events. Almost everything has the ability for a QTE. Whether you are choosing to “punish” or “absolve” the heavy type enemies or kill the bosses you will be prompted with a QTE. Also, during combat, if you grab a drone type enemy you can do a quick kill by selecting to “punish” or “absolve” the enemy. During this action all other enemies will just stand around and wait for you to take care of this enemy before attacking. This makes it incredibly easy to avoid attacks and gives you the ability to get rid of all other enemies before tackling the large (ungrabable enemies). This slows down the game and provides a cheap and monotonous gameplay.
During the final section of the game (after fighting through the 9 circles) you have to complete “challenges”. Dante has to run from room to room and complete these challenges before reaching Beatrice. The gameplay pauses after reaching each platform (were the challenges happen in each room) and tells you what you have to do and states a goal time (such as do the challenge in under 1 minute, etc.) each of which you have to accept by pressing a button. This feels extremely out of place and is very poorly implemented. These challenges include staying in the air for 8 seconds, kill 5 enemies while airborne, and only use magic to kill all enemies. Aside from them feeling out of place some of the challenges you must complete are very frustrating since most of the things it asks you to do you never had to do throughout the entire campaign. So you have to basically learn the skill for this section only. Only after completing these challenges do you reach Beatrice and eventually the end boss.
Overall, Dante’s Inferno had a lot going for it but just faltered on its implementation. The hack and slash style (ala God of War) has been done better and the combat flaws become very apparent only a few hours into the 8-10 hour campaign (I finished just shy of 8 hours on the default difficulty). Currently there is no online play but will become available shortly via DLC. Though the combat and overall gameplay will mostly likely keep most from even bothering with it. EA looks to expand this into a franchise (considering that inferno was only the first of three poems written by Dante Alighieri). This was a bumpy start but with some tweaks (and innovation) can become a much better offering.
Quick Synopsys:
Pros: Great storyline and source material. Solid graphics with excellent cutscenes and CGI. Well rendered enemies with decent variety. Each circle of hell is distinctively different and visual appealing. Fixed camera hold up well and does a great job at being in the right place.
Cons: Insane amount of QTE’s. Inexplicable challenges at the end of the game slows the game down just as it’s about to finish. Monotonous combat does not give much incentive to replay after you finish. Online/Multiplayer is not available currently and must be downloaded from Live or PSN upon release.
NOTE: If you have the choice between purchasing the game for the Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 you should purchase the Playstation 3 version. Both versions look and play the same but the Playstation 3 version is called the “Divine Edition” and is basically a free upgrade to a collector’s edition (which is completely unavailable on the Xbox 360). You will get extra content for the same amount of money.
RATING: 6/10
