Game Review: Dante’s Inferno
Dante's Inferno tells us to "Go to Hell" and we still give it a BG 4.
First Glance:
A game adaptation of Dante Alighieri’s first part of “The Divine Comedy” about a soldier’s quest through the Nine Circles of Hell.
Short Story:
You play as Dante, a soldier of the Crusades who returns home to find both his father and his love, Beatrice, murdered. While he mourns at Beatrice’s body, a dark presence appears and takes her soul down to Hell. Dante, now “hell” bent on revenge, follows her soul down to Hell determined to save her soul and send her to Heaven. Along the way, you learn why she is taken to Hell and more about Dante himself and his family.
The Score:
I’m giving Dante’s Inferno a 4. Not only is this game fun and exciting but it can also be a quick play if you are able to get a good amount of game play in. I also give this game a 4 because it’s an easy achievement game. A plus if you like achievements as much as I do.
Body of Review:
Good:
Dante’s Inferno is a very solid game. One of my favorite things about the game would be the cinematics. The in game cutscenes, the cinematic cutscenes, and the flashback cartoons are amazing and add a lot of depth to the game itself. As you travel deeper into Hell, you will have a flashback cutscene which is started by a close up of the cross that Dante has stitched into his body. In these flashbacks, you find out what kind of person Dante is and how Beatrice’s soul is snatched down to Hell by the Devil himself.
Another good thing about the game is the arsenal of weapons you have. First and foremost, Death’s Scythe. That’s right, Death’s Scythe. You acquire this weapon early in the game. After the games tutorial, you go to a cutscene where Dante is stabbed in the back by an enemy. While Dante tries to recover from the blow, Death rises from the underworld to collect Dante’s soul. Dante refuses and you go into what I consider your first boss fight. This boss fight made me hear something I thought I never would…Death begging for his life while Dante kills him with his own scythe and then takes it for himself. My mind was blown just by this first fight. The scythe is great for the classic hack and slash of demons and damned souls but sometimes there will be enemies that are too far away for the scythe to reach. For these enemies, you have a cross given to you by Beatrice before Dante went off to the Crusades. The cross is used as a ranged weapon.
The big head may be angry that we're wasting his dental floss...
Now along with these two weapons, you also have four different types of magic spells that you acquire through out the game. The gameplay is quite good in this game. It has a combination of hack and slash and also a button command system for certain enemies and boss fights. My favorite aspect of the fighting system is the option to punish or absolve certain enemies. To get this option, you can either grab some of the weaker enemies or wear down some of the stronger enemies. When you wear down an enemy enough, a right trigger icon will appear over their head, when this happens, press right trigger to grab the enemy with the scythe then you will have an option. You can either punish or absolve your enemy. If you choose to absolve them, Dante will use the cross to send the demon’s soul to Heaven. If you choose to punish them, Dante will show no mercy with Death’s Scythe. Choosing to either punish or absolve an enemy will raise either you Holy, or Unholy level, and also collect souls which you can use to buy different moves or upgrade your weapons as your levels go up.
I really enjoyed the button command system that was included with the fighting system. When you take on enemies, you will be given certain button commands to choose to punish, absolve, or even board a creature that you can control.
One of my favorite things would be the boss fights. You will take on a number powerful foes in this game, including Death, King Minos (who judges damned souls and sends them to a certain circle of Hell depending on their sins), Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Cerberus, Alighieri (Dante’s father), Frencesco (Dante’s friend and Beatrice’s brother) and Lucifer Himself. Favorite boss fight: King Minos. The way you finish the fight is brutal!
All these things about this game are great, but the absolute best thing about this game has to be the overall look of the game. The environments are mind blowing. My favorite stage in the game is Gluttony. Since gluttony is associated with the digestive system, the entire circle of Gluttony looks like you are walking around the inside of a stomach and intestines of a person. As you walk around, the walls move and you hear the sounds of a stomach. It’s absolutely disgusting to look at and hear but it’s done so well you can’t help but appreciate it.
Like I said earlier, this is an achievement game. There is no achievement in the game that require you to play through the game on a certain difficulty, so you can 100% this game on the easiest level of gameplay, which is a big plus for me, because I don’t like games to be too difficult. I got all but 5 achievements just playing through the game once.
"Butt kicking for goodness!"
Bad:
Ok, I know I had a lot of good things to say about Dante’ Inferno. In fact, I think the goods things I wrote about it may actually be longer than my first review. Anyway, there were a couple of things I thought could have been better about the game. First of all, there was the lack of a free roaming camera. I felt a free roaming camera could have been helpful and could have prevented a number of deaths that I suffered while playing the game. I also would have wanted to have a targeting system. There were times that I wanted to focus on one enemy to raise either my Holy or Unholy level and then Dante would start attacking another enemy in mid combo, which got a little annoying. The last thing I didn’t like was how Cerberus was portrayed in the game. Now when you think Cerberus, you think a giant three-headed dog. But, in the game, Cerberus guards the entrance into Gluttony, so to go along with the look of the stage, the people at Visceral Games decided to make Cerberus into a three headed worm monster. I didn’t like it at all.
Final Thoughts:
Dante’s Inferno is an incredible game. The combination of the story, game design, and controls is what makes this such a great game. And the ending left it open for more games. Perhaps it will continue to follow in the stories of “The Divine Comedy.” It was one of my favorite games I’ve played recently.
Until next time, happy gaming everyone!
M-Dawg
