Reviews

Posted by: jkdmedia

The purpose of gaming is simple – have fun. Dante’s Inferno is fun, and give Visceral Games props for the graphical vision, but there is little about the game that is fresh – aside from the look, that is.

The gameplay is very much a case of been there, done that. It’s much like God of War (and more recently Darksiders) from the numerous, swarming enemies to the restorative founts within levels to the button-mashing elements of finishing sequences. Plus it's linear and repetitive. The difficulty ramps up as the controlled titular character is guided deeper into the levels of hell but the final portions of the game are more an exercise in objective-based combat rather than a satisfying culmination of everything that went on before.

For anyone living under a rock, Inferno is the first part of Dante Alighieri's 14th-century poem, otherwise referred to as the Divine Comedy. But while the story was a progressive journey that reflected the mores of the era, and to a greater extent the conventions of humanity in general, Visceral Games has boiled the story down to a device to further the more pronounced focus of the game – the combat.

In the game's lore, while on the Crusade, Dante is absolved of sin by a bishop, but therein lays a pointed shot at the church and its man-centered (not God-centered) power. An assassin stabs Dante in the back and the literary icon is approached by Death. Death claims Dante because of his sins, but Dante vows to redeem himself and fights Death, winning and claiming Death’s scythe in the process. It is on the way home to his beloved Beatrice that Dante is visited by a vision and there is a fine line between what follows and what may well be that vision. He arrives home to find Beatrice murdered and taken to hell because, essentially, Dante failed to keep his promises to her during the Crusade.

Dante, of course, feels compelled to follow and descends to battle through the nine levels of hell to find and free Beatrice. He finds some advice in the ghostly apparition of the Roman poet Virgil. But Virgil is not the only character of note in the game. One of the first souls Dante encounters, with the ability to either punish or absolve the character of sin, is Pontius Pilate. There is also Orpheus and Electra, among the early characters found trapped in the upper levels of hell. The choice to punish or to use Beatrice’s crucifix to absolve leads to the role-playing elements and skilling up special attacks – relayed through the attack keys. The more souls collected (by destroying the various creatures of hell), the more experience is gained and that translates to levels and new attacks. As enemies are killed a redemption meter fills up. Once full, hitting both the R1 and L1 buttons gives a temporary boost to Dante’s resistance and allows him to do more damage in his attacks. The rest of the attacks are pretty standard. There is the dash move, a block, a light attack and a heavy attack. Special moves require mana, which is metered in the heads-up display at the top of the screen under Dante’s health meter.

Dante is not alone at times in his journey. Using Death’s scythe, he is able to mount various beasts of hell, kill the rider and use the beast against other servants. The game also has minor puzzles to solve – nothing that is too involved, though. Skilling up allows Dante to buy powers in two trees – Holy Powers and Unholy Powers. There are collectibles and relics that can also be collected and accomplishments.

The vision of the game is, at times, disturbing, and the cut scenes seem crisp one moment and then slightly less so the next time around. The narrative can sometimes be slightly overwhelmed by environmental sounds, but when heard it invokes elements from the poem, and is nicely handled. The musical score is also well done.

Much has been made of some elements of the game, like the level where the unbaptized babies - with arms that are more like sickles - attack, and it is somewhat uncomfortable but this game is rated M for a reason.

Regardless of how well imagined the game is, Dante’s Inferno lacks originality in the overall gameplay scheme. It is a new skin on more recent hack ‘n slash-style RPGs. The eight or so hours it will take to hack through to the final boss battle is repetitive. Sure the vistas are grand, but too often the fighting takes place in confined spaces. And as the game progresses, the vision that mortified and appalled at the start seems to lose its edge. What begins as a frenetic march to save the soul of a woman loved is undercut by a condition-based battle sequence toward the end where Dante must succeed in a certain way to advance. The game might have been better served – instead of using this ploy – to merely up the ante and create a setting that was pure hell in the sheer numbers and pacing. Nothing says fun like cramped fingers at the end of a level.

Dante’s Inferno has vision, but lacks scope and that makes it an average experience. That it departs significantly from the book is excusable; that it merely mimics God of War, to some extent, is on par with a lot of titles jumping on that bandwagon. This is a game that could have been more, but it settles for average.

Gameplay: 7
Been there – done that. Veterans of God of War will be familiar with the gameplay mechanics of this title. The camera can get hung up a few times, but generally the game is decent.  

Graphics: 8 
The cut scenes are crisp in one break and not quite so in the next. But the overall vision is disturbing and props should be given for the artistic direction. Whether appropriate or simply the stuff of nightmares better left not visited, the game’s visual elements will garner a lot of attention.

Sound: 7.5
The musical score is solid and the narrative is decent. There are times, though, when environmental elements slightly obscured the narrative and Virgil’s comments.

Difficulty: Medium
There are four difficulty settings to challenge even hardcore players.

Concept: 7 
The gameplay elements are based on God of War, and the story itself is a loose telling of the classic poem (with a lot of creative license in place).

Overall: 7
The game starts out with a bang, with vision and a challenge, and then becomes more of the same, over and over. The bosses get tougher, the objectives are more defined, but aside from going back and trying again at a tougher difficulty level, once through the game, there is not much reason to go back. Dante’s Inferno is fun, but it is hardly a unique experience.