EA’s descent into the wilderness of hack and slash adventures continues with their latest foray Dante’s Inferno.From merely a spectator’s point of view this game and EAs other recent release Darksiders appear to be challenges to Sony’s God of War.
The first thing I noticed about Dante’s Inferno is that it plays very similarly to Darksiders and it follows the example of God of War in its basic game play engine. So another God of War clone you might say but maybe this time around we have found a genuine challenge to the industry giant that is God of War. The game was produced by Visceral Studios (Dead Space) and distributed by EA
Based on the Divine Comedy, an epic poem written by Dante Alighieri in the 14th century, the game follows the quest of Dante as he descends through the 9 levels of Hell in order to save his love Beatrice from Lucifer himself. Sticking to the foundation of The Divine Comedy players will descend through Dante’s unique nine circles of Hell: limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence, fraud and treachery. After defeating death himself and acquiring his scythe Dante finds out that Beatrice has been murdered and sentenced to Hell because of his broken vow to her. As his descent into the underworld continues Dante finds that not only is he there to save Beatrice but also to challenge his own demons and ultimately redeem himself.
Dante’s main weapons are his scythe and his cross. The scythe is his close and medium range tool of destruction whereas the cross is his long and medium range weapon. Much like God of War there is a remarkable combo system employed and movement feels very fluid and powerful. A useful reference counter on the screen counts the number of successive hits you land awarding you different phrases for the accumulated number. Dante can be developed through an upgrade system available at any time in the menu.You upgrade your health and manna and unlock new combinations by cashing in the souls you have acquired. Souls are awarded by defeating enemies, breaking Certain chests and judging certain famous damned members of Hell. A unique feature of Dante’s inferno is that you have two sets of combinations to unlock by leveling up your punish and absolve meters. You can do this with most enemies in the game and also by punishing or absolving the famous damned souls you find on your journeys. Relics can be found throughout the gaming environment that provide Dante with an extra boost once equipped. These relics can be leveled up by defeating enemies hence increasing their effectiveness.
The boss battles are fantastic. The diversity and scale of the battles means that you have to constantly re configure your tactics to defeat an impressive number of bosses. Considering you encounter one in every level of hell, I found there was a big enough roster of bosses to keep us well entertained. The visual appeal of Dante’s Inferno is phenomenal. The gothic, gory and gruesome portrayal of Hell is probably the best representation of Hell ever developed for a video game. The character models are brutally beautiful. Dante is wonderfully represented and looks truly bad ass in the realms of Hell. Each level of Hell has its own enemies and bosses and are designed to perfection. Each has its own freakishly unique feel to it and really represents the sin it is portraying. If I were to refer back to the poem for an example fortune-tellers have to walk with their heads on backwards, unable to see what is ahead, because that was what they had tried to do in life !
Dante’s poem is such a rich source that just allows Visceral studios creativity to just mushroom in their design and you can’t help but appreciate the amount of detail and thought gone into level design.
Cut scenes are frequent and essential. The player begins to understand more and more about Dante as they progress and a real player/character relationship builds up as the player wants Dante to redeem himself as we can see he is truly resentful of his sins. Spread throughout the game are action sequences reminiscent of God of War where the player has to press a certain button to kill a boss or progress through a cut scene.
The soundtrack of the game is exactly what you want. It’s mellow and dark during the quiet, adventuring sections of the game and then when you get into the combat or you encounter a boss it becomes pulsating and you find yourself having an adrenaline rush linking multiple combos together and cutting your horrifically beautiful foes to pieces. There are a lot of things in the game that I like. I really enjoy levelling up my punish and absolve meters and seeing all the different kill moves that are required to level them up. I also loved the combos and boosting my combo meter while watching the enemies get cut up around me. The look of the game is another great factor but my overall personal favourite element in the game has to be the epic boss battles.
However there are some things I would change or like to see implemented. I would probably develop the story a little better in the beginning of the game as players have to wait until about an hour in before they really start to understand Dante. I would also add in a few more weapons just to make a more interesting combo system. Perhaps if I was being picky I would say that the game becomes more of a task than an enjoyable experience as your progress and really you’re just working for the boss battles towards the end of the game. It’s a shame that Visceral didn’t come up with a distinct feature that would’ve really set the game apart from God of War. It’s a good game, no doubt, but I felt the game was in the shadow of Kratos and his legacy.
Overall Dante’s Inferno is a quality gaming experience that provides a good few hours of exhilarating game play and it definitely is worth having a stab at. Now it remains to be seen whether Visceral will be following it up with sequels of the second and third sections of The Divine Comedy – Dante’s Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Dante’s Paradiso (Paradise)?
Marks out of 10
Game play 9 Combos and character development. The perfect hack and slash mix
Story 6 Confusing at points and could be developed
Graphics 10 Beautiful depiction of Hell and all the beasties that reside within it
Audio 8 Great soundtrack to compliment the game play
Replay ability 5 Unless you want to try it again at a harder level or find all the relics I don’t really see any real replay ability
Overall I give Dante’s Inferno at 7.5 / 10
