Dante's Inferno

[Recycled Human]

Dante's Inferno

Once I saw Dante pick up Death's scythe and sling it through the hulking skeleton I was hooked. I remember finishing the demo and exclaiming that I couldn't wait to play this game. So I preordered it. And yesterday I completed the game, amidst some of the lowest review scores I've seen in a long time. Gamespot : 6.5; 1UP : C+; and the overall average of 7.4 (found by taking all scores and converting them to the 1:10 scale then dividing the sum by the number of reviews). Which is one of the worst scores I've seen for a game I've preordered!

At first, I thought that there must be something I was missing. Some of the reviews (gamespot for instance) claimed that the game was good. Good doesn't get a score of 6.5! That's a borderline failure! Their complaints? The 'rip off' of God of War, the last few levels being restricted arena battles and the ease/difficulty being disproportionate.

I tell you this so you know what your in for.

The Game : 9/10

Graphics : 9/10

The visuals and imagery in this game are great. I'm not too much of a graphics hound but seeing some of the brilliance of this game, its cutscenes, its interesting storytelling and especially its in game brutality brought to full glory on my 42 inch HDTV. Now, it doesn't take much for me to say a game looks good if it doesn't make me wince every time I see clipping or groan and role my eyes at some monster that's stupidly rendered. In Dante's Inferno, that's never the case. The monsters are awesome (see unbaptized baby, Charon the ferry, and the lust/prostitute demons), the setting is incredible (fountains of fire, boiling greedy sinners in gold, and even the walls as they scream out in agony or anger or tempt you with propositions as Dante slowly scales from one platform to the next), and the fluid combat is unbelievable. Nothing beats knocking a demon up into the air, slicing them with the blade of your Scythe, ripping the two halves apart in midair and showering in their blood all while collecting exp and currency. For me, the graphics could have been a bit better but only a little bit.

Loading : 9/10

For as much splendor that's packed into this game (from gyrating prostitutes to unbaptized babies to the staggering giants that flood the screen) the load times are pretty reasonable. Add on top of that pile that deaths respawn within a matter of seconds and menu/items screen load and are finished loading almost instantly and you'd be pressed to say that this game has only the one real load (when you first load a save) and after that it just moves. The only downfall I find for this game (and is the reason for the score) is the fact that the majority of cutscenes can't be skipped (not really a loading issue but still...) and for that matter, why would you want to?

Music : 8/10

Each world has its own score, if not in background music in the screams of the dead that assail you at every turn. Stand still before you board the boat to limbo and you'll see what I mean. Scale the walls in greed and anger and you'll feel the tingle of dread as you slide further into the abyss. It's good, not memorable but not in the way.

Action : 10/10

It is an action game after all isn't it? GOW rip off? Why the high score, let me put it to you this way, my only complaint is that I'm tempted to use the cross more than the scythe. That's it. Everything else runs smoothly, the combo's are easy to pull off and look good, the level up system allows you to tailor the game to your style of fighting instead of relying on air combo's and juggling, or forcing you to use different weapons in different situations. Ultimately, how you fight depends on how you want to fight and who you choose to absolve or punish. Then there's the relic system. Up to four (two originally) can be equipped at a time and there's 30 or so. Each one can be very useful and some can be very situational (see 'protect against gluttony demon bile' because you only fight a select few in the whole game!) but any can be changed by going through the (unwieldy) menu and patiently choosing the relic you need for the situation. I'd complain about this, but the times I had to actually do this were so few and far between that I wasn't worried about it. I changed to the best equipment and pretty much stuck with it. It helps that every time you pick up an item you can press a button that quickly gets you to the menu to review the new item you found.

I don't know how everyone feels but this game reuses the timing sequences popularized (unfortunately) by God of War. It still looks good, it's still fun and I still enjoy ripping Charon's head off and throwing it into the river Styx then charging up a wall in my commandeered mega demon that shambles up the walls on my way to limbo. And cutting off the heads of Cerberus was fun and disgusting at the same time all thanks to the timing sequences.

If your a fan of high hitting combos check out the item that extends your combo life by 3 seconds. Imagine all those times trying to perfectly time your hits to keep your counter going if you could take a hit, have a quick cup of coffee then throw out your cross and keep going without ever dropping the counter!

Replayability : 10/10 (maybe)

Now this ones a bit iffy. Right now, as the game stands pre april's release of St. Lucia the game has only a handful of the standard replayability options. Namely : the hardest difficulty, new costumes and a new game + to max out your stats. But once the expansion drops it promises to release multiplayer vs. and survival modes that I'm sure will be a big hit. I'm playing through on New Game + just to get all the achievements but I'm still having a good time of it. We'll see what the future holds but for right now this still stands.

Response to Critics :

Now I spent the entire game waiting for the graphics to suddenly suck, or the story to get bland, or the battle system ripping off of GOW to piss me off, or the final third of the game to suddenly suck. But it never happened. I fought Lucifer, I enjoyed the challenge rooms and I never once felt like I was playing anything other than Visceral's : Dante's Inferno.

Great game and that's my review. Thank you for reading.

[BlackJack]

Yeah, I was discussing the game with a buddy yesterday, and he said "Yeah, but I hear it's a lot like God of War."

My response was "So?" God of War was a great, fun game. I see too many games sacrifice true fun for a great story or great visuals. GoW was a recent game that excelled in all three. If Dante's Inferno was gonna rip off a game, God of War was an excellent choice.

And if Inferno's story is also great, then there's no shame in copycatting GoW's style. I wouldn't mind playing GoW with new characters and an engaging story.

Also, the choice of music in the TV spots is awesome. xD

[Setsuken]

zomg, someone else actually played this game. I got two of my friends excited and into this game. I thought it was a pretty awesome game, And I agree with everything you've said Chris.

I do think that the only real flaw for the game was that it was too darn short. I finished it in 3 days... and not even playing that much each day.

I have no issue with games ripping other games, as long as they do it right. Dante's Inferno rips off God of War, and does it in a cool, awesome way.

I'm not all that into replaying games, so I'll probs wait for the Prequel level that comes in April, and the extra stuff that comes out march. Since I got the PS3 divine edition, I get those things free =D

Although, for all the hype, I was kinda disappointed in the Divine edition, since it said we'd get a free OST, Artbook and a Digital Copy of the Poem. Instead, all of this was included INSIDE the game.

Its not that they said they would be separate items, but I had thought it was so, so I was quite a bit miffed.

[Doaj]

I totally thought about putting this game on my list of wanted 360 games, checked the ratings, and thought, "Less than a 7? That's too bad it looked like it had potential." Your review has changed my mind somewhat, but I feel like I want to play a demo or something first, or rent it. I didn't play God of War, but I understand it was a damn good game.