Dante’s Inferno sounded good on paper, but ultimately ended up a waste of time.
Dead Space is one of my favorite new IPs in the last couple of years, courtesy of EA’s own internal studio, Visceral Games (formally named EA Redwood Shores). The combination of action, adventure, and horror made the original Dead Space game seem closer to being a sequel to the Resident Evil games than Resident Evil 5 did. Dead Space Extraction on the Wii was also an entertaining (albeit short) horror shooter game, and it worked. I am totally a fan of Dead Space and a supporter of the studio. When I first heard that the studio behind Dead Space would be making an action/adventure game based on Dante’s Inferno, I was instantly interested. Action/adventure + horror in a hellish theme setting from the developer behind Dead Space? Sign me up! Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near what I hoped it would be. Luckily for all of you, I played through this game so you don’t have to. Read on for my review and why this game disappointed me so.
Storyline and Premise
Dante’s Inferno takes place in the Nine Circles of Hell as depicted by Dante Alighieri’s poem, the Divine Comedy. Conveniently enough, the protagonist of the game is also named Dante, so in a sense, there is some symbolism and double entendre since the game’s title is not only referring to the original poem by Dante Alighieri, but the protagonist’s own internal inferno. Or, maybe not. In any case, Dante’s Inferno revolves around our protagonist named Dante, who goes off to war as a crusader thinking that by fighting for the church, all of his sins would get absolved. He returns home to find his lover murdered and Lucifer dragging her soul into Hell. Dante follows the two to get her back, but in the process, has to come to terms with his own sins along the way as he travels through the Nine Circles of Hell. Sounds interesting right? It could be the premise to an enjoyable horror-filled game if done correctly.
The opening couple of levels are a great introduction to what the heck is going on. I was genuinely scared as I landed in the first circle of Hell and watched souls pouring out like water and falling, walls of souls that I had to climb across, etc. It was all pretty hellish, and I thought, “Hey, this is kinda cool.” Unfortunately, it only goes downhill from there, as my initial impression of the game’s premise doesn’t carry all the way through to the end. It honestly feels like the developers designed the first couple of levels and had this grand scope of what they wanted to do, but then as the project got underway they ran out of time and had to really cut corners. This makes the game feel interesting to begin with, but falls flat as you move into the mid game and by the end you really just want it to end. I seem to have less of a detector of when games fall flat than others, as I thought BioShock was brilliant from start to finish while some complain that the last couple levels of BioShock were bad. But with Dante’s Inferno, I can definitely see how it just gets derivative and bland after only the first couple of hours. After 8 hours, it finally ends, except that you get a nice “To Be Continued” screen once it’s over. What the heck? You guys really want to continue this series? Go sit on the bench with Silicon Knights and their supposed Too Human “trilogy.” And thanks guys for not letting me skip cutscenes. Really appreciated. NOT.
I’m all for a different type of protagonist than the sexy (Bayonetta), the cool (Devil May Cry), the quiet (Ninja Gaiden), or the badass (God of War) violent action/adventure star, but Dante’s Inferno’s protagonist is just pathetic. Here’s a dude that is slicing his way through the depths of hell itself, and he’s panicky and screaming like a little girl, “What must I do?! Why are these souls here?” I just wanted to slap him a few times and knock some sense into him. You’re here to get your lover back. Suck it up and keep on killing. Instead he’s ripping demons in half followed by a cutscene of the guy practically crying for his mommy. Very uncool and unlikeable. Why do I want to play the role of a scared loser? Did the developers really think this one through? Even if the protagonist and premise of the game come up a bit short, gameplay is most important for an action/adventure game, right? So let’s see if Dante’s Inferno redeems itself there.
Gameplay
The primary positive I can say about Dante’s Inferno’s gameplay is that it does have a good system for leveling up. As you fight monsters, many of them have a chance to be punished or absolved. Punishing enemies allows you to go further up the unholy skill tree, and absolving them allows you to go further up the holy skill tree. Both trees have different skillsets and unlocks, and as you kill enemies you gain neutral experience points through souls that allow you to unlock skills in either or both trees. It’s not a bad system and reminded me a little bit of Diablo’s class based skill tree. I also enjoyed the ability to pick up dozens of different relics, and the ability to level most of them up so that they would provide better bonuses. For example, at Level 1 a certain accessory may grant +10% chance of critical attacks. If you wear it enough and level it up to 3, it will give you a +30% chance to crit, etc.
However, the actual gameplay itself is lacking. This is an action/adventure game right? Then why do I feel like half of the time I’m fighting the environment rather than enemies? I’m swinging on ropes, trying to jump across falling and moving platforms, etc. I think maybe a good 25% of the game’s time is literally spent climbing on walls. And then there’s the inane puzzles that you have to go through with the block pushing and all that. In short, there’s just a little bit too much platforming in this game. And the worst part is, the fixed camera angles and frustratingly cheap deaths. Several “platforming” elements aren’t intuitive enough and you’ll just die and scream out loud, “F this! How was I supposed to know that?” And if it’s not that it’s intuitive enough, it’s because the game doesn’t register something correctly even though you did everything you were supposed to do. I remember one level that I kept dying on over and over because I had to swing off a section and land on a platform. I hit RB just the like screen prompted me to, and I would still never make that platform and always fall into the abyss. I got very frustrated. The combination of fixed camera angle and buggy/unintuitive platforming and puzzle elements make me wonder where the action is in this game. Fortunately, for the most part, checkpoints are usually pretty close together so even when you die, you don’t start too far back. But when you play Dante’s Inferno, expect to die a lot due to what I call “cheap deaths”. Those are the worst kind since they’re basically outside of your control. Sometimes I would actually die without even understanding how I died. A cutscene would load or something and I would be dead. What?!
As for the combat itself, it’s satisfactory. You have a decent number of moves, but outside the problem of the lack of combat in this game (I’d say maybe half of the game is just platforming elements – with maybe a good chunk of that climbing walls and shimmying across ropes), the number of enemies is staggeringly low. There’s probably like 5-6 enemy types in the entire game outside the bosses, and while it was cool to see the introduction of some enemies in their respective level of Hell, it didn’t quite make sense to me to see the Lust and Gluttony monsters showing up in subsequent levels of Hell. Did the developers just decide to force us to do more platforming because they didn’t want us to fight? And what is up with the difficulty on the default difficulty level? I played through the game on the Medium difficulty and it was actually a lot tougher than normal should be for a game. I’m getting pummeled by 10 monsters in a locked room with a fixed camera angle and I can’t even fight back or heal? The game just keeps giving me one more frustration after another. And to top it all off, there’s a ton of collectibles that you have to look for as you play through the game. Please developers, stop with the collectibles to artificially lengthen your games!
The God of War Comparison
I was not a huge fan of God of War when I played through it on the PS2, but I started playing it again in the God of War Collection on my new PS3 this weekend just to start seeing how much of a clone Dante’s Inferno was to it (and if I would actually start enjoying God of War more this time around). My initial impressions of God of War is that it still can’t touch the deep gameplay design of Japanese action/adventure games, but it’s enjoyable in its own way. There’s less of an emphasis on the game’s combat engine and more on the game’s adventure aspect. And hey, I’m ok with that. But unlike Dante’s Inferno, God of War still has a good amount combat, as you fight enemies at a much higher frequency than you do in Dante’s Inferno. It’s sort of sad to feel that the original God of War on the previous console generation is still better than Dante’s Inferno. I guess the developers of Dante’s Inferno wanted to copy God of War instead of surpass it, which is disappointing in its own right. God of War’s combat is more enjoyable and intuitive, its adventure is more interesting and captivating, and even its QTE button presses can be arguably fun – and varied! Unlike God of War, I noticed that Dante’s Inferno’s QTE commands are always in the same order, whereas God of War’s actually are random so you are kept on your toes a bit.
Final Thoughts
I sound pretty harsh in my review of Dante’s Inferno, but really, it’s not the worst game I’ve played. In fact, I consider this an average game. It sounded like it could be a pretty cool premise and had well-thought out leveling mechanics. But its poor execution and mundane combat prevent the game from being even considered good. I don’t like wasting my time playing average games. I tend to buy games that are very good or excellent, so when I come across a merely average game and play through it, I get annoyed more than I need to be. After all, I’m putting aside my precious gaming time to play something like this instead of Mass Effect 2. I was practically a Visceral Games fanboy before playing this game. I thought even if the reviews were average for the title, they don’t know the studio like I do. These are the guys that made Dead Space! How could they mess up? Well, they did. So all I can say at this point is to skip out on Dante’s Inferno. I bought this game way below retail and even at my price I’m already ready to go sell it. I cannot emphasize how big of a rip off it is to buy this game for its $60 asking price.
PS3 owners – you obviously have the entire God of War trilogy on your system. It’s the best Western action/adventure series out these days, and I highly suggest you stick with that and avoid Dante’s Inferno. 360 owners – this game may be the closest you can get to experiencing God of War, but I would still say skip it. It’s a very poor substitute. Bayonetta, Devil May Cry 4, and Ninja Gaiden 2 are far superior to this game and can be found for much cheaper. And as for you, Visceral Games, I hope you learn a thing or two when you put out the inevitable sequel. But I won’t be holding my breath.
Final Grade: C
