Dante's Inferno Review
- Posted February 18th, 2010 at 17:34 EDT by Adam Dolge
- 31 Comments
Review Score
- PSU Review Score
- 7.5
- Avg. user review score:
- 7.3
Summary
Dante's Inferno offers little new to a genre dominated by franchises like God of War, yet it's graphical depiction of Hell helps create an interesting, and entertaining experience. As a game that took an awful lot of liberties with the original story, more liberties should have been taken with the gameplay to set it apart from its competitors.
We like
- The brilliant visual depiction of Hell
- The holy vs. unholy leveling system
- The mature elements, both in the subject and presentation
We dislike
- The lack of originality in the gameplay
- The repetitive combat that only feels challenging towards the end of the game
- The fact other games did what Dante's Inferno tried to do better
See PSU's review on Metacritic & GameRankings
Fighting your way through an adaptation of what is widely considered one of the greatest works of world literature is uncharted territory for a videogame. So when it was announced Visceral Games and EA were working on a game based on the poem Dante's The Divine Comedy, it's easy to see why we were a bit skeptical that this particular medium would make for a compelling gameplay experience. After playing through Dante's Inferno, we are left feeling a bit indifferent towards the game, with its butchering of the classic story, its engrossing portrayal of Hell, its clear ripoff of God of War, and its fun, yet simple combat that, while repetitive, offers a lot of fun for fans of the good ol' hack 'n slash genre.
Right off the bat, we should get the story out of the way. If you were forced to read through a translation of The Divine Comedy in high school or college (or decided to do it for fun), then you'll quickly realize that Visceral Games took a lot of liberties with the narrative. You play as Dante, a crusader who, after growing weary of the ongoing war, returns to his lady in the Florence countryside. When he arrives to meet his fiancée Beatrice, he finds his home destroyed, and his love dead outside. Since the The Divine Comedy doesn't have much action, or a rime or reason for Dante's descent into Hell, it makes sense that Visceral needed a reason for Dante to venture there. It turns out Lucifer drags Beatrice into the depths of Hell, and Dante is tasked with venturing through the various layers of this perilous dimension to rescue her. We are not big poetry or literature buffs, but we fell in the category mentioned earlier about having to study The Divine Comedy in school – the game clearly has little to do with the actual story, and instead uses the imagery created in the book to create a devastatingly bleak and gruesome view of Hell.
All of this doesn't matter much as we know most gamers could care less how much a videogame stays true to the source subject. In fact, we don't really care that the story was changed so much. However, a change in the game's name, the character's name, or even taking a lighter approach to the game would have made a bit more sense. It's a minor point, and as previously stated, most gamers will not care about how close the story is to The Divine Comedy. Still, there are some similarities. For instance, the Italian poet Virgil is more or less Dante's guide through Hell, and provides as a sort of narrator in the game. You'll also run into several historical figures throughout the game that you can either punish or absolve (more on that later).
Dante's Inferno is an action game down to its core. You'll hack and slash away at swarms of enemies in a style befitting the God of War series. The game “borrows” an awful lot from games in its genre, like the recently released Darksiders and Bayonetta. Your arsenal includes weapons like the scythe and a holy cross, and various magic abilities. The double jump helps you perform aerial combos, which are easily pulled off by mashing the buttons. Your scythe is your short-range weapon that sweeps through demons with great ease. Your cross acts as your ranged weapon, which aims easily at enemies that are far away.
The game's currency comes in the form of souls. As you may have guessed, you can acquire these items when you kill enemies or find them in chests (sound like God of War?). Souls are used to upgrade your abilities and weapons. One of the few unique elements of Dante's Inferno rests in its soul collecting. You have the ability to make Dante fight for good or bad, light or dark. You'll do this by “judging” your enemies before you kill them. If you decide to punish them, you just kill them and gather Unholy points. If you want to fight for the light side, you can absolve your enemies and collect Holy points. You'll use Unholy and Holy points to advance Dante with various upgrades. Relics will also add points to whichever ... (continued on next page)
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Comments
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Ghost-Rhayne |
Ghost-Rhayne- 12:39pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 2
Scientific studies conducted at leading labs around the world concluded that people of lesser intelligence who believe "first" is cool also have abnormaly small c0cks.
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eXcEcuTion3r
- 12:40pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 3
Why is it that some PSU reviews seem like they didn't play through the whole game? Just saying... I always see "regular comments" in the pros/cons section that aren't very specific...
- The lack of originality in the gameplay
- The repetitive combat that only feels challenging towards the end of the game
- The fact other games did what Dante's Inferno tried to do better
1.) How many games nowadays are original? They mostly all tend to grab ideas from other games.
2.) Isn't that all games?
3.) Same as number 1 basically...
Just saying...
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RllingStnes102
- 12:42pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 4
Good review PSU. Agreed with everything you said. It is a shame the gameplay wasn't as innovating as we hoped but at least God of War III is out in just one more month to give us that fix! And for a sidenote, why are you guys advertising FFXIII for 360 on your site? I dont wanna start a flamewar here but i just find it odd advertising a 360 version of a game that brings you to a strict FFXIII 360 site on a exclusive playstation website....
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PSU_fail
- 1:02pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 5
I find it hard to believe that an author of reviews at PSU.com referred to "The Divine Comedy" of one of the greatest works of literature of all time, considering the lackluster and immature, for lack of a better word, picks of weekly blu-ray film, but that is merely an opinion.
This game is good if you hunger for a little God of War action prior to release, but you will instantly forget this game exists once Kratos shows up and cracks a smile at Dante, just before slaughtering him, figuratively, and literally in March.
Oh and it's spelled rhyme, reviewer!
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willisc89
- 1:41pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 6
Best and only good part of the game.... was what h3ll looked like. Absolutely no originality in this game, and it shows!It's a complete mindless hack n' slasher throughout the game, and the "difficulty" progression throughout the game seems to just be throwing more annoying enemies at you. I was getting extremely frustrated having to fight a group of those demon chicks with the big tentacle arm, only to have my next big battle involving those same demons, just more.... that's not making it more difficult, that's just being lazy!Oh and you don't collect souls from CHESTS you collect them from FOUNTAINS!!! BIG DIFFERENCE! -
Rafaelcbf12
- 1:43pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 7
"The game's currency comes in the form of souls. As you may have guessed, you can acquire these items when you kill enemies or find them in chests (sound like God of War?)." Y ou guys clearly have memory problems, this does sound like god of war, but don't forget that GOW "borrowed" that from Devil May Cry, it would have made more sense to point out that fact, insted of just acting like GOW invented the genera. Give credit where credit is do. Bunch o' newbie reviewers.
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tomcat86
- 2:01pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 8
I think they just copied exactly of God of War but they can never make it as good as GOW because they r the one that first made and design this concept, sure the whole idea and visuals was great but I think the game is laking a lot of combat and action moves,enemies and etc. I give it 6 out of 10
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TheFinalBattle
- 2:19pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 9
I am so sick of everyone saying this game is a copy of god of war. Granted I am a ps3 fanboy but I am so sick of other fan boys shoving God of war down your throat whenever u mention this game. Nowadays most games copy off of each other this is why we have GENRE'S in the first place. I LOVED Dante's Inferno. IT WAS SCARY, ENTERTAINING, DRIVEN and the story was very intriguing yet simple. With all of this God of war 3 crap people are shoving at you by the time the game comes out it might not be able to live up to its hype. You guys haven't seen much of God of war 3 at all so you really don't know how good the game will be. Learn to enjoy games and stop criticizing all the time jeez.
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PSX_Legend
- 3:14pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 10
@3 pros/cons section that aren't very specific cause they are statements not explanations! read all the review to get specific on that subject.The repetitive combat is a fact cause there´s very few little patterns of combat with diferent types of enemies and that not happens in God of War, here you have many enemies to fight that envolves diferent style of gameplay but Dantes Inferno tends to have the same hack n slash no brainer style and the lack of originality are really obvious is this game cause everthing we talk about Dantes inferno comes to meet with God of War.
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residentevilrocks91
- 4:39pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 13
Seriously it took you guys two weeks to review this game?!?! And I think this is a copy of what every other website said.
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Greystones
- 4:42pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 14
I am a huge fan of God of War and I have played through the entirety of Dante's Inferno. I can honestly say it is worth more of an 8.5 or 8. Yes the game is a complete copy of GOW but it is still very good in its own right.
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KlNG_DEADEYE
- 5:25pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 16
This game is WAAAAY to short i beat it in one day... WTF?
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Fon
- 6:17pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 17
The common games these days copy ideas from other games. Sure, Dante's Inferno feels like God of War, but lets not forget that God of War took ideas from, Devil May Cry!. Just like Gears of War took ideas from games such as RE4 and Kill Switch and Uncharted took ideas from who knows how many games. Why don't we focus on the theme instead?. I was impressed with the graphics, cirlces and grotesque of the game. The only complaint I got from this was the length, but even so, that doesn't warrant it a low score(Well a 7.5 isn't so bad, but in my opinion, it deserves an 8.5). I think the common critic unfairly scored this game.
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Intervention
- 7:42pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 19
This game is for mature audiences, not the likes of the maggots that post the same comments over and over. It's the same dim-witted tripe on here everyday for every thread.
Let me sum it up.
First!
Some lame comment about microsoft
a comment about the PS3's "superior power"
@somebody
back@them
Grammar police
*repeat*
Good god! Every game can be considered a ripoff of one before it. How many ways can a game be played? 2-D, 3-D, Third Person, First Person. What the world needs to combat problems such as these is an I.Q. test followed by sterilization for those that fail. Alright, well I feel better. Oh and the game is great!
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Silentkiller223
- 8:07pm EST - February 18th, 2010
- 20
haha all the cons sound exactly like each other and they all sound like there based around GoW3...just cause the game sorta feels like the GoW series doesn't mean they can rag on it for being like it i mean all games take parts of other games...seriously, just b/c GoW3 is gonna be better doesn't mean u can give this game a worse score...I believe this game is definitally worth buying...unless u only have enough money for one awesome game then wait for GoW3...
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