Title: Dante’s Inferno
Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PSP
Developer: Visceral Games
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release date: 2/28/2010
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of religion in games. More specifically, I’ve thought about the role and presentation of Judeo-Christian religions in our favorite medium. I’m intrigued by how it’s handled, what developers decide to show us, and how this theme is received by the gaming public. All that stuff aside, Dante’s Inferno is a good game. But it has earned its reputation as a God of War clone. Earned it and seemingly wears it proudly.
The narrative here is provided by the epic poem “The Divine Comedy” penned by Italian poet Dante Alighieri in the 14th century AD. “Inferno” is the first part of the poem chronicling the descent of Dante, with his guide, Virgil, through the nine circles of hell. The poem goes into great detail into the geography of Hell, as well as its inhabitants and their punishments. The poem over the centuries has been woven into the fabric of religious thought specifically when it comes to imagery of demons, and what we imagine the eternal punishments of hell to be like.
So how does this epic piece of literature translate to a beat-em-up action game? It translates well as it turns out, though far from perfect. Instead of a mild mannered poet, our protagonist is a battle hardened veteran of The Crusades. A very troubled soldier as it turns out, having committed many questionable acts in this service. Our relationship with Dante begins in a cinematic depicting him sewing a cross shaped tapestry into his own chest. Really. We then are treated to a stylishly animated flashback of the battles Dante has endured so far, dissolving finally into our first true gameplay experience. Now, these animations, which artistically contrast with the look of the rest of the game, are used throughout to highlight relevant background information, or extrapolate further on our hero’s motivations and nature of his inner turmoil. The CG cutscenes in the game always refer to important current events to advance the story.
The developers really had a challenge on their hands with crafting a compelling story out of this particular epic poem. For one thing, they needed a compelling motivation for our hero Dante. Simply holding hands with Virgil through their little escapade wasn’t quite good enough. Enter Beatrice, Dante’s .. girlfriend (?) who is murdered early in the game and dragged to hell because of an as yet unforeseen betrayal on Dante’s part. Now, rescuing the “princess” is, has always been, and probably always will be, a good enough motivation in a video game. However, we simply have to dock a few points for originality here. Nevertheless, I suppose it is good enough, as some of the more subtle nuances of the story do unfold as the game progresses. It was somewhat difficult for me to subdue the cliché gag reflex when I first realized what Dante’s motive was, but it doesn’t distract from the gameplay really, it just feel s a little bit old.
Let’s get back to the gameplay. Dante begins the game armed with his Halberd polearm. There’s a light attack, heavy attack, a double jump, and evasions performed by the right thumbstick. A combo counter keeps track of the attack string and enemies generally attack from all sides. Hmm… this seems familiar. Dante controls very well overall and it’s pretty easy to get a hang of the controls. Pretty soon, Dante has his first encounter with the supernatural, a face to face with the personification of Death, and after the ensuing battle, Dante manages to defeat Death with a rather solid stab in the face with Death’s own Scythe, taking the weapon as his prize and it becomes Dante’s principal weapon in the game. A quick time event control scheme is used to execute the on screen action once the boss has taken enough damage. Again, this is familiar territory. Once you have the Scythe, these QTE’s are used to kill off the medium and difficult enemies and the player can determine whether they will be “absolved” awarding Holy points, or “punished” awarding Unholy points. This is an important issue because these points are used to enhance abilities on two separate skill trees. The unholy tree enhances the hand to hand light and heavy melee combat, while the holy tree enhances the ranged combat using Beatrice’s holy Cross. On my play-through, I found that it was possible to go deeply down both trees, but not to max them both out. The player will have to choose one or the other depending on playstyle. I was able to finish the game without focusing heavily on one or the other, balancing my play accordingly.
So there are two things going on here. Firstly you have the souls as currency and secondly, the holy and unholy points are used as leveling elements enabling the unlocking of abilities that you buy with the souls you earn. If you focus on punishing or absolving each enemy, you can potentially unlock all the abilities in that respective tree. I felt this worked out alright, but there didn’t seem to be many really awesome abilities at the top (bottom?)of each tree that had the “wow” factor to motivate me into maxing that tree out. Which I suppose is why I didn’t bother and it didn’t even seem to hinder me all that much.
Along with the regular enemies inhabiting Hell, there are also damned souls trapped there as well that you will come across in your journey. These souls are humans crouched in agony, their lamentations and wails filling the ears of the player. Each one has a story to tell, most of them are figures from Dante’s world, but others are historic figures like Attila the Hun. Once you listen to their stories (Or not. Listening isn’t mandatory, but I thought it was interesting) you can choose to absolve them, or punish them. I personally .. STRONGLY.. recommend absolving each one as you get to play a rather easy and somewhat fun mini game that will net you bonus currency souls as well as 600 holy points. If you choose to punish them, you get the 600 unholy points, but you don’t get the mini game for extra bonus souls. But some of them deserve punishing in my humble opinion. Again, I thought these tortured beings were an interesting touch. You will encounter a small handful of these beings on each level, some of them you will nearly trip over on your journey, others will require a little platforming know how to reach them. There were only one or two that I couldn’t quite figure out.
Which brings me to the controls. Camera control in a 3rd person action game is crucial if a game has platforming elements. At times, the camera in Dante’s is lacking. I’m not saying the game camera has to make everything easy mode, but it would be nice if I didn’t feel that the camera was the one thing standing in the way of making what I would think would be a relatively easy jump. It made a few areas of the game needlessly frustrating. It’s not the worst camera in the world, but it could have used a little more work. Actually, there are times when Dante doesn’t quite feel connected and solid in this world. Sometimes he seems as if he’s on rollerskates and not firmly planted where he should be. When you stand on some moving platforms, you tend to slide around even with no controller input which can lead to some problems if you’re trying to be precise. Other than that, the combat controls alright, but nothing really stands out as far as the normal attacks go. The cross attacks are definitely cooler.
Now there are a few other little elements to combat and control that enter into play, namely, the idea of relics. Relics are items that Dante finds or is given by Virgil that will help you on your quest. Some might give you more time to extend your combo string, some might enable you to open chests.. err.. fountains instantly instead of jamming the buttons to do so. These relics can make your life a lot easier and there are a bunch to find. Another tip, always complete every conversation with Virgil as he sometimes will give you a relic when you finish talking to him. I say this, because talking to Virgil isn’t mandatory, so some players may choose to skip him. I felt his input, which is mostly based on actual lines and excerpts from the original text, added a lot of color to the experience. Even if he never really seems to ever answer a question directly. However, he also sometimes refers to people and things that are in Hell that you end up never seeing. That at times was a letdown. I’m still looking forward to fighting Achilles!!
The levels in the game are all inspired by the nine circles of Hell originally envisioned by Alighieri. Each circle represented a different and progressively more heinous sin for which the prisoners of Hell were to be punished for. The levels are in this order: Purgatory, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. Now, ideally, each circle will have its own feel and own set of enemies to defeat. Mostly this is the case, but there are some really notable exceptions, or omissions. The first three levels of “Hell Proper”, being Lust, gluttony, and Greed, definitely have their distinctiveness, but the middle levels really suffer from a lack of style in my estimation. There is also some odd puzzle placement. For example, there is an M.C. Escher influenced room that has portals that you pass through to figure out which way is up and which way is out. That sounds fine, right? Well, it would be if it wasn’t in the gluttony level. It seems just a bit out of place there. I think something like that would be best in the Purgatory level perhaps.
Overall though, the playability of the levels is fine. The pacing is at a decent tempo and the boss fights are very relevant. Each boss requires a slightly different tactic to defeat. Some surprising bosses are here, as many of them are people that Dante knows, or people close to Beatrice. I did enjoy the Clepatra and Mark Antony fight early and the fight with a close friend of Dante very much. They integrate with the story very well, and at times, the narrative of the story was driving me forward more urgently than the gameplay itself. The final showdown with Lucifer was challenging as you needed to basically use all the combat skill you learned up to this point. He was tough enough.
Upon defeating the game all kinds of new modes open up. There is an arena battle mode, and a new skin for Dante. The hardest difficulty level unlocks as well and the ability to use all of your abilities so far in another play-through. There was also a neat video promising multi-player over XBLive (PSN too I assume) once the mode is available sometime in April. This looks to be pretty cool as long as people are still interested in playing this game 2 months after release. I hope so. The developers deserve some attention and although the game is not perfect by any means, it is a good effort.
I wanted to save the issues of graphics and sounds for last. As far as the graphics go, although the game is well rendered, I don’t think the game will be winning a lot of awards. I must reiterate a point I made in an earlier preview of this title. Beatrice and other female characters in the game do appear fully nude at times, and there are very sexually suggestive themes. This is a game that earns its “M” rating. There are one or two visual glitches, and the camera at times seems a bit too far away from the action. I did love the voice acting and the sounds of Hell however. The audio in the game was extremely well done. I really felt the actors were well cast in almost every case.
The Review:
I really enjoyed the game. It was a good take on a classic piece of literature, and it was respectful to the institutions of religion. It wasn’t a theological masterpiece or a creative one, but the developers of this title have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. There are a lot of stiff competitors in this genre though and I don’t think Dante can really match up fully with the best of the best. If you never owned a PS and never played God of War, then this will do it for you.
Story:
Dante jumps into a hellish adventure to save the soul of his fair lady from the grip of Lucifer himself. Nuff said.
Gameplay:
There are nice if not stellar controls and camera. The puzzles are good even if some are misplaced. I enjoyed the act of absolving (or punishing) the damned. It seems as though the real depth in this game is in the smaller details. Which is how it should be. However, the platforming sometimes is more challenging than it should be due to a shaky camera. *sigh*
Graphics and Sounds:
Decent graphics and great sounds and voice acting. The environments in the middle of the game are a little nondescript and there could be more variation to keep things interesting.
The Good:
The story and the take on the classic poem are what stand out here.
The Bad:
The uninteresting environments in the middle of the game as well as the lack of enough unique enemies mar a really compelling experience.
The Ugly:
The fact that this game did not come out in a vacuum I think will really hurt sales. A lot of people that normally would play it will not because they just bought Bayonetta, or Darksiders, or will be getting God of War 3 soon.
Overall:
If you are a Xbox 360 owner and really want your 3rd person action itch scratched with a more traditional Action/Platformer, then I think Dante is your man. It’s definitely worth a buy. I want to see more about the DLC that’s promised.
Final Vote: 4/5
Tags: Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Playstation 3, PSP, Sony, Visceral Games, xbox 360
