The 9 circles of hell are artistically envisioned in some of the most violent and sexually disturbing ways imaginable
Contains: Strong Bloody Violence, Sexualised Nudity and Disturbing Images
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Dante's Inferno is a third-person, hack and slash action adventure following the exploits of Dante (reimagined as a Templar knight) as he journeys through the nine circles of Hell to reclaim the soul of his beloved Beatrice from the hands of Lucifer.
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STORY - 3/5
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Outside the walls of Acre, Dante finds himself travelling in a dark forest. For him, the clear path has been lost and only visions of slaughter and war can be clearly seen. The Bishop's promises were nothing but empty lies, words spoken without the authority of God. Lost in the madness, Dante's passions consume him as he gives in to the darkness. Now, at the crossroads of this world and the next, only Dante's love for his Beatrice keeps him moving forward. The darkness, however, is not done with Dante and has taken his love where no living man may go. Dante is now faced with the impossible task of reclaiming his love from the furthest reaches of hell itself. But the improbable is not the impossible, and so with the help of a poet and the fire in his heart, Dante begins his descent into the dark and nightmarish abyss, hoping to plunge through all nine circles and find his Beatrice at the very bottom of the pit.
Dante's Inferno is loosely based on the mythical poem and named after the first canticle of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. The player controls Dante, a veteran of the Third Crusade, who chases his beloved Beatrice and attempts to free her soul from Lucifer, who needs to wed a heaven-bound soul to break free of Hell and make another attempt to take over the Throne of God. As his pursuit takes him through the monstrous entities within the nine Circles of Hell to save Beatrice, Dante must face his own sins, his family's past and his war crimes.
Dante's epic quest counteracts his true desire and mission, and recites his backstory at various intervals as to why the darkness is engorged in his mentality despite his faith. The story is told using three distinct styles to chronicle Dante's descent into darkness to rescue the eternal spirit of his betrayed wife. CGI cutscenes lead you into the story from the beginning, with only a couple of other similar cutscenes displayed later on in the game. A ghostly figure of the poet Virgil answers Dante's questions at frequently spaced points on your descent through the circles, and speaks as a vocal point with definite reference to literacy texts to fill in informatively for the fictional revelation at hand. The most common form of storytelling is through narrative-driven, cartoon-styled, artistic drawings, that all intertwine creatively, and produce a unique series of events detailing Dante's actions during the crusades while also developing his character. The story doesn't offer many surprises, but the presentation of the plot's progression is well done, and the setting of hell is a great way to convey across all sorts of dark and sexual themes that take place in the hellish abyss with the master of the inferno lying in wait at the deepest depths of the darkness.
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CHARACTERS - 3/5
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Dante's family have a big part during the game, the main reason to understand the protagonist Dante more, and to give you reasons as to where you place Dante in the balance between the existing life and the afterlife. Dante is a lost soul who committed unforgivable acts in the name of God while in the Crusades, he swore not to, to his beloved Beatrice, but continued committing wrong acts with the Bishop's blessing. Beatrice, in life, was pure and virtuous. Her lone sin was that she gave herself to Dante before wedlock, but she did so only because Dante swore on her cross to be faithful. Beatrice got taken down to the darkest depths of hell, and Dante gave chase, but he isn't alone in his journey, and questions on his mind will be answered with confidence. Virgil's wisdom is gained through the conversations he and Dante briefly have throughout each circle, he was considered to be one of Rome's greatest poets, and now serves and exists within hell's circles to provide the gift of information upon to Dante, with much needed answers to assist his understanding of the nine rings he must traverse with caution.
Lucifer was once a Holy Angel residing in paradise with God, but he became arrogant with his status and beauty and raged a war against heaven in which he lost along with other angel followers. He was cast out of heaven and sentenced down into the fiery pit of hell, where he now waits for Dante within the innermost ring for the inevitable confrontation.
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GAMEPLAY - 4/5
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Armed with Death's legendary scythe and the Lord's holy cross, Dante's descent through hell is a much needed and well prepared journey that will see him face indescribable horrors looking to punish him in the most brutal ways imaginable. Whether you choose to punish or absolve the damned, the undead or demonic, your 2 primary weapons can be equally used in combat against enemies weaknesses, to lighten their defences and to upgrade their potential to inflict more harm. The scythe will naturally and realistically be your predominant choice of weapon, giving you opportunities to slice through evil dead flesh and produce buckets full of a fiery blood mixture that represents the hellish origin each foe equates to. To vanquish the prisoners of hell that challenge Dante, you must attack with deadly force and constant vigilance using the precise, curved and unwelcoming serrated edge of Death's scythe, and learn to show no mercy as you carve a path through hordes of evil poised around nearly every corner of your hellish descent through each of the nine circles. Your only other weapon is Beatrice's holy cross that will always be by your side when you need to shine a light through the impenetrable darkness. This holy object, as you'd expect, simply pushes the forces of evil back with undeniably heavenly force, rather than violently dispatching foes, but still serves a well needed meaning for combat when you need to make some room to release your anger through swinging Death's scythe.
Each enemy you kill releases souls, and these souls give you the ability to purchase new upgrades and combo attacks to provide more variety during combat. There are two paths that each sprout with unlockable moves and abilities: The Unholy Path, where all your attacks with your scythe contribute to, and then the Holy Path where your holy and divine energy kills with the cross contribute towards. The way these two paths upgrade quicker, is by punishing or absolving the damned. Dante, upon entering hell's circles, has been granted with the unique ability to judge the souls of the damned. You discover the damned souls of past mortals of great importance within human history, and you can judge the souls to gain righteousness in his quest. By punishing or absolving the sins of the damned soul before you, consequences are reflected to the increase of your holy and unholy paths, subsequently unlocking more moves in the process, allowing more opportunities within combat to vary up your strategy and attack combos. Forgiving any of the damned who've lost their way on the path to God requires more than a simple wave of the cross, and a mildly entertaining mini game will commence where you need to capture souls by pressing the according buttons within time, and collect as much as you can within the time limit where you'll be gifted with bonus souls.
Combat is fast and brutal, and always overcomes the possibility of repetition because of the slow unveiling of upgrades throughout the course of your epic journey. Finishers are satisfyingly violent, whether you choose to absolve or punish, the couple of variations for each enemy type makes each of the finishing attacks impressive to witness, especially as you play a part in their diminishing from the overwhelming odds, with a couple of button taps that need quick and precise timing to pull it off successfully and end their day of reckoning. Quick Time Events play a great part on your quest, used in tight situations to quickly navigate away from danger, or to violently execute powerful scythe attacks to decimate bosses, and they are all tense are well choreographed to fit it sublimely with all the action.
To aid you in the dark journey is magic, which consists of a variety of fantasy-based attacks to tip the balance of regular combat in your favor. From enveloping yourself in a lust based tornado that deals damage to enemies, to a powerful brief sprint that leaves icy shards in your wake, each can be equipped and used at any time as long as you have magical energy in your mana bar. Exploring the hidden chambers and walkways throughout hell will also prove worthwhile, with damned souls, hidden biblical relics and Judas coins that each benefit Dante in some mystical way, by either providing extra souls, modifying your abilities or granting you experience to guide you on a specific path you're choosing to navigate down.
Negative aspects of Dante's Inferno are the inclusion of puzzles intermittently, that are mostly lame, result in many cheap deaths and are just plain frustrating that stall the pace of the game from coming to an end sooner. Common puzzle requirements include the mediocre task of dragging objects, defeating a set amount of enemies that spawn in the room you're in, and an invisible timer to complete your objective before everything resets. Some puzzles are really challenging and will most definitely rack your brains, but not in a good way. You'll be in a bad mood once you complete the trial-and-error puzzle, and no satisfaction what-so-ever will be gained from that experience, especially when another puzzle awaits around the corner to further deflate your enjoyment with the game.
Platforming is also an occasional gameplay element, usually coming into play when you descend down to the next circle and the otherworldly nightmares that lie in wait, and you'll be swinging, climbing and timing each carefully as dangers are noticeably placed on your path down, with either flames looking to engulf you or the dark abyss below looking to swallow you up if you fall.
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GRAPHICS - 4/5
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The depictions of hell in the themes represented in level design are of an extremely graphic nature, with some truly disturbing and intriguing violent and sexual portrayals included in the environment or the enemies themselves. It's surprisingly well done despite being shocking, and each piece of disturbing visual imagery highlights exactly where you are, and hell is vividly and gruesomely shown as your imagination would dare imagine. Scenes of a sexual nature are common, scenes of a violent nature are unmissable, and scenes of a disturbing nature cover every surface you walk upon. Dante's Inferno is visually and artistically impressive, with touches of pure ingenuity that portray the Prince of Darkness's kingdom as a nasty place for indescribable punishment. From the in-game visuals, to the stunning CGI cutscenes, Dante's Inferno captures the imagination of hell as nightmarishly as you could possibly believe, with dark and bright colours matched correctly in the right circles. Whether you are on a raft staying above a hot golden liquid in Greed, passing judgment next to the boiling river of blood in Violence or climbing a wall filled with condemned souls in Limbo, the unique artistic touches will grab your attention and hold on nearly all the way to Lucifer's den. Each circle portrays different ideas of punishment in different ways, including new enemies and new variation of environmental puzzles, and a solid and smooth framerate that holds up and never stutters throughout is an outstanding achievement that will likely go unnoticed. Unfortunately the last 2 circles severely lack in artistic style and ultimately lose that sustained disturbia you battled mentally with throughout the game up until then.
Overall the visual style is very impressive, and conveys shocking but appropriate imagery in the most satisfactory of ways to convey the hellish nature of punishment upon those souls that enter the dark and muddy depths for all eternity.
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SOUND - 5/5
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The voice acting is a notable point to pick out of the game, which continues to impress right up to the climax. Dante highlights his part with convincing voice work during combat aswell, as when you perform powerful attacks out of pure hatred towards the demons infested in hell, a roaring shout will emit from his throat, carrying passion and anger towards all of whom are blocking his path to Beatrice as he slashes his scythe with all his might. The blood curdling cries of the condemned souls surrounding environments create eeriness in the atmosphere, as they groan asking for forgiveness if you pass them by on your path; cries that echo around the entrapment in which they're caged for their unforgivable sins against God.
Hacking at demons with the scythe and slicing them in two with a brutal finisher sounds really great as you spill their gory fire mixture substance within them, and just as heavenly is the volley of blasted, religious energy from the Holy Cross to push the forces of evil back or stun them for an easy punishment with Death's scythe. All your magic abilities that you have equipped will provide many powerful sounds, most notably the Lust Storm in which you become a cyclone of sexualised noises with the potential to harm enemies around you if they get too close. And lastly, the dramatic soundtrack is very atmospheric, with each new piece of audio reacting in perfect harmony with what's unfolding on screen as you further descend down the circles to meet your match with the Devil.
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CONTROLS - 3/5
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Simple and easy-to-remember control configurations make maneuvering and fighting quick to understand and get a grip on, and with responsive controls you can never blame the game when you fail a quick time event but more so your not-so-responsive reactions or mistimed button pressing. Unlike most games, you can't control the camera in Dante's Inferno, and so the developer's clearly show you only what you need to see, which is a shame since you can't look around some of the bigger environments freely, but only glance at the massive backdrop to the circle in hell in which you find yourself. The usual camera free aim is the right analog stick, and the replacement is a rather sensitive dodge manoeuvre to evade danger quickly. It's sensitive since all you need to do is accidentally brush it lightly and you'll roll very sharply in the direction you knocked it, making it unfortunate if you're near the edge of a deadly river of boiling fluid or a massive drop and you nudge the dodge button intending to glimpse what's around you before you realise that there isn't a camera move configured into the game. The game shows you only what you need to see, and in the end it isn't a bad idea, but just a bit awkward if you aren't used to the hack and slash control layout.
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ATMOSPHERE - 4/5
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An atmospheric soundtrack, artistically imaginative visuals and gruesome imagery provide a depiction of hell which you'll likely never forget because of the use of so much sexual and disturbing images that are of a creative and graphic nature. They are presented in the appropriate rings of hell, so that when you are in the circle of Greed, the fountains and rivers are flowing with rich amounts of gold, and when you're in the Woods of Suicide in the circle of Violence, dark and foreboding shadows are cast across your path to increase that knowledge of being isolated in the worst place imaginable. From your first steps into hell you'll notice the large backdrop of suffering before you - large demonic bats fill the sky above you, bodies of the deceased are being poured into the circle they match, and burning fire clots surfaces. Hell is a place of death and eternal misery and every time it gets, the developer's take advantage of that and portray it artistically around you. When you climb onto walls, you can visually witness and hear the moans of tormented souls as they suffer their punishment, when you traverse via a rope across a river of burning blood hands reach up and try and pull you in to suffer the same pain they're suffering, and many other visual effects involving the condemned souls are all perfectly placed to create a nasty envisioned hell. Hell is a dark and truly disturbing place to find yourself in, it's a cage for the damned souls living in eternal pain and suffering, and everywhere you look that same pain is purposefully placed in front of your eyes in some of the most brutal ways. It creates a hellish atmosphere, but it too often strays from that dark and gory imagery by placing you in small chambers and corridors, forcing you to engage in poorly designed puzzles and predictable combat situations, and it takes away that impact of being in such a hugely imagined underbelly of the earth, and is ultimately very unrealistic to believe.
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ENEMY AI - 2/5
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Witness the terrors of hell in all sorts of shapes and sizes as you descend through each stage of the inferno. You'll battle all sorts of hellish creatures associated with the circle of hell you're in, from Elite guardian demons who wield powerful swords; Temptress's of Lust who are now maddened and disfigured prostitutes who's insatiable desires now condemn them to feast on the blood of fornicators; And Baptized children who weren't shown the portal of faith before they died and now lash out violently against anyone they cross with the blades they have in place of arms. These are just a few of the horrors lying in wait for you down in the nine circles of hell, and you'll need to put up a fierce fight to prevent them from succeeding in their task of killing you. Combat is excellent, but it always comes about in predictable ways, where random fire will block your path forward from both directions, and then certain enemies will continuously respawn until you've killed the required amount of demons to proceed forward. Enemies rely on the same tactics each time, and never take advantage of outnumbering you. They usually attack individually, holding off until you make the first move, and they can successfully block and counterattack and have a decent variety to their attacks. Smaller enemies can be grabbed instantly allowing you to pass judgment quickly. Fortunately during this animation enemies don't usually attack you, but they wait until the punishing or absolving is complete so you don't lose precious health. Tougher enemies need to be damaged to a specific point before you can pass judgment, while other enemies just cannot be judged. The vile enemy designs make full use of their deformity, attacking you in some truly disgusting, yet cool, ways. The intelligence of your many foes aren't exactly great, but they are capable of providing a challenge when you engage in combat, and their truly disgusting, creative look makes for a positive point to look past their lack of demonic terrorising.
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LENGTH - 2/5
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Dante's epic quest loses momentum towards the end of his journey, lacking the same artistic consistency that excelled the game in the first half of the game. One circle truly is terrible in comparison to the rest where you are just going from chamber to chamber with objectives to complete specific magic based combat challenges, or kill a certain amount of demons within a time limit, and while using your scythe and holy cross is still enjoyable up to this point, it's not the way you'd imagine you'd be forced to use them being so close to the final confrontation. Traversing and battling your way through each circle of hell won't take very long, like a gloriously vile circle of Gluttony has some truly disturbing enemies and visual imagery, but only lasts a mere 20 minutes including a boss fight, whereas the circle of Greed takes over twice that length but isn't so enjoyable because it consists of annoying and boring environmental based puzzles. 7 hours is the average time it'd take you to complete Dante's Inferno, and you'll enjoy his quest despite not having such a positive ending to conclude the story.
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REPLAY VALUE - 3/5
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There is replay value with Dante's Inferno, since in a single playthrough you won't be able to purchase all the upgrades or max out both the Holy and Unholy paths. Completing the game unlocks Resurrection mode which allows you to start at the first circle of hell with all the abilities and souls you gained during the first playthrough, and also unlocks the Gates of Hell arena challenge mode where there is 50 waves of enemies to fend off within a time limit.
Looking for damned shades of the inferno that have historical significance and searching the dark corners of hell for hidden relics and coins are well worth doing, since not only are trophies involved upon completing, but you get modifications and extra souls to enhance and upgrade Dante. In conclusion, Dante's Inferno is a really fun, brutal and disturbing action adventure journey through the nine vividly realised rings of hell. It's certainly derivative of the God of War series for the familiarities it has, but even so, provides a dark and gruesome nightmare journey through the bowels of hell with smooth and violent combat and intense quick time events all smothered in the entrails and suffering of the condemned and tormented souls around you which are artistically imagined. You get to wield Death's soul-reaping scythe, tame infernal beasts and punish the demons and damned whenever the opportunity arises, and ultimately asks the question: Do you have what it takes to descend through the horrific nine circles of hell and have the stamina and desire to bring your beloved Beatrice back alive?
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OVERALL SUMMARY - 8/10
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Good Points: Hell is artistically and creatively envisioned in many cruel and sexually disturbing ways, Atmospheric soundtrack, Gory quick-time-events and finishing moves, Brutally fun combat with a smooth framerate throughout, Dante has the ability to judge the souls of the damned, Story is well told using three distinct styles to chronicle Dante's past and present.
Bad Points: Descending through the nine circles of hell won't take long, Last 2 levels lose their art style dramatically, Environmental puzzles are annoying and lame.