When Dante's Inferno was shown to the fans for the first time few gave it a chance. Most fans expressed anger at the fact that the game borrowed too much from God of War, even going as far as calling it a clone. After having completed the game it is clear that the fans were right. Dante's Inferno could very well be called as God of War Lite, the Game play and elements have an uncanny resemblance . EA has tried very hard and particularly focused on copying God of War, almost by every aspect except the story fails on so many levels that it may not quite be able to grab the player's attention. But all is not doom and gloom, the game offers a fun of it's own mold.
Right from the beginning the player is thrown in the game giving no time to understand the plot line. The Cut scenes are a big mess always turning from one part to another, just when you get interested in the scene it shifts to some other bizarre point. What's more annoying is when the scene changes from graphical to a cartoonish view. The Cartoon variation have a fast pace making it virtually impossible to understand the act. The Story is based on the classic poem, the 'Divine Comedy or more specifically it is set during the Third Crusade. If the player is able to understand, the game mainly focuses on Dante's mission to save his loved one, Beatrice, from the hell. Dante had gone to war and promised his wife that he would return back for her, she in turn asked him to promise that he would be faithful to her. Dante however did not keep the promise and lusted after several women he met. Beatrice had wagered her soul to Lucifer that if Dante was to be unfaithful she would go with Lucifer and so these events presided. From there Dante continued to hell to try and rescue her from Lucifer, he meets Virgil in the way who guides him throughout, much like Athena's role in God of War, Virgil informs him that Dante would have to go through the nine gates of hell and from here the rest of the story continues. The real issue is that all of this would be very hard to understand, unless the player gives absolute focuses he will not be able to grasp the story line. Often you would re think the scene in your head to understand the situation. The Story is the biggest let down in the game.
Game Play as everyone would know is like God of War. The genre of the game is hack and slash and there will definitely be a lot of hacking and slashing. Dante has one primary weapon and that is his scythe that he got from death itself after having defeated him. The scythe resembles the blades of chaos that Kratos has, it can extend, can slash enemies and power down on them, the scythe has light and heavy attacks which can be combined to make combos, which is very important in order to finish the game. His secondary weapon is a Holy Cross that fires a volley of energy as a projectile attack, this is more handy than meets the eye and more often than not you are likely to find yourself using this rather than the scythe. In addition, Dante can use numerous magic based attacks and abilities channeled from a mana pool to help in combat, many of which are obtained as the game progresses. A quick time event system is used when attempting to finish off an enemy, another aspect influenced from God of War. However the quick time events in this game are just plain dull, it just doesn't give off the thrill that quick time events usually provide, they spring up and Dante engages in a highly predictable gruesome kill, the most frustrating part is pressing the circle button all the time for these moves.Many attack combination's and abilities can be unlocked and/or upgraded in exchange for souls, an in-game currency that is collected upon defeating enemies or locating soul fountains.
Each of these purchasable skills fall into two categories; into Holy ,represented by blue orbs and Unholy ,represented by red orbs skill trees. That experience is collected through the game's Punish or Absolve system, where enemies upon defeat are either be punished and dismembered by Death's Scythe or absolved and saved with the Holy Cross. Much experience can also be accumulated in punishing or absolving the damned souls of many famous figures in history that appear in Dante Aligheri's original The Divine Comedy where upon choosing their fates, players enter a mini game where the characters' "sins" move towards the center of the screen, pressing required action symbols once the sin in place. Players are rewarded with more souls and experience the more sin that are collected. Of course being inspired by God of War the game has a lot of platforming events, Dante has to climb jump and pull levers as well as hang, slide and swing. Any God of War purist will have no difficulty and will have a familiar feeling while new players will also have no trouble feeling at home. In addition to platforming there are dozens of puzzles scattered around hell, the player will be required to figure out how to open gates or how to reach on to above platforms as well as hurrying up or risk being killed by the surroundings. The Game Play is the part which Dante's Inferno stands out in, the gruesome yet elegant kills and fast paced combat will keep the player entertained throughout the ordeal.
Graphics can be considered as average, at some points the game looks great while at others there can be visibly frame rate issues causing the screen and pixels to become disheveled. The game isn't without it's glitches and at times you may find yourself trapped behind an invisible wall or fall down into a never ending oblivion and finally the game could simply get stuck. The game has one of the worst soundtracks ever, in between intense cut scenes the music starts playing a horribly comedic tune, sometimes in not so intense situations the music is fast paced. While the cut scenes take place the enemies simply get silent rather than letting out roars or gurgles. Extras feature a virtual comic book about the story, it is extremely annoying trying to read the book and most players may just ignore this part of the game, other than that there are no other extras.
All in all Dante's Inferno is a fast paced no holds barred game that throws you in the middle of battle and expect you to find your own path.Many will have their criticisms but while it fails at it's flaws Dante's Inferno excels in it's good parts. While the story is a huge disappointment whose cause is not helped by the awful soundtrack, the game play is sure as hell a ton load of fun which is more than enough to make this a fun and enjoyable experience.
There's still time for the Visceral Games cult classic action-adventure game Dante's Inferno to return to the limelight 15 years later.
Absolutely loved this game. Don't know why it went under the radar with so many people.
Was outshadowed by GOW3 it was a bad decision to release it at the same time because EA was counting on a push from xbox players. The game was DOA. I never played it
....that's a you problem for not playing it, but the game wasn't DOA. It was very widely revered. The story was to continue in the sequel and the EA decided to focus on other projects. That wasn't the fault of the game and/or GoW.... it was the fault of EA and not wanting to invest in the team behind it.
Do yourself a favor and play it. If you have an XBO or Series X, you can find a cheap 360 disc as it's BC. It still hols up exceptionally well still to this day.
Darth
It was suicide mission to release it the same day as gow3. A massive majority of ps3 skipped it.
Nothing to do with the game itself, it’s EA who didn’t manage and bet wrong
Darth
Lol I just read this
“it was the fault of EA and not wanting to invest in the team behind it.”
Did you know that this same studio who didn’t get investment from EA who delivered Dead Space 1-2-3 and Battlefield Hardline? 😆
Game was loaned to me and I never booted it because GoW3 was getting all of my attention at the time. After GoW3 I had no desire to even try Dante’s Inferno because I was ready to move on to a different type of game. Not saying Dante is a bad game. It may be great. It just didn’t get to it.
@caca, what I mean by team are the guys who actually worked on it. The ones who did this game are not the same ones who worked on dead space. They may all work at visceral, but they are in different teams.
So it really was about EA choosing not to continue on with Jonathan knight and his crew and instead turn their focus on the upcoming Dead Space 2 which was from a different team.
A lot of people think a developer is just that and is not made up of different teams for different projects. The sequel was to expand on the story further. They had all kinds of new ideas all story boarded and ready to go. EA just had other plans.
Not out shadowed but written off as a gow clone by multiple magazines, howrver in reality was a darker game entirely.
I think it was a couple of factors,
1. Everyone was anxiously waiting for God of War 3 to release(myself included), so we could see what the Santa Monica Studio were going to accomplish with the mighty PS3.
2. It was such a direct ripoff of the GoW formula right down to the button prompts, (such as clicking L3 & R3 to activate your ultimate) .
Now, of course lots of games borrow and evolve ideas, but this was like a carbon copy with a different skin and not quite as good or pretty.
3. It was cool to look at, it played fine, good artistic design and everything, but our standards were astronomically high after GoW 1 & 2… and it just wasn’t anything to write home about.
That being said, I have been wanting to revisit it for years.
It's probably the best GoW clone ever. Better than even 3 to some extent. The story may be loosely based on the poem but the liberties they took with the various levels of hell were pretty entertaining.
Definitely worth playing through again. It also helps that it plays even better on an XBO/ Series.
Better than 3 to NO extent dude. I get it, you liked the game, but it was objectively worse than GOW3 in every way. I was one of the few who played both at the time as I couldn't get enough of GOW formula, and i liked it as a straight-to-dvd kind of game, but it did nothing better than GOW3 my guy.
I think with a few live service features EA could revive the IP and turn it into a million dollar franchise.
Look, EA is dumb, but they can still read comments on random aggregate sites. Let's not help them with more bad ideas.
Welcome back to the Treasure Trove. A place choc-full of Hidden Gems for the semi-retro era of video games. Today, three more games enter the spotlight, some of them finding themselves raved about for the first time in their lives.
Dante's Inferno shines under a completely new light in the trailer of the Dante's Redemption fan short by gaming industry veteran Tal Peleg.
