How far are you willing to go for someone you love? Would you be able to stare death in the face and tell him to go F**k himself? Depending on how deep your love is for someone, you just might have the power to do anything to free their soul from hell’s sanctum. Prepare yourselves for this Hellish venture into our review of Dante’s inferno multi-platform edition.
The story is loosely based on the first book Dante Alighieri’s epic poem “Inferno”, of the divine comedy. In this reimagining, Dante is not a poet but a knight of the crusades and your quest is to free your beloved Beatrice’s soul from Lucifer’s grasp. The goal of Lucifer is to marry a heaven bound soul so he can break free from hell to once again make an attempt to take over the throne of God. The game starts off with Dante stitching a blood tapestry into his chest screaming as he puts in the final stitch while sitting in the “dark forest”. The tapestry on Dante’s chest begins to show images of Dante’s past. The first flashback shows Dante and his fellow knights being ordered by King Richard to capture the city of Acre and obtain an artifact before Saladin acquires it. Sadly, Dante is killed by an assassin and this is where you have your first encounter with the Grim Reaper himself. After that the game picks up from there, where you meet Beatrice and see her soul being taken away by Lucifier; so your journey begins!
As some of you may know from the story, there are nine levels of hell and in the game you will have to face each themed level from “Limbo” to the last area “Treachery”. I know some of you are intimidated, but you will be equiped with magical powers and the Grim Reapers Scythe to aid you in your hellish venture. The combat system features heavy and light attacks, as well as some magic skills. As always, you will be able to upgrade your attacks and magic. Not only do you have your melee weapon, but you will have a holy cross that your beloved Beatrice left you which shoots light projectiles. With the Holy Cross you can make a moral choice to purify the “damned souls” that attack you or you can just punish them with a grab attack. In tradition to button mashers, you will be able to pop enemies up in the air and do air combo damage to add to your combo count. Some people want to comment saying it is a “God of War Clone” but even if it is, this has better improvements with the combat.
The graphics are stunning and since this is an M-rated title, expect a lot of graphic scenes. The transition between 2D animation visuals and 3D animation is always a nice touch; including the fact that the cinematics mold well with the gameplay to the point where you can’t tell between the two. Besides seeing a lot of gore and demonic babies around there is some nudity and religious situations which will bring some controversy for some, but the crusades was not the land of milk and honey. All the enemies were well designed especially when you get to the Boss of fight Cleopatra and Mark Anthony which I find ironic.
I actually don’t have many negative comments about the game. It is pretty simple especially when you are able to use the “Beast Taming” ability where you knock off demons and take over the beast they rode in to destroy. Another way to turn the tables on the enemies. Besides that, yes it will be repetitive button mashing however when done right you will not notice. There will be DLC added later on of the “Dark forest” which is a prologue to the story and there is “Trail of St. Lucifier” which will be a co-op game play and game editing. That so far sounds good to look forward to; be sure to look for that in the future.
The final break down, you have great combat game-play with a hellish design loosely based on a great story dealing with demons, Lucifier and a knight’s love for another. I would try your luck with the different difficulty settings to see how bad ass you can be.
Final verdict it is a BUY. It’s no doubt that Dante’s Inferno will floor you with the visuals, story, and game-play that will leave you shocked as you go through the levels of hell. Thank you for checking out this review of Dante’s Inferno which will be hitting Xbox 360, PS3 and the PC next week!
As always stay frosty gamers and don’t fear the reaper!
