Dante's Inferno | a Review
originally published on 20/06/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the thrice-damned mongrel, G.E.M.Simov, a Stranger so enigmatic not even Hell can hold him, and I’ve come to tell you all about a game that puts an interesting spin on the Divine Comedy, called Dante’s Inferno, for the PSP.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
In this game, you need to beat the game to unlock the highest difficulty. I know, dashing. What does the highest difficulty do? It presents the player with: Tougher Monsters who do an unnoticeably higher amount of damage than they do on the previous difficulty. In other words, it’s not worth it. In fact, this game has a difficulty mode called “Classic”. Play that. The other three aren’t worth it, considering that the gameplay is… It’s strange.
So, it’s like God of War, which is an… Action-Adventure Beat-em Up with some puzzle-platformer elements, I guess. The most important feature of it is the combat - there’s a lot of Combat, and, as one would expect, the combat is not bad. Problem is, it isn’t entirely good, either. It has some weird hiccups that make it less THAN (in the case God of War, but also less than ideal), and that’s a bad thing.
Example number 1 - why does it take so fucking long to kill shit? It’s incredibly lackluster having to throw more than 30 total hits at a single goon until they are in KILL RANGE. It would probably take more than 40 hits to kill a goon without Judging them. That’s really stupid, and, considering that I played through this on Hellish (which is the equivalent of Hard, if the other two readily available difficulties are Easy and Normal), it’s unlikely that it would take less than 15 hits to get an enemy into kill range, which, I feel, is still a bit too many.
Just make the creatures deal more damage! Even on Hellish, I was literally getting tickled. I get hit, and not even 5% of my HP is missing. 5% of my HP with 0 Health upgrades, by the way. The difficulty is so… Strangely, unpleasantly badly done, I have no words to describe it.
The only saving grace here is that, instead of wailing away at ordinary goons for 5 to 10 total hits, they can just be grabbed with the R Trigger/Bumper and the player can Judge them immediately, which results in an instant kill. The bigger enemies need to be brought down below a certain threshold (of Health) before they can be Judged, but...
Example number 2 - Why the fuck is Absolving enemies, even the weakest goons, tied to a QTE (QuickTime Event), while Punishing them isn’t? It’s really baffling why the devs decided to make the cannon fodder take up literally 3, maybe even 4, times longer to Absolve, than it takes to Punish. It’s a no-brainer what any normal person would do - they’d Punish the ordinary creeps and save Absolving for the big goons, who all have QTEs on both the Judgements that can be passed. This whole thing, though… Not a good choice.
Example number 3 - Everything requires that the player spams the Circle Button. Sure, that’s why Dante’s Inferno is kinda like God of War, because, in God of War, there was a possibility of you getting carpal tunnel syndrome, while in Dante’s Inferno it’s not a possibility. It’s a certainty.
Example number 4 - Why the fuck is it so difficult to control the battlefield? I mean, come on, there has to be some kind of reason behind the fact that when hit by either the Scythe (melee attacks) or the Cross (ranged attacks), enemies get staggered for a fraction of a second, oftentimes not long enough of a time period to allow for the second attack of the combo to go off before they’re moving and/or attacking already?
This is a really big issue in fights where there’s more enemies than just one or two, when the player is getting swarmed relentlessly by a bunch of goons, because, if a SINGLE one of them does not get hit by the attacks the player is launching, that fella will hit the player, it will stagger the player, it will break the player’s combo and boom, the player gets slammed by all the other goonies. Part of the issue here comes from the fact that a lot of attacks have animation fall-offs, which means that, even after the attack is finished, technically, there’s still an animation to play, because Dante (the main character) is fancy like that.
Issue arises because the player cannot issue the command to Block (Left Trigger/Bumper) or Dash/Dodge (Left Trigger/Bumper in conjunction with the Right Trigger/Bumper) until the previous animation Dante is stuck in is finished, and so there’s very little time for the player to react to this. As a result, it makes the already long combat drag on even further.
Example number 5 - Why the FUCK can Judgement be interrupted? This has a lot to do with the fourth example provided, but… Hello? Judgement requires that Dante Grab an enemy and then press the appropriate button to either Punish or Absolve them. While performing the Punishment or the Absolvence, Dante is immune to damage… But while choosing whether to Absolve or Punish, Dante is not immune to damage.
The issue arises from the fact that, for some reason, the PSP, or the game, is slow at receiving inputs, and, even if I were to be spamming the Square Button (Punish), the game still provides an 0.5 or 0.33 second window for enemies to hit me. If I am waiting to get the prompt, the window of time in which I am utterly helpless increases, and that’s not a good meme, because my movement options are vastly limited.
Lastly, example number 6 - Why is there an enemy that has… 4+ seconds of invulnerability, an enemy that is 3 to 4 times more mobile than the player, or any other enemy for that matter, and cannot even be killed via Judgement? Why is that same enemy capable of generating Hyper Armor (which allows them to ignore the staggering effect of attacks that would stagger them) and then go into its invincibility frames? Why does that same enemy have attacks which home in on the player, even though, thematically, they should not be? Why does that same enemy take like 30+ hits to kill and still have the option of popping up… In pairs, or coupled with other enemies? What were folks at Visceral Games thinking, that this would be fun?
Newsflash, being unable to attack a target is not fun, especially when that target is not only invulnerable to damage, but also hard to hit, based off of its insane mobility. If issue number 4 wasn’t a thing, this might not have been a problem, but, as mentioned, these enemies just randomly break through their own stagger and dash about, slamming into Dante and carving his guts out.
Now, after listing a grand total of MANY things that aren’t totally great, let me make it clear that this game’s gameplay is actually pretty decent. I know, what? After shitting on it with such fervor, I have the gall of saying it’s not absolute dog poop? That is because my experience was soured due to my personal insistence upon picking the hardest possible difficulty, because I am a HARDCORE (with diabetes, heart issues and negative values of Vitamin D in my system) Gamer, and I am under the impression that a Challenge is good to have.
But when the challenge is not done right, or is lazy - ala 30 hits to kill 1 enemy - that’s when you know something’s not going as it should be. If I had set off to play Dante’s Inferno on the Classic Difficulty (Easy) I would have enjoyed it a lot more, and I recommend that any player who picks it up does that, and saves themselves some annoying experiences.
What does this game do good? Well, for starters, it provides a few interesting means of dealing with enemies. There’s the Cross, which is just a load of ranged attacks that look really, really cool. There’s the Scythe, which has two types of attacks, which, frankly, also look pretty decent, although they don’t really pack a punch. That’s the issue with all of them - it feels as if they’re very ineffectual.
Then there’s spells - means to deal with enemies, still - and those are pretty great. Some are cooler than others, I’ll admit. Dashing into the enemies, sporting invincibility frames of your won, while ice emanates from you and you deal a shitton of damage? Cool. Surrounding yourself in a bubble of electricity and walking at enemies? Not that cool. Throwing a big ass cross that does a massive combo by homing in on enemies and chunks them hard? Not bad.
In fact, I can say one thing, and say it with confidence - Dante’s Inferno does a good job at being a discount God of War.
The only thing that I can point out as excellent in this game are the secrets, which are very nicely strewn about, they aren’t far too hidden to cut up the gameplay, and there’s a good variety to them. Not bad on that front.
Alas, not all games can have the heart-bumping, blood vessel bursting, nerve wracking gameplay of LocoRoco, so we should be willing to settle for less. Though this… This came a bit too short of my expectations. 2/3
Presentation
This game has incredible presentation, in some areas, and then horrible presentation, in others. Let me just say that the cinematics for Dante’s Inferno are absolutely magnificent. They’re such a joy to watch, they’re so impressive, in a sense, they look so good, they’re so full of character, the cinematography that’s been utilized in them is also quite stunning.
All in all, that’s a superb part of the puzzle. Additionally? The Voice Acting is DOPE. Great work on the part of all the actors, there wasn’t a moment where I heard some character say something and find myself thinking that this was a bad line delivery. It was good.
Lastly, the music. The music is good, at some points, and then it’s absent, at others. What bugs me here is that it isn’t especially good, but, combined with the aesthetic that the game provides, it could have been really good, even if it was just mediocre, but there’s a large number of instances where there just isn’t any music, or the music is very poorly utilized, and I just end up feeling as though this isn’t the cool game it could have been.
The same happens with the SFX, among which I count the VFX - this game is quiet, really, really quiet, for some unknown to me reason, and I had to turn the sound on my PSP all the way up, and, still, it was pretty silent. But, then there’ll be sections where a certain effect will be PAINFULLY loud and will just ruin the whole thing.
One tiny issue concerning the presentation - sometimes, the camera is a bit wonky, and enemies might meld in the background, though both of those were relatively rare occurrences.
Due to the fact that humans have a proclivity for remembering the bad, rather than the good, it feels as though this game has more issues than it ought to have. Alas, I cannot give this game the highest grade there is, in part, due to the fact that the Scythe looks fucking silly. It’s so fucking big, so thick - there’s a massive amount of inconsistency to it, no joke. In one cinematic it looks incredibly good, almost sleek, and then, in another, it looks fat and chunky. It’s so comical, I can’t take it totally seriously.
Overall, the game is presented very well… Though there are a few issues here and there, which detract from the overall experience. 2/3
Story
The story is… It is very interesting. As mentioned, it’s a weird spin on the timeless classic, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (which is a very good read, ACTUALLY). In this one, Dante is actually a lord(?) or a relatively wealthy individual from Florence, Italy, who works as a Mercenary (from what I’ve gathered). As indicated, it’s a little vague, but that’s not totally important to the story.
What is important is that he has a wife - Beatrice - and he loves her very much. But he goes on a crusade, and the bishop says that all the mercenaries’ sins are absolved… Alas, Dante takes that to heart and does a BIT of sinning. Just a tiny bit, not too much, wink wink. Well, at the very start of the game, something happens, and Dante goes back home.
What happens, though? Well, Death comes to collect Dante’s soul - because Dante got stabbed in the back by an assassin of Middle Eastern descent - and Dante does not give his soul up. Dante then fights Death and, at the end of the fight, something really, REALLY intriguing happens. Death actually stats begging for mercy, and even tries bargaining. It’s really neat.
But, if Death has come for Dante, then is Dante actually dead? I mean, with what happens next… Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. I’ll just leave a little win for Presentation in here - the knife, with which Dante has been stabbed in the back, gets pulled out (by Dante), and there’s no blood on it… Think of that what you will.
HOWEVER, something ELSE has happened. Dante’s wife, and fat-ugly-bastard-dad, have been killed! As Dante’s still realizing what’s happening, her soul leaves her body and a dark shade snatches her away - it’s Lucifer, Satan, the big bad!
Then Dante goes all the way down to the last circle of Hell in pursuit of Lucifer, so he can save Beatrice, and the story is not too bad. The player gets to see a lot of interesting background on Dante, himself, who has sewn red thread into his chest to make it look like a cross, which seems to be a means for him to atone for his sins. In addition to that, it serves as a means to see his sins, which are presented to the player in an interesting manner.
The characters encountered are all relatively one-sided and one-off, but they are intriguing and aren’t atrociously written, though none of them are totally memorable. The story, too, is not all that memorable, but the depiction of Hell that the players get is superb. There’s also a tad of actual history, in the form of famous people/ characters from old tales whom the player finds while wandering about.
Unfortunately, it does not end all that glamorously, and even teases a sequel. If this were trailing along the steps of the Divine Comedy, next up would have been Purgatory, but… I figure the game just did not perform that well, when it comes to sales. As it is, it feels unfinished, with an unsatisfying climax and a relatively surface level execution of an interesting premise. 2/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Unfortunately, I never had memories that were all too fond of this game. It was always, and always will be, a God of War clone, and, what’s worse, it’s an EA game. Made by Visceral, no less, so there’s even more pain to feel - you know, the Dead Space dilemma.
Its approach to Difficulty is also quite underwhelming, and I can’t say anything in it is totally legendary for me. So there’s a NO from me. 0/1
Conclusion
6/10. This is not a bad game. It’s actually a little bit above average, and, depending on who you ask, might even be a pretty good game. I’d suggest that folks who enjoy games like God of War, or maybe Ratchet and Clank, give this one a go, if they happen to have a PSP… Or a PS3.
I tuck it under my belt, another pleasant experience that I fondly remember.