Dante's Inferno Review - PS3

4.5

Gameplay: 5
Graphics: 4
Audio: 7
Innovation: 3

Introduction

Dante Alighieri’s 14th century poem, The Divine Comedy, has continued to interest people over the many years since it was written. Consisting of three parts; Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, it is considered by many as one of greatest poems ever written. Inferno tells the (fictional) story of Dante himself as he travels into and wanders through the nine circles of Hell deep within the Earth. These circles deal with the seven deadly sins and more, in order of their severity and in various different ways.

Now, when it comes to the Dante’s Inferno video game, things have changed a little from the original poem. While still clearly based on the source material, a few liberties have been taken in order to give the plot a more objective focus. Rather than as a poet, Dante is depicted as a Templar knight during the Third Crusade who ventures into Hell in order to rescue the soul of his lover, Beatrice which was snatched by Lucifer. Dante’s Inferno is an action game with a large amount of hack-and-slash gameplay as Dante smashes his way through Hell, gradually making his way to the centre.

Gameplay

Firstly, at its core as an action game, Dante’s Inferno fares decently. Comparable to the God of War series in terms of the combo system and level of violence, the game presents players with a challenge of survival using their choice of weapon. Dante has two weapons at his disposal, Death’s scythe (taken after destroying Death at the beginning) and a holy cross. Both have their own separate combos and skill trees for players to make use of. The controls use all the face buttons as well as the right analogue stick, with square performing light scythe attacks, triangle executing strong scythe attacks, circle shooting holy crosses, and the right analogue stick being used for dodging attacks.

Souls, which function as the game’s currency, can be used to unlock new combos and abilities as the game goes on. There are two categories of skills: Holy and Unholy, both start off at the same level in the beginning, but as experience is earned Dante can power up either side. Earning souls is simple enough, every defeated enemy drops them, but there is a little more to it. Experience come in two varieties, holy and unholy to match the skill tree, which type you get depends on your choice of finishing move. Pressing the R2 button when an enemy is near death triggers a quick time event where you can choose which weapon to use. Finishing off an enemy with the scythe earns you unholy experience, whereas finishing them with the cross earns holy experience. Helpfully, there’s an experience gauge at the top left of the screen which shows how much of each kind you have.

Filling a side of the experience gauge causes Dante’s level to increase in either Holy or Unholy skills and open up new abilities for you to purchase with your collected souls. These abilities include new combos for both weapons, as ...