Dante's singular quest through Hell makes it worth being played in depth
For his epic "Divine Comedy", model for Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighiero (1265-1321) has been drawing on characters and events from classical –mythological, religious– sources as well as his own epoch, politically overshadowed by the struggle between Guelphs and Ghibellines in central Italy.
Judging by its visual and narrative composition, it is a game as adult as are the sins portrayed: Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, Treachery, each one generating its own bestiary and populated by the corresponding sinners to be fought, absolved, or punished. The sins' (descending) order being purposely, of course, with Upper Hell putting up the self-indulgent, carnal sinners, while on the lowest level, that of malice, the traitors, according to Virgil, are sinning against life itself ("betraying the love and trust that Nature makes").
However, just like many symbolist and surrealist artists apparently fathering the amazing graphics, the developers seem to having been inspired through sins like lust and greed rather than heresy and fraud since the different chapters appear somewhat unequal in their conception and the action ecclectic and often repetitive in its course.
Omnipresent levers marked with a fire sign are leading the way when jumping, climbing, and rappelling over mobile platforms, swinging ropes, burning walls, or crumbling ledges, familiar from other video games as are the mechanic puzzles requiring to drag crates or to turn cranks and quite an efficient manner to slow down both Dante's and the player's progress through Hell and the game.
Though Dante's Inferno might not be seen under gameplay aspect only: both the complex religious, cultural, and historical background requiring quite some enlightening knowledge about Dante, his time and thought, and the today almost obsolete topic with largely relativized "sins" opposed to pretty unfashionable "virtues", might well contribute to its lesser popularity.
Intersected by intense cinematics and quite non-youthfree cartoons, Dante's singular quest through the depths of Hell does give the game however a deeper dimension underneath its superficial technical flaws that makes it being quite more than just a failed imitation of the one or other God of the War-like game.
Controlling and coordinating the appealing armaments and abilities works quite well, though, the souls collected with each of the numerous fights permitting to gradually upgrade both the powerful (unholy) Scythe and firearm-like Holy Cross up to in total seven levels, in addition to the magic skills –three un/holy powers each– obtained thanks to the 31 relics found on (and off) the way through the Nine Circles.
The useful inventory gives also plentiful information about the menagerie of Damned existences encountered at the different stages of Dante's descent to Hell, which apart from himself is protagonized through three other characters: Virgil, Dante’s model and moral guide on his difficult way, Beatrice, in reality Dante's ideal woman and in the "Comedy" his betrayed wife who promised her soul to Lucifer convinced that her husband would stay faithful during his Holy Crusade, and finally the latter himself, framing the journey with his devilish laughter ever so persuasive at its end, after the final fanciful fight, when proposing Dante a pact to reign over the three empires of afterlife while reuniting him with Beatrice, for now Lucifer's own temporary lover alike the mythological Persephone and Styx...Read full review
