Review, Hints and Tips: Dante's Inferno

Dante’s Inferno is the first part of the dark poem Divine Comedy. It’s about the journey of Dante through a medieval hell guided by the poet Virgil. Hell is depicted as nine circles of suffering, each distinctly different and based on a sin. (Lust, Gluttany, Greed etc.)

The poem depicts a soul’s journey through hell towards heaven as it rejects sin. The game Dante’s Inferno is based on the book and makes the central character Dante.

Visceral Games and Electronic Arts (the makers of God of War) have taken a bold move in trying to adapt a poem into a video game. With a certain amount of poetic license they have produced a game that has the essence of the poem but doesn’t really capture the full aspect of Dante’s Inferno.

What we are left with is a visually stunning trip into hell that is mainly a derivative of the classic game God of War.

From the opening sequences where Dante is fighting to save the woman he loves, and arrives home to find her dead. As he arrives, Lucife steals her soul and drags her into hell. Dante chases them through each of the circles of hell (as described in the poem).

From the amazing opening movie you understand that a lot of care and attention has been taken in creating the atmosphere and storyline. Immediately you know you are in a ‘Mature’ rated game as there is nudity right away.

As you progress through each circle, you immediately get a sense that the writers have tried their best to bring the poem to life. Each circle is based on a sin from the poem, and the graphics do a good job of representing this. This is a mature game and there is a lot of nudity, violence and other extreme material – while it is all in context, it does seem a little overdone.

The game play is pretty standard ‘hack and slash’ with a few tweaks here and there to make it relevant to Dante. The game is repetitive at times, and while there are some cool features, like taking control of a demon, it doesn’t really expand on the ‘Gods of War’ type game play.

If you want to, there is a pretty deep combat system to delve into, with 12 fingered people definitely having an advantage over us mere mortals – however, if you’re a ‘bad’ gamer like me, you’ll still be able to do pretty well in the game, as some of the advanced combination moves aren’t really needed to kill the majority of bad guys.

One of the more enjoyable elements of the game is the ‘platform’ side – at times you will be fighting as the floors around you collapse – this means that you cannot simply hack and slay yourself to victory but must also be pretty dextrous.

Overall this is a good game which for once takes a literary classic and does a fairly good job of interpreting it. If you liked God of War then there’s no doubt that you will love this game. With quality graphics, decent sound and at times frantic game play, this game will amuse you for several days.

The boss battles are difficult, but some simple techniques can get you though most battles. While the tips below will not work every time, they generally will assist you to defeat most bosses.

Death (Crusade)

• Defend: Dodge or block scythe
• Defend: block scythe spin
• Defend: Block scythe ranged attack
• Attack: block and counter
• Defend: evade grapple.

Minos (Purgatory)

• Defend: Move erratically & evade to avoid tentacles.
• Attack: after breath attack, full frontal attack.

Semiramis (Lust)

• Defend: Use block and time your attacks (most important to be defensive with this boss)
• Attack: Kill flying enemies with ‘instakilled’

This is an endurance test and you should concentrate on getting into a rhythm – kill the babies and take a swipe at the hand in the combo.

Marc Antony (Lust)

• Defend: doge all attacks to get used to his ‘attacks’.
• Defend: block where possible, but evade all unblockable attacks.
• Attack: wait till he has finished attacking and counter-attack
• Attack: hit Semiramis hand if she tries to heal him

Cerebrus (Gluttany)

• Defend: dodge the spitting attacks.
• Attack: hit action button on ‘growths’ – if attacked by a head the head may get stunned – attack and sever the head.

Alighiero (Gluttany)

• Defend: Dodge attacks
• Attack: evade swinging cross, jump in attack twice, jump out
• Attack: when he falls to one knee use combo attacks
• Defend: block and dodge new attacks
• Attack: ranged attacks and cross attacks are most effective at end

Francesco (Violence)

• Defend: block standard slash
• Defend: dodge ranged and thrust attacks
• Attack: destroy shield by throwing swords back at him – do quick attacks once shield is destroyed
• Attack: when minions appear, destroy using cross attack so you can continue to throw swords at him

Malebolge arena (Fraud)

• Challenge 1: use ice magic attack constantly, use sins to rack up extra damage
• Challenge 2: Block and quick attack – rack up hits using ‘circle’ with scythe
• Challenge 3: On crusaders, use heavy, several light and then another heavy attack.
• Challenge 4: Throw enemy into air by holding the heavy attack button – the use throw attack, followed by a couple of quick scythe attacks – the throw attack again – repeat this.
• Challenge 5: Use cross combos at long range – stay near bottom
• Challenge 6: fight, fight and more fight – tough challenge!
• Challenge 7: very tough – combos and magic work, but it’s near impossible to win.
• Challenge 8: evade and use large attacks – stop enemies from using spin attacks.
• Challenge 9: Ice magic and cross, combined with blocking and counter attack seems to work best.

Lucifer (First – Traitors)

• Defend: jump to avoid fist attacks
• Attack: stay back and use cross attacks – no damage but cause him to slump back – charge in to hit belly hard
• Defend: dodge ice spokes and walk to light – then attack with scythe
• Defend: jump and double jump to avoid storms
• Attack: continue to fire crosses until he takes on second form

Lucifer (Second – Traitors)

Good luck!!!

• Defend: watch to see how he attacks and evade mostly.
• Attack: After Lucifer does a three hit melee combo ending in ranged attack, dodge three times and then hit with your best scythe combo
• Defend: don’t use cross more than twice in a row
• Defend: keep on evading and dodging
• Attack: when Lucifer begins flying, grapple to hit him – and use several quick attacks.