Dante's Inferno's fun combat isn't enough to carry it through to the end
Dante's Inferno's story is based on the classic poem. You play as the crusader Dante. After the game's intro cinematic, your put into battle with the prisoner's of Acre. Shortly after this battle ends, you're stabbed in the back, and damned to hell by Death himself. Not only are you going to be punished, but also his loved ones would be punished. After Dante hears this, he decides to fight against death, and take Death's scythe to use as your own weapon. You quickly make your way back home, to discover everyone has been killed, and Dante witnesses Lucifer dragging his wife, Beatrice down to hell. Dante decides to go to the circles of hell and rescue Beatrice.
The story may be pretty interesting, but it's nothing special. The way it concludes is fine, but it's kind of disappointing in the way its obvious it's just setting up for a trilogy. The game sends through the nine circles of hell, because of this you're put through some pretty disturbing, yet pretty awesome moments. But as the story progresses, these moments appear less and less. As you travel through the first few circles of hell, you will feel like you are in hell. The constant sounds of the damned moaning, along with some terrific and disturbing art style. As you begin your quest into hell, the enemies are all inspired by what circle of hell you are in, and they look great.
It's too bad none of this stuff last very long. As you get past the first few circles of hell, the creative level design and art style disappear. In the early levels your in outdoor areas which you can see the hellish creatures around you. For example, on the way to one of the first bosses you encounter in hell, you can see him in the distance before you reach him. Giving you a taste of what you'll have to fight. But after the first few levels, you just go through a series of rooms. A majority of the rooms have a very similar look and feel to them. This also detracts from the hellish atmosphere. It feels more like you're just traveling room to room, rather than traveling through the nine circles of hell. A lot of the rooms are all colored in the same shade of red. At first it makes the rooms feel hellish, like they should. But after a while all that the color does is it starts to grow weary on your eyes. Around the same time the new enemies you fight don't really stand out all that much. And you're still fighting the same enemies from the previous circles of hell. Even the sound gets old after a while. The moans and groans may be affective at the beginning of the game, but it grows stale and becomes unnoticeable by the end of the game.
But on a lighter note, the gameplay itself can be pretty fun. Dante's Inferno plays exactly like a God of War game. The way the camera follows you, the way you use magic and main weapon, and the way you upgrade your magic and combos. But it's still really fun to fight your way through hell through a good chunk of the game. The combat, like the rest of the game, has a God of War feeling, and it's pretty satisfying. But it's not perfect. You may start a combo, and halfway through it finish off the enemy; normally you would stop the combo so you can attack another enemy. But your attacks will continue no matter how much a mash on another button to stop it. This becomes frustrating, especially during the game's later battles.
It's even more disappointing that during the end of the game is mainly based on combat objectives. For example, to get the next part of the game you might have to do a 100 hit combo, or defeat all enemies using only magic. None of this stuff is very fun, and all it does is get annoying and add more time to your play through. In-between a lot of the combat sequences are puzzles spread throughout the game. These puzzles are usually either way to easy, or are too difficult because the game purposely gives you a hint that has almost nothing to do with the solution to the puzzle.
Dante's Inferno has a few things going for it, but it doesn't stake up well against other action games. The combat is fun, but isn't perfect, along with puzzles that aren't very fun. There is some cool hellish atmosphere that's inspired by the poem, even though it's not there for long. Dante's Inferno is worth renting for any action fan looking to kill some time. But there are too many other better action games out there to make Dante's Inferno worth buying.