Line #22 YMMV/DantesInferno


1	* AdaptationDisplacement: The game is very loosely based upon the original poem and doesn't meet all of its events. Still, it's safe to say that more than a few young people think about this game when they heard Dante ([[VideoGame/DevilMayCry well, maybe another game on that one]]) or Inferno.
2	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
3	** Does Dante really regret the sins of his past or is he just merely seeking a way to escape being punished for them?
4	** Considering that Dante actually dies, and his trip through Hell is a sort of vision, is the Beatrice pleading for Dante to save her even the real one? Or does she only show up after Dante absolves himself of his sins, and the one he repeatedly sees before that point is just a figment of his imagination (representing his inner need for salvation), and/or is a vision presented by Lucifer to egg him onto the lowest circle of Hell?
5	* CompleteMonster: [[{{Satan}} Lucifer]] is this in both the video game and animated film.
6	** ''Video Game'': Lucifer was once a great but vain angel of God's before he turned against him out of disgust for humanity and was [[FallenAngel cast into Hell]] with his followers as punishment. Seeking revenge by trying to [[TheCorrupter tempt and corrupt humanity]] into Hell and torment, Lucifer plotted on using the sins of others to make his escape. Lucifer makes a {{deal\|WithTheDevil}} with the pure Beatrice to test her beloved Dante's faithfulness in exchange for her soul. When Dante fails, Lucifer drags Beatrice to Hell to turn her into a spiteful succubus bride; when Dante comes to her rescue, Lucifer's attempts to break and hinder him include turning Dante's abusive father into a monster to kill his son. When Dante ultimately rescues Beatrice, Lucifer reveals that her capture was an elaborate ruse to bring Dante to him. It's revealed Lucifer seeks to destroy and recreate both Heaven and Earth [[InTheirOwnImage in his own image]] as to take what he believes is rightfully his, and makes his escape attempt in the ensuing fight with Dante.
7	** ''An Animated Epic'': Lucifer is a FallenAngel who rebelled against God and introduced sin to the world, leading to the creation of Hell, where millions of souls of sinners were [[AndIMustScream tortured forever]]. Desiring to escape his prison in the Ninth Circle of Hell, Lucifer [[DealWithTheDevil makes a bet]] with Beatrice about whether or not Dante will remain faithful in his crusade. Lucifer wins and kidnaps Beatrice right under Dante's eyes to lure him to Hell. As Dante ventures through all the circles of Hell to save Beatrice, Lucifer tortures her, burning her and tearing her apart for fun, before deciding to marry her and force her to give birth to his children forever. When Dante frees Beatrice and gets to the deepest circle of Hell, Lucifer manipulates Dante into freeing him and then announces his intention of escaping into Purgatory and Heaven, where he can torture all souls there and then [[OmnicidalManiac plunge the entire universe into chaos]], solely so he can force God to watch how he perverts his creations.
8	* DemonicSpiders:
9	** Heretical Priests, which have the nasty habit of rendering themselves and anyone around them cross-proof (but not magic-proof!) until the Priest dies. On their own, they can be handled relatively easily, but they get really annoying when they use their protection on angered spirits, shades that catch fire and can only be attacked by using the cross attack (or holy magic) to put out the flame.
10	** Temptresses, especially for how early they appear in the game: they're [[LightningBruiser wicked fast, durable]] and [[ConfusionFu unpredictable]] to boot, pack a nasty ([[{{Squick}} particular emphasis on 'nasty']]) unblockable attack, and they never, ''ever'' show up alone. It's all-too-easy for Dante to meet his end in the middle of a flurry of slashing claws from three of the stupid things.
11	* DesignatedVillain: The first three bosses. Death is... well, [[TheGrimReaper Death]], Charon is just there to move souls, and King Minos only sorts the souls into the proper circles. Not terribly glaring, though; no one likes Death when he visits, the other two "work" for Hell regardless, and all three [[{{Determinator}} got in Dante's way]].
12	* DisappointingLastLevel: Many reviewers have praised the game's first several levels, but have stated that the later levels fall into this. That is, Malbolge is just a series of trials. This level takes up the largest amount of the Poem with inventive tortures for every type of fraud, but in the game is a bare rock cave where Beatrice describes the people convicted in a single line, and Cocytus is nothing but the FinalBattle.
13	* EnjoyTheStorySkipTheGame: The gameplay is a competent but by-the-book action game that is basically a more repetitive ''God Of War''. The atmosphere, art direction, and cutscenes however are incredibly well done and completely nail the poem's bleak and disturbing vision of Hell. It becomes a game you play less to actually play, and more to see what horrifying hellscape you fight through next.
14	* EvilIsCool: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] in regards to Lucifer. TheDevilIsALoser is very much in effect in the original ''Literature/TheDivineComedy'', in which he is depicted stuck in the icy center of Hell, powerless to do anything about his torment (which he's also partially bringing on himself). The Lucifer of this game, on the other hand, is given some AdaptationalBadass and cleverness and also gives him a case of being a VillainHasAPoint, namely given that HumansAreBastards is in full effect, but even then it is also juxtaposed with him being StupidEvil.
15	* GameBreaker: A fully upgraded cross becomes this.
16	** To elaborate on this, upgrading the cross unlocks new holy spells which you can purchase. One of these is [[StoneWall Divine Armor]], which not only renders Dante invulnerable but upgrading this spell causes Dante to recover health persistently while Divine Armor's invulnerability is active. Upgrading it fully increases this regeneration rate. Combine with Ciacco's Bile, a relic that causes persistent mana regeneration, and Divine Armor will literally be the only spell you ever cast all game, and the only time you will ever die is if you fall off something or (somehow) run out of mana. Possibly averted by the fact that if you do this and neglect the scythe, the final boss will curb stomp you.
17	** At (almost) the top of the other side of the upgrade path, you get the passive ability to regain mana... by killing things. That's right, the game lets you go invincible, regain health while doing so, then regain mana by killing the enemies you can't be touched by.
18	** The fully [[ChargedAttack charged blast]] of the cross comes to mind. It is very powerful, has a long range and area of effect, breaks all defenses, and knocks the enemy over. The only downside is of course a charge-time, which isn't very long. Furthermore, with upgrades, you can make the cross attack even stronger, and regain health from every enemy that dies from a cross attack. Single enemies (even some bosses) can just be spammed to death by it and even groups can be reduced to dust pretty quickly if you let them hug together in a tight area.
19	* GeniusBonus: In addition to being an adaptation of "The Inferno", the game also incorporates some details about Dante Alighieri that will be interesting for anyone who is knowledgeable about the Florentine poet. Two notable tidbits are those about Bella when [[spoiler:Dante finds her in the Wood of the Suicides]] saying that she died of the fever (which is how the real-life Bella Alighieri (née Abati) died) and that the character Francesco shares his name with Alighieri's real-life half brother.
20	** On that note, the game's version of Dante grew up believing that his mother died of the fever [[spoiler:when in actuality, [[DrivenToSuicide her husband's abuse pushed her to hang herself]]. Even through the mid-20th century, it wasn't unusual for relatives/loved ones of suicide victims to cover up the suicide so the dead could receive burial in hallowed ground and thus have a chance at salvation]].
21	* GoddamnedBats: The Pests and the Temptresses, with the latter verging on DemonicSpiders on "Zealot" and reaching that territory easily on "Hellish".
22	** The Hoarder/Waster. They don't do much damage, but they have an annoying spin attack that lasts a whole lot of time, knocks you over and potentially keeps doing it if it hits you again and it's completely immune while spinning. It may not be a big deal when you have only that enemy, but having many enemies at the same time can make it incredibly annoying.
23	* HilariousInHindsight:
24	** In a meta way. This HackAndSlash game is an obvious clone of ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'', a Sony-owned series that was created [[DuelingGames to compete against]] (and partly inspired by) the ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series... which was in turn inspired by Dante Alighieri's ''Literature/TheDivineComedy''. So it now seems things have gone full circle.
25	** The choices for voice actors for Lucifer also have a bit of unintentional humor.
26	*** The 1986 ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'' film had TheHero Kenshiro's traits of MessianicArchetype emphasized [[FauxSymbolism to egregious extremes]]. John Vickery, who voiced Kenshiro in the English language dub of the film, now ironically provides the voice of Lucifer in this game.
27	*** In Manga/RurouniKenshin, Makoto Shishio, voiced by Creator/SteveBlum in the American English dub by Creator/MediaBlasters, occasionally compares himself to being a demon (granted, he [[NecessarilyEvil believes that he is right]]) and expects to go to Hell when he dies, and, [[spoiler:following his death via internal combustion, is shown along with Yumi and Houji in the underworld, drawing up plans with them to achieve taking it over]]. Later in 2010, Blum would provide the voice of {{Satan}} himself in ''VideoGame/DantesInferno: [[AnimatedAdaptation An Animated Epic]]'', [[spoiler:who in turn has an ambitious goal of his own in ruling all three realms (Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven) of the afterlife]].
28	* ItsShortSoItSucks: Without skipping cutscenes and with finding every damned soul, the base game can be easily beaten in 5-6 hours.
29	* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: By far the biggest criticism of the game, and one that it was never able to shake off, is that, visuals and plot aside, the gameplay itself was almost identical to ''God of War''.
30	* NauseaFuel: Gluttony. Nothing is quite as disturbing as walking through a giant digestive system. Or, for that matter, the Gluttons themselves explosively crapping excrement on you.
31	* {{Narm}}:
32	** Lucifer is not only completely naked, but also hung like a horse for no particular reason, which kind of makes his boss fight hard to actually take seriously.
33	** The intro to the fight with King Minos. The latter smells the sins on Dante's person. Dante's response? A determined and overacted ''"Sniff again!"'''. Hilarious out of context, and still a little funny even in it.
34	* OneSceneWonder: Death, despite only appearing once in the story, and very early on at that, has managed to become quite popular.
35	* RonTheDeathEater: The Historical [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alighiero_di_Bellincione Alighiero di Bellincione]] gets this treatment from some people who are too lazy to do any research on the real person and foolishly assume the fictional Alighiero in the game is an accurate representation of him when [[HistoricalVillainUpgrade it isn't]].
36	* SoOkayItsAverage: The main consensus is it's a very competently-executed ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' clone; but still, ultimately, a ''God Of War'' clone.
37	* {{Squick}}: Even the most hardcore gamer is going to wince at some of the stuff they witness in some of the circles. Like most of the stuff in the "Lust" and "Gluttony" levels.
38	* TearJerker: Dante [[spoiler: finding his mother in the seventh circle. He had hoped that one parent would be in Heaven only to learn that his mother hanged herself due to her husband’s abuse. Virgil’s description of what happens when someone commits suicide doesn’t help.]]
39	* ThatOneAchievement: ''It's in the Trial'' from Trials of St. Lucia DLC. To earn this achievement/trophy, the player must complete 25 single-player and 15 two-player EA trials. However, this is the hardest achievement/trophy to earn in the game because of how unrelentingly HarderThanHard the online trials can be. Not helped in the multiplayer aspect, where if one player dies or fails the trial then the game is over for both players. Not to mention that due to the game being over a decade old, new players will have virtually no chance whatsoever to get this achievement, as practically nobody plays multiplayer trials anymore.
40	* ThatOneLevel: One or two of the bolgia (sub-sections of hell) of the Malebolge.
41	* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: In relation to the [[Literature/TheDivineComedy original Inferno]] by Dante Alighieri. Some literary scholars and feminists have taken issue with this game's portrayal of Beatrice. To quote Website/{{Wikipedia}}, "Columbia University Professor Teodolinda Barolini, a former president of the Dante Society of America, criticized the game for its depiction of Beatrice, declaring, 'Of all the things that are troubling, the sexualization and infantilization of Beatrice are the worst. Beatrice is the human girl who is dead and is now an agent of the divine. She is not to be saved by him, she is ''saving'' him. That’s the whole point! Here, she has become the prototypical damsel in distress. She’s this kind of bizarrely corrupted Barbie doll.' Other reviews of the game include similar comments from professors regarding the characters: 'Beatrice saves Dante... not the other way around,' says Professor Arielle Saiber, an Italian literature professor at Bowdoin College."
42	-->'''Simone Marchesi''': [[https://youtu.be/DV_g84OvorM?t=2165 Nothing worse can be done to the text of this poem, which is an incredibly revolutionary poem where a woman saves a man, a schmuck!]]
43	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: You cannot absolve or punish Temptresses, Hoarder/Wasters, Heretics, Pagans or Damned Crusaders for some unknown reason.
44	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Making Dante Alighieri into [[AdaptationalBadass an already powerful]], [[{{Determinator}} almost completely fearless]] alpha male crusader is this, given that these are the same people who made [[VideoGame/DeadSpace Dead Space]], which made a big deal about how [[TheEngineer Isaac Clarke]] was NOT a supersoldier marine, and had to [[TookALevelInBadass BECOME a badass]] throughout the games to [[ActionSurvivor survive]], which makes it inexcusable as to why they could not do the same with Dante Alighieri in this game thus killing two birds with one stone by being both more faithful to be poem AND being more unique as a hack and slash game.
45	* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: There is some very impressive animation during the game's cinematics.
46	* {{Wangst}}: Lucifer begins to crack in the final battle and starts screaming to God asking him why he has abandoned him, in a sort of ''Paradise Lost'' style.

Context YMMV / DantesInferno