Not gonna lie. I’m impressed that the game managed to function on PSP without losing much content, almost everything in the console versions is here too.

Do not abandon all hope, all ye enter here.

The Heavenly

• The combos are very intuitive, fast, can be cancelled into other combos or special moves. Even with almost no upgrades, you can chain a lot of attacks easily.
• The game runs between 30-44 frames per second, but the scenarios still look very decent for the hardware; all the circles are distinct from one another in either colors, scenarios, enemies, etc. Despite the limitation they did really well.
• The music is good. The church chants, the orchestra, the horror-styled scare chords work; unfortunately the only song I can remember well is the pause song/main menu song due to the chants.
• The voice acting is very well done. Dante sounds desperate, tired but still ready for battle, Virgil’s narration is memorable thanks to using actual quotes from the book and the way he narrates, the Devil sounds like a trickster and betrayer like he is described in the Bible, etc.
• It has almost all the characters mentioned in the book.
• The story despite not being faithful to the book, it has the same themes, tone and stands up on his own well. A man who has sinned trying to repent and save his loved one.

The hellish

• Due to hardware limitations, hell is not as impressive as the console versions and even whole sections of the game were removed; for example, they removed the first phase of Satan’s fight and a sequence in the circle of wrath.
• The game can get frustrating if you didn’t grind correctly by finishing off enemies. The game forces you to finish them off so you can get points for the cross or the scythe. That and enemies in the final circles can stuntlock you in place and mob you easily by blocking you.
• The game’s ending doesn’t conclude the story because it was believed that it would have a sequel. The sequel never came.

Dante’s Inferno is easily the most impressive port I have ever seen on a video game.

HACK-AND-SLASH - Dante journeys through the nine circles of Hell in order to save his beloved Beatrice from the clutches of Lucifer.

PROS:

++ Spectacular atmosphere & level design. Having been interested in the source material, I think the developers did a great job of translating Dante's work into a game. Even though it wasn't that great graphically, I think they did a phenomenal job nailing the atmosphere and the art style. The first few circles of Hell were truly grotesque, brutal, and depressing.

++ Solid narrative. The CGI cutscenes and the animated flashback cutscenes were great! I also liked how Dante's backstory was drip-fed to us.

++ Simple, but fun, combat. Though the combat system isn't incredibly deep, it was still highly enjoyable. The scythe attacks were animated well and was fun to use, and the cross attacks were great for crowd control (although this was a bit too OP). Parrying and dodging wasn't super satisfying, but was serviceable. I was able to string some satisfying, and incredible looking combos near the end of the game.

++ Diverse enemy types. The bestiary was great and having to fight and juggle all the different enemy types at once was chaotic, fun, and satisfying.

CONS:

-- Fixed camera. This made some platforming sections and combat sections more annoying than they needed to be. I never died because of the fixed angles, but it was annoying nonetheless. And also, having a fixed camera restricted me from fully appreciating the visuals of the game.

-- Tanky bosses. They just had way too much health (specifically Alighiero, Francesco, and Lucifer), and rarely does the player have the opportunity to replenish their own in the middle of a boss battle. There is very little room for error in these fights and it felt like a drag to chip away at their health. The earlier boss fights weren't like this, but the latter ones were. I ended up having to turn down the difficulty just for these three fights.

-- Subpar graphical fidelity. It doesn't look that impressive. There are tons of games from 2010 that looked much better.

-- Overused enemy mobs. Near the middle of the game, it seemed to have run out of ideas for enemy mobs.

-- Annoying button mashing. So much button mashing for the simplest things like opening a door, refilling your health/mana, or finishing off enemies.

Being a moderate fan of the hack and slash genre, I’m still amazed how this managed to fly under my radar for so long. I decided to give it a closer look only because it was on Game Pass, and damn was that a good call. Dante’s Inferno is an amazing game in many respects, and one I feel remains underappreciated to this day. I know a lot of people compare it to the original God of War games (I strongly disagree with the ‘clone’ label though), but I also got massive Ninja Gaiden vibes from its combat, which is definitely its strongest aspect: tearing through a decent variety of enemies and bosses with relentless brutality and flawless fluidity in Dante’s Inferno was one of the most satisfying gameplay experiences I’ve had in recent times. The game also features what I would consider the best visual depiction of the traditional hell in the medium: everything is presented in a way that holds absolutely nothing back and explicitly tries to assault the senses on several levels. I’m pretty certain something like this would have a very hard time being approved in today’s gaming industry, which makes me appreciate it even more. Graphically, this game holds up surprisingly well, and the cutscenes even shame some games being released today. I also enjoyed most of the puzzles, which were challenging enough without becoming too hard or annoying (though there are exceptions to this). The story isn’t exactly original, but fans of Alighieri’s written masterpiece will have a lot here to sink their teeth in.

As for the negatives, the biggest one for me by far was the locked camera: not only its restrictiveness takes agency away from the player, it also denies the chance to fully appreciate the world they created. To add to the frustration, if you're playing with a controller, the thumbstick that is normally tied to camera movement in most games performs a dash instead, which was particularly painful to endure, and something you don’t quite get fully used to even by the end of the game. Another frustrating thing was how the game sometimes assumes you simply know what you have to do without giving you any hints as to what that is. Oftentimes you would have a fraction of a second to decide, but you would have very little to base your decision on. This gets better as the game progresses and you get more used to what it expects from you, but it’s still irritating and a ‘cheap’ way of going about things in my opinion.

However, as frustrating as these issues were, they were ultimately overshadowed by the game’s strong offerings, which is a testament to how good it really is. Overall it’s a 8/10 for me. If you like rewarding hack and slash experiences, have about 6 hours to kill, and would like to kill them by taking a trip down a perfectly accomplished vision of hell, Dante’s Inferno is a game you should definitely consider, even in 2021.