Dante’s Inferno (Facebook) Review

The Facebook version of EA’s Dante’s Inferno, adapted by lolapps,  made a big splash over the holidays, jumping from 0 to nearly 1.5 million players in over the last 10 days. To see what it was all about, I decided to give it a try.

The Good

Content

Content, content, and more content! Compared to other games of the genre, Dante’s Inferno is massive. There are nine total acts of 5 chapters each, with 5 missions and a boss fight in each chapter. While I’m only on the third chapter now, if this trend continues (no reason to think it wouldn’t), there would be 175 different missions and 45 ‘boss fights’ in game. Each individual mission has some relevant flavor text, which adds a nice touch as well.

The art is also great. Each boss fight in each chapter has its own custom art work, tailored to the mission. Since Dante’s Inferno has a console title to build off of (and it was loosely based off the Divine Comedy), it definitely is way ahead of its contemporaries in terms of story and artwork (which some popular titles virtually ignore entirely). The only thing I want to know is: How does the guy (or girl) who drew the dead babies with sword arms introduce himself at parties?

Player vs. Player

Fighting scales! As you level up and as you choose more challenging opponents, you earn more experience points. Crazy, I know.

Loot is also well itemized. Progression has a natural feel to it; higher level items are progressively better and each upgrade is meaningful.

The Bad

Mechanics & Gameplay

While Dante’s Inferno does a lot of things right, at the end of the day it fails to meaningfully differentiate itself from other games in the genre.

If you’ve played Mafia Wars (or Mobsters, or Yakuza Lords, etc) before, you know how to play Dante’s Inferno. Same stat point system, same progression system, same job system, same combat system, same everything.

As a result, it has the same pitfalls, like energy accounts . I went from 1-50 in a few hours just by putting nearly every single stat point into energy, all the while still winning most of my fights because I had better loot. Also, you choose a class permanently before you even get to play the game. I have no idea who thought this was a good idea (it’s not) and why it keeps resurfacing in games. Picking classes in RPGs works when you get different skills and fill various niches in the game. Picking classes in text games where everyone follows the same path causes more harm than good.

Synopsis

4/5 Stars

It is not necessarily a bad thing from a player’s perspective that the developers drew so much from previous games in the same genre – it’s fun and it works. The developers also did a great job with the content and building a working, scaling combat and loot system.

The problem is that other games in the genre are well established; players have invested a lot of time and in some cases money into titles like Mafia Wars. More of the same is not what draws people to leave their current game to move to a new one.

As it stands, I think Dante’s Inferno will find itself a nice but small niche, and unless lolapps or EA wants to drop a lot of money on advertising, it’s likely to say that way.

Recommendation

Personally, it gives me something to do until Mafia Wars Bangkok comes out. If you like this style of game, I’d say it is definitely worth checking out. Play it here.

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