Tamashii no Mon – Dante Shinkyoku yori Soundtrack, Masumi Ito / Yoshiyuki Ito / Fiori Wakakuwa, 1992
It turns out 2010’s God of War clone Dante’s Inferno wasn’t the first video game based on Dante Alighieri’s 14th-century poem The Divine Comedy. But maybe that’s no surprise, given the work’s towering literary status and its vivid imagery of Hell’s nine circles, making it ripe for adaptations into other media. Another game inspired by The Divine Comedy was Koei’s Tamashii no Mon – Dante no Shinkyoku yori (literally: Gate of Souls – From Dante’s Divine Comedy). As one might expect, players assume Dante’s role as he struggles to find his way through the depths of Hell. The developers cast the game as an adventure title with platforming and melee elements while making excellent use of the ageing PC-98’s graphical capabilities. The clever use of a limited colour palette combined with fantastic sprite art truly brought the game’s nightmarish settings to live.