A Knockout Game; Cuphead (& DLC)

Recently, I beat Cuphead. I have played the game before, but I never got around to finishing. The game wasn’t too hard for me, there was just other games at the time that took my attention away. Previously, I made it to island three and just stopped. I decided to go back and beat the game, but restarting from the beginning. Plus, only really using the default weapon, the peashooter.

For those who don’t know the game, Cuphead is a run and gun style game, mostly fighting bosses with a few platforming levels. Not all bosses and levels need to be played to beat the game, but I did so anyway. There are three islands you will need to cross in order to reach the final boss, the Devil. The plot for the game, Cuphead and his brother, Mugman, go to the casino. During a winning streak of craps, the Devil appears and offers a deal that the bothers take. They end up losing and instead of giving up their souls, the Devil says they can collect the soul contracts from other debtors (bosses). The brothers go back home and get a gift from Elder Kettle, an NPC character resembling a grandfather figure, giving them the power to shoot energy blasts from their fingers (peashooter weapon). Co-op is optional, but doing so will increase the health of all bosses to level the playing field. Cuphead and Mugman play the same way, just with different color schemes—Cuphead is red, while Mugman is blue.

When playing, I went with default Cuphead, going solo. You can jump, dash, parry jump on pink objects, and shoot. Two different weapons can be equipped at once, both having their own style of shooting and an ex attack, that I’ll call their “special” attack. For example, the peashooter shoots out small energy blasts from Cuphead’s fingertips. His special, shoots out a large energy blast that can be done after filling up the super meter by damaging enemies or parrying. The super meter is shown by playing cards, ranging from one to five, one card needed to use a special shot. When all five cards are filled, you can use your super. There are three different supers that you can earn along the way. I personally tried all three, a horizontal energy blast, invincibility time, or sending out a spinning ghost. Honestly, I didn’t really save up the super meter to use them often, mostly just using the special shot. Except, when you’re a plane.

Some segments of the game, you fly a plane. The controls change a bit, instead of a dash, you turn into a smaller plane that is faster, but shoots weaker bullets that don’t go as far. You only get two weapon options, bullets that shoot forward or bombs you can drop below. I stuck with the bullet option, except for one boss, where it was optimal to use the bombs as the boss stayed low. The special, sends out a rocket, but the super, has you turn into a bigger bomb that you control, but explodes once it hits an object—ideally, the boss. During these segments were the only time I tried to save up for the super.

Early on, I decided to stick with the peashooter to add another layer of difficulty to the game for the fun of it. Technically, I did not just use the peashooter. I did buy another weapon to have a full kit equipped, and tried it out since I haven’t played the game in so long. The roundabout weapon does a u-turn after its shot out, doing more damage hitting enemies behind you. I bought this one because I remember using it during my previous run. After trying out the new weapon, I immediately went back to the peashooter to beat the game. And technically—again, for the DLC, I did the same thing. Bought DLC weapon crackshot, changed to new character Chalice real quick, but then went back to the peashooter and Cuphead character after trying them out. New playable character Chalice, for the DLC, has a different move set from the original duo. She can double jump, but only parry when she dashes. I might go back to the DLC to test her out some more, but I decided for this run, I would stick with Cuphead and peashooter combo.

Final item you can equip, is a charm that gives a special perk. The charm I stuck with was smoke bomb, this charm changes your normal dash to an invincibility dash. I did—for the most part, attempt to dodge as if I didn’t have it equipped. This is one of the first charms you can purchase, so I stuck with it for the whole game. I did end up buying all the charms, but didn’t use any except the cookie charm to turn into Chalice to try her out the one time. Also bought all the different weapons after beating the game, just because I like to collect things—I’m that kind of person.

Playing this game is not easy, but that was intentional. You character only has three HP and bosses have multiple phases you must go through in order to beat them. Just like Dark Souls games, you are supposed to die, learn your opponent’s abilities, and try again until you win. After each battle or level, you will get a score depending on your time, leftover health, number of times you parried, number of times you used your special, and number of coins collected or what level you fought the boss. Initially, bosses can be battled on two levels, Simple or Regular; I of course chose Regular for all. Later on, Expert gets added when you beat every boss on Regular. For the levels, that’s where you collect most of the coins in the game to purchase weapons and charms from the shop.

Now, why did I go back to play this game? As I mentioned earlier, I never fully beat it, but I remember I had fun playing it. I recently bought the vinyl for the game and thought it was time to go back and play it all the way through to see how the story enfolds. Plus, Cuphead is known to be a hard game to beat, so being able to say I beat it, is quite satisfying.

Beating the base game itself, I would say 9.5. The art style is similar to retro cartoon shows, the rubber hose style of animation. Music, they used a jazz ensemble and if you’ve read my other stuff, you know I’m a sucker for jazz, especially since I mentioned that I already ordered the vinyl for this game. The platforming is fun, depending on how long you hold the jump button changes the height of your jump. Score ratings at the end of boss fights and levels don’t really mean much to me, but it is satisfying to see that A rank after beating the Devil. As I mentioned before, this game is punishing, and I don’t mind that, I’m a Soulsborne guy (Dark Souls/Bloodborne games).

Now, the DLC, I would say is an 8.5. I do like the bosses they added for the new island and a special gauntlet run challenge where you fight bosses by only parrying them, which I did enjoy. The new playable character Chalice is a good addition, she’s been mentioned in the original game and adding some diversity never hurts, especially when it makes sense. There was one phase from a boss that really took me out of it. I enjoy games that are challenging—but in that, you learn your opponent’s moves and with enough practice you can beat them, kind of way. That’s why when facing the Devil, I ended up with an A rank score. I challenged him so many times, I only lost one health with my final run at him. My issue with the DLC, is the final boss itself.

Spoilers ahead, but issue is the final phase of the final boss. In this phase, the boss is a floating pink heart container. The ground below you becomes a hole of death while you have to jump on platforms descending down from the sky, meaning you can’t stand still or you’ll die. The boss, will be floating above you, and when you get above them, they will start floating back up to get ahead of you since the platforms are constantly moving. The concept of all this is fine, but there was one instance where I lost not because of a misplay, but because I was just unlucky. Final phase, down to one health, I start jumping on the platforms, shooting up trying to hit the floating moving boss. The boss moves side to side between two tornados that do hurt you when touched. I get above the boss and they start floating up, continually moving side to side as they go up. As they are rising, they go through a small platform that I have to jump on in order to ascend myself. There are no other platforms I can jump on, as the others are too high. As I go to jump on the small platform, the boss starts floating up through it, and touching him would cause damage to me. Since the boss is pink, that means I can parry jump on them, which I did. This doesn’t make you invincible, so I still need to land on a platform. The boss is covering the small platform, so I’m hoping with this parry jump, it will boost me high enough to reach the next platform above because I have no other options. It doesn’t. I fall down and die. When you parry the boss, touching them will still hurt you, so the option to land on the platform with them would still kill me. The only way I could have survived, is if I had another life point to survive the hit. This is not a “Git Gud” moment; there was nothing to learn from this death, this was just a very unlucky, unfortunate event that could not be avoided. That sucks.

Most of the game, from what I noticed, was a learning experience. I did end up fighting the final DLC boss so many times that I could get to the final phase with full health, because I threaded the needle so many times in the earlier phases; not getting hit by all the flying objects the boss used to try and hit me. Luck, should not be a factor to decide if I get hit or not. Yes, I can be unlucky on the different attacks the boss sends out, but they’re all learnable to be dodged. When you’re stuck in a moment that no matter what you do, you have to get hit, that’s just unfair.

Rounding out both scores, average out to a 9 out of 10 for me. For a casual player, maybe this game would be like an 8. I say this because the farther you progress in the game, the harder the bosses get. I do believe most people can get through the first island, but that could change once island two is reached. The art style and music itself is quite good and I do think most would agree, but the level of difficulty for the game could turn people off. On the upside, they did make a Netflix show for the game, so there’s always that option if you want to know the story. I might give it a try for myself.

Score – 9 out of 10