Cuphead - starring 30s visuals and 3 hours of jazz

[jje100010001]

Spoiler: Spoilers I guess

I loved the DLC. It's amazing to see how the team has improved their animating skills since Cuphead came out and every stage feels like eye candy. I think my favourite boss is Ester Winchester, but I'm kind of biased because she reminds me of Hilda Berg. The angel and devil fight was kind of the blandest to me.

Also I don't know how but they made a goddamn fat salt shaker more intimidating than Satan. Absolutely incredible.

I believe the angel and devil fight were just a cut stage from the main devil battle in the main game that was finished for the DLC and inserted as a secret stage.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Can't believe I didn't like this banger at first, this is one of the best tracks of both the game and DLC combined. There's parts of it with the horns where it feels like an auditory representation of cartoon dudes swinging their dukes around like they're getting ready to box. Parts of it to that feel like being in a tornado. Something Cuphead's brilliant composers always did amazingly was being able to write music that suggests an idea without going overly literal on it. I really do believe the soundtrack is a masterpiece for music in general, not just game music.

If they ever put the dogs in an episode of the Netflix cartoon, how much porn will people draw of the lady dog?

 

[Professor G. Raff]

Can't believe I didn't like this banger at first, this is one of the best tracks of both the game and DLC combined.

I also started out somewhat dissapointed in the DLC music as a whole thinking it was much inferior to the base game, but it slowly grew on me until I accepted it is as good or better in some cases. Doggone Dogfight is probably the one I like the least (as of now), but I had a similar experience to you and it with High-Noon Hoopla. At first I really didn't care for it at all, but the more I heard it the more it clicked as the perfect representation of a cartoonish old west villain and is now one of my favorites.

I agree Cuphead's music is God-like, there is nary a boss track in the OST I would consider even just average (maybe Honeycomb Havoc) and it is always amazing at capturing the theme of the boss.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I also started out somewhat dissapointed in the DLC music as a whole thinking it was much inferior to the base game, but it slowly grew on me until I accepted it is as good or better in some cases. Doggone Dogfight is probably the one I like the least (as of now), but I had a similar experience to you and it with High-Noon Hoopla. At first I really didn't care for it at all, but the more I heard it the more it clicked as the perfect representation of a cartoonish old west villain and is now one of my favorites.

I agree Cuphead's music is God-like, there is nary a boss track in the OST I would consider even just average (maybe Honeycomb Havoc) and it is always amazing at capturing the theme of the boss.

See I liked High Noon Hoopla a ton, because it was radically different yet best encapsulated the feeling of the main game's music (manic and cartoony).

As I was rewatching footage I remember why I didn't like it when I watched the fights (I played Cuphead, but I haven't got the DLC yet because I had Cuphead on PS4 and my PS4 died). The problem was that the music doesn't project well at all against the noise in the background. On its own it is frantic, but compared to what's going on on screen and the in-game noises it's not enough. (Except High Noon Hoopla.)

The ones I actually listen to on a regular basis are Carnival Kerfulffle, Dramatic Fanatic, Aviary Action, High Noon Hoopla, and Doggone Dogfight.

 

[The Pulverizer]

Last I played Cuphead the game whooped my fucking ass. Now that the DLC has come out and everyone has stopped talking about the game, I am going to have my revenge.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

What are your favorite Cuphead bosses?

Mine (and this criteria considers the art itself, the music, and the gameplay, I consider all of them too intertwined to be separable):
From top to bottom:

King Dice gets the top spot by default.

Aviary Action
- The purest form of Cuphead. Familiar cartoony feeling with the bird theme and the cartoony chase-like music, excellent progression with a sort of "story" to the whole thing (you knock him out, the son comes in, then he comes back on the stretcher), great sense of rhythm to the dodging in it, is what I would show people first if I wanted to sell them on what Cuphead is.

Murine Corps
- Fucking brilliant with the Tom and Jerry routine (both cat and mouse sense, and tommies and jerries WW2 cartoon sense), very playful, great scene transitions with the cat and then the twist ending of him being a robot, very nice gameplay loops particularly on the first two stages, great music, very fun, is (like the above Aviary Action)

Hi Seas Hi Jinx
- Good thicc mermaid waifu, everything about the attacks and stages is fun, sense of humor about it, just all-around good time.

Dramatic Fanatic
- God-tier music. The gameplay isn't super great on this one, but the background art is amazing, all the little details going on, the theming as a multi-stage play. It's a fucking experience to play this level.

Carnival Kerfuffle
- WE ALL FLOAT DOWN HERE
This one has one of the best songs, the clown villain oozes fun, and the gameplay is pretty good, I like its gimmick of throwing the train at you repeatedly while you deal with ramping up levels of shit being thrown at you.

Railroad Wrath
- Great visuals and music. Gameplay is frustrating, but that's more of a get good problem; the use of having to parry the cart to move it around is genius.

A Threatenin' Zeppelin
- God-tier music, zeppelin inflation waifu, interesting Zodiac stage, pretty fun to play against, very nice level all around.

Sugarland Shimmy
- Meh

Fiery Frolic
- Could have used more visual variety

Shootin N' Lootin
- Rather boring for what its subject matter is, and way too easy, it felt like an Island 1 boss.

Ribby and Croaks
- Very fun vibe to it, excellent background visuals

The Root Pack
- For when you encounter them (baby's first or second boss), they are quite fun and varied.

Pyramid Peril
- This one just always felt the most lame of the air levels, which I tended to like better than ground levels. The main villain didn't do much for me. Music was good thematically but boring.

Junkyard Jive
- Like Pyramid Peril, but without any creativity.

Floral Fury
- I don't like him. He's also really hard, but I don't like his music, design, gimmick. It's just a flower, and that's kind of it. Just felt like a chore to beat him, both times.

A Ruse of an Ooze
- Someone had to be Baby's First Level.

A Hell of a Time
- The entire Hell island is a bit poorly done. It made perfect sense story-wise for it to end on the Devil, but he's so lame. Early footage showed Hell levels with more demons. I think they should have had the Devil come before King Dice (make King Dice a twist final villain) or turned Devil into a miniboss boss and/or had more bosses and run and guns. I never actually beat the game because I'd already seen everything, whether or not I finished it, and the music sucked and he wasn't fun.

Honeycomb Herald
- I find this one both very frustrating and boring with nothing about it to appeal. It somehow took inherently fascinating subject matter (bees) and made them dull with a single background of a hive and lame visual puns. I don't like its music, I don't like its gameplay, it is pure frustration for little enjoyment.

 

[Sneak 'n' Snore]

@Ughubughughughughughghlug I pretty much feel similarly about the order except that Junkyard Jive ranks much higher for me. I like that you can choose the order of which targets you go for and how it can impact the battle, for example you effectively decide whether he can use the magnet early or late during the first phase depending on your priorities. Also the robot just looks cool and I like the noises he makes.

 

[ducktales4gameboy]

> Honeycomb Herald

I appreciated this one because it's a direct satire of a specific, notoriously hated Metal Slug boss that uses a similar movement pattern and scrolling. I want to say the boss in question is in Slug 3's main route but it's been ages.

>Dramatic Fanatic

I really like how there's two different paths through the play and, dumb as it may be, the sheer devotion to making the angel phase just a huge wall of FF4/FF6 jokes was impressive.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

> Honeycomb Herald

I appreciated this one because it's a direct satire of a specific, notoriously hated Metal Slug boss that uses a similar movement pattern and scrolling. I want to say the boss in question is in Slug 3's main route but it's been ages.

>Dramatic Fanatic

I really like how there's two different paths through the play and, dumb as it may be, the sheer devotion to making the angel phase just a huge wall of FF4/FF6 jokes was impressive.

One nice thing about Cuphead is that when it makes autistic references to things, cartoons or video games, it does so in a way that if you don't get it to you don't notice you don't get it. Very unintrusive, the way references should be.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The reason Cuphead works well is it is actually a puzzle game. Everyone was worried boss fights only (the run and guns and mausoleums were only reluctantly included and you can tell) would be too little, but the bosses feel more like a game of figuring out everything and then they go down so fast they're not an issue. Of course that's true to an extent of bosses in general, but it's much more explicit here.


Who is the sexiest Cuphead waifu, Thicc Mermaid or Slender Dog-woman?

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I beat everything but the two final bosses (Devil and Chef Saltbaker).

I was surprised at how different the DLC turned out from my expectations, based both on having watched every boss fight (it doesn't spoil it, really, the experience of playing feels way different from just watching it) and my preferences of those. I also found that how I feel about the music is very different. I did not like it when it first came out, but now, most of the songs sound perfectly fine to me, and some of the ones I panned are great?

General impressions:
The DLC definitely tests the player way more. You can see it with both gimmicks in most boss fights and horrific amounts of bullet hell. After beating Isle IV the rest of the game feels piss easy.

When I played Cuphead on PS4 I mostly used the same Smoke Bomb, Chaser and Peashooter for some autistic "I do one thing" reason. I found it remarkable how much variety there is. Yes, usually Chaser and Smoke Bomb are clearly superior (don't get hit half the time, don't even have to aim, greatly simplifies it), but I found that I was still very often changing out charms and weapons. There's a lot of levels/bosses where Lobber or Roundabout are useful (do you often face away, like to flee, or are you right up in their face, or attacking from above that it can arc down) and there's a lot of levels where the attack patterns really don't make dodging through things important, to the point where extra health instead could very well be worth it. But pretty much every other charm is worthless. You can also tell in the DLC when it wants to force you to use Miss Chalice.

I hate Miss Chalice's design, the original Miss Chalice was clearly some older dame, a woman, the version you play as looks like a little girl. It's the same way in the Cuphead cartoon, she feels like she should be in the Little Rascals or something.

From top to bottom:
Bootlegger Boogie
- Top-tier, having a boss that fights indirectly and wanders around the map was smart, having massive amounts of small hazards to go with it was smart, the revolving flapper/radio stage felt very good in my hands, the anteater was lame as hell. I used to dislike the scatting but now I love it. I felt it wasn't loud enough but I was wrong. It might actually be the best boss in the entire game. The fake out at the end was brilliant, though it would have outraged me if I had died to it. It's completely unexpected but completely predictable in hindsight (with how the snail hides himself and how the knockout announcement is different from every other one in the game).

High-Noon Hoopla
- This was my favorite song on its own merits. I maintain that it is the most Cuphead song of the lot not just in spite of because of it eschewing jazz music, it conveys the exact same feeling but through country Western. The boss fight itself is honestly pretty hard and I feel like it lacked the great rhythm of the other shooting levels, not that good, but visually it was fantastic through all of its stages.

Doggone Dogfight
- I'm shocked the game didn't rate higher, but honestly, it was just really easy more than anything with the final twist being obnoxious. Not that hard because I did figure out very quickly the rules of red and yellow bowls, but just tedious and annoying. I like the idea of a fight on a single moving platform, but I'd say that being confined like that really constrained their options when it came to attack patterns. The music is top-tier, at least.

Gnome Way Out
- I could almost make this number two for just the first stage, but I don't care for the second stage, and the third stage is visually fun but insubstantial. The song is just there, it does its job well but it isn't notable in and of itself. You've got so much shit going on in the first stage (stay in place and the gnome goes after you, stay on the ground and it hits you there, geese flying through and your platform can move and make you hit anyways so you have to remember which platforms have been down for too long, dodge his attacks all the while, and so on). The first stage is also just visually great in general, I would love an actual full-length cartoon about Glumstone.

Snow Cult Scuffle
- The first two sequences feel very good in my hands. Mortimer Freeze is, visually, quite boring. The song isn't good and feels completely at odds with the setting. The one part of it that is great both visually and gameplay wise is the . I feel like it compares unfavorably to most of the base game bosses.


The King's Leap and the graveyard nightmare were very interesting as an alternative to the Run and Guns. They did their job well, though I'd still argue that Run and Guns are a different experience and the way they mix it up (like Mausoleums, too). I'd actually have liked an island that had all three styles, or more gimmick levels. I guess in some ways its like a boss fight COMBINED with mausoleums, since it's all parrying based.

Pawns: Fun, simple, cute. I like the idea of it dramatically increasing in pace so you don't want to miss a single one or you'll be dealing with all of them at once.

Knight: Was rage-inducing, had to look him up. In hindsight it makes sense, but I had no clue what was going on with the taunt. Apparently if you stay far away he taunts as a warning and eventually does an unavoidable attack (no windup). I didn't know that, I just saw that sometimes he could be parried and sometimes he couldn't, so I'd keep even more distance. You also have to be super close to be able to hit him in your short attack window. Once I understood that, he was absolutely great, probably the best "phase" in the game. It's a literal duel, the only fight in the game where there's no projectiles or other stuff, just back and forth strikes.

Bishop: Cool idea but way too easy

Rook: Really cool idea with parrying back the heads he chops, challenging but I got lucky real early on

Queen: Went down on attempt two, was way too easy but I really liked the idea with having to time the cannon attack for when it would hit her (plus a little lag, having to lead the attack slightly).

Angel and Demon: Extremely challenging. Came close to finishing it many times the legitimate way. Because I'm retard I really didn't have a clue why they change, I actually thought they change as soon as the projectile can hit you so I was CONSTANTLY figeting and treating every single object, fiery or not, as if it would kill me. You see my mistake? Totally misunderstood the mechanic. Eventually I looked something up (trying to see how the fuck you're supposed to get through the fire without a smoke bomb, because I know bosses are supposed to be beatable with pretty much anything), it explained how you cheese the fight, I cheesed the fight, and it felt empty and meaningless. As far as I'm concerned I did beat it the right way, as I had one of those right-on-the-finish-line deaths. Dodging all that shit was the Cuphead of Cuphead.

My regrade (only missing Chef Saltbaker):

Aviary Action
BOOTLEGGER BOOGIE
Murine Corps
Hi Seas Hi Jinx
Dramatic Fanatic
Carnival Kerfuffle
HIGH NOON HOOPLA
Railroad Wrath
DOGGONE DOGFIGHT
GNOME WAY OUT
A Threatenin' Zeppelin
Sugarland Shimmy
Fiery Frolic
Ribby and Croaks
Shootin N' Lootin (got demoted on my replay)
The Root Pack
SNOW CULT SCUFFLE
Junkyard Jive (got promoted on my replay)
Pyramid Peril
Floral Fury
A Ruse of an Ooze
A Hell of a Time
Honeycomb Herald

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

@Ughubughughughughughghlug I pretty much feel similarly about the order except that Junkyard Jive ranks much higher for me. I like that you can choose the order of which targets you go for and how it can impact the battle, for example you effectively decide whether he can use the magnet early or late during the first phase depending on your priorities. Also the robot just looks cool and I like the noises he makes.

After replaying it, it mostly just pissed me off, but I do like that whichever way you damage him fucks you over in a different way. Like, what he launches at you is WORSE than whatever you just took out.


Also, I realized how piss easy King Dice is. He's actually kind of tedious in some ways. It's just that when you first come across him you haven't learned the roulette board yet. You may, due to random luck and if you don't understand that you can (try, skill-based) to control exactly where you land, wind up waiting a long time to see the same boss, much less to get all the way to him. But each stage is a one trick pony. Still a perfect boss, since the whole point of him (and this was smart of them) was to fit in like a whole casino island's worth of boss phases into one marathon run. But the Devil needed more going on with him.

 

[BMO_]

Dragon is easy.
I have no idea why people memed it as a hard boss.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I beat everything but the two final bosses (Devil and Chef Saltbaker).

I was surprised at how different the DLC turned out from my expectations, based both on having watched every boss fight (it doesn't spoil it, really, the experience of playing feels way different from just watching it) and my preferences of those. I also found that how I feel about the music is very different. I did not like it when it first came out, but now, most of the songs sound perfectly fine to me, and some of the ones I panned are great?

General impressions:
The DLC definitely tests the player way more. You can see it with both gimmicks in most boss fights and horrific amounts of bullet hell. After beating Isle IV the rest of the game feels piss easy.

When I played Cuphead on PS4 I mostly used the same Smoke Bomb, Chaser and Peashooter for some autistic "I do one thing" reason. I found it remarkable how much variety there is. Yes, usually Chaser and Smoke Bomb are clearly superior (don't get hit half the time, don't even have to aim, greatly simplifies it), but I found that I was still very often changing out charms and weapons. There's a lot of levels/bosses where Lobber or Roundabout are useful (do you often face away, like to flee, or are you right up in their face, or attacking from above that it can arc down) and there's a lot of levels where the attack patterns really don't make dodging through things important, to the point where extra health instead could very well be worth it. But pretty much every other charm is worthless. You can also tell in the DLC when it wants to force you to use Miss Chalice.

I hate Miss Chalice's design, the original Miss Chalice was clearly some older dame, a woman, the version you play as looks like a little girl. It's the same way in the Cuphead cartoon, she feels like she should be in the Little Rascals or something.

From top to bottom:
Bootlegger Boogie
- Top-tier, having a boss that fights indirectly and wanders around the map was smart, having massive amounts of small hazards to go with it was smart, the revolving flapper/radio stage felt very good in my hands, the anteater was lame as hell. I used to dislike the scatting but now I love it. I felt it wasn't loud enough but I was wrong. It might actually be the best boss in the entire game. The fake out at the end was brilliant, though it would have outraged me if I had died to it. It's completely unexpected but completely predictable in hindsight (with how the snail hides himself and how the knockout announcement is different from every other one in the game).

High-Noon Hoopla
- This was my favorite song on its own merits. I maintain that it is the most Cuphead song of the lot not just in spite of because of it eschewing jazz music, it conveys the exact same feeling but through country Western. The boss fight itself is honestly pretty hard and I feel like it lacked the great rhythm of the other shooting levels, not that good, but visually it was fantastic through all of its stages.

Doggone Dogfight
- I'm shocked the game didn't rate higher, but honestly, it was just really easy more than anything with the final twist being obnoxious. Not that hard because I did figure out very quickly the rules of red and yellow bowls, but just tedious and annoying. I like the idea of a fight on a single moving platform, but I'd say that being confined like that really constrained their options when it came to attack patterns. The music is top-tier, at least.

Gnome Way Out
- I could almost make this number two for just the first stage, but I don't care for the second stage, and the third stage is visually fun but insubstantial. The song is just there, it does its job well but it isn't notable in and of itself. You've got so much shit going on in the first stage (stay in place and the gnome goes after you, stay on the ground and it hits you there, geese flying through and your platform can move and make you hit anyways so you have to remember which platforms have been down for too long, dodge his attacks all the while, and so on). The first stage is also just visually great in general, I would love an actual full-length cartoon about Glumstone.

Snow Cult Scuffle
- The first two sequences feel very good in my hands. Mortimer Freeze is, visually, quite boring. The song isn't good and feels completely at odds with the setting. The one part of it that is great both visually and gameplay wise is the . I feel like it compares unfavorably to most of the base game bosses.


The King's Leap and the graveyard nightmare were very interesting as an alternative to the Run and Guns. They did their job well, though I'd still argue that Run and Guns are a different experience and the way they mix it up (like Mausoleums, too). I'd actually have liked an island that had all three styles, or more gimmick levels. I guess in some ways its like a boss fight COMBINED with mausoleums, since it's all parrying based.

Pawns: Fun, simple, cute. I like the idea of it dramatically increasing in pace so you don't want to miss a single one or you'll be dealing with all of them at once.

Knight: Was rage-inducing, had to look him up. In hindsight it makes sense, but I had no clue what was going on with the taunt. Apparently if you stay far away he taunts as a warning and eventually does an unavoidable attack (no windup). I didn't know that, I just saw that sometimes he could be parried and sometimes he couldn't, so I'd keep even more distance. You also have to be super close to be able to hit him in your short attack window. Once I understood that, he was absolutely great, probably the best "phase" in the game. It's a literal duel, the only fight in the game where there's no projectiles or other stuff, just back and forth strikes.

Bishop: Cool idea but way too easy

Rook: Really cool idea with parrying back the heads he chops, challenging but I got lucky real early on

Queen: Went down on attempt two, was way too easy but I really liked the idea with having to time the cannon attack for when it would hit her (plus a little lag, having to lead the attack slightly).

Angel and Demon: Extremely challenging. Came close to finishing it many times the legitimate way. Because I'm retard I really didn't have a clue why they change, I actually thought they change as soon as the projectile can hit you so I was CONSTANTLY figeting and treating every single object, fiery or not, as if it would kill me. You see my mistake? Totally misunderstood the mechanic. Eventually I looked something up (trying to see how the fuck you're supposed to get through the fire without a smoke bomb, because I know bosses are supposed to be beatable with pretty much anything), it explained how you cheese the fight, I cheesed the fight, and it felt empty and meaningless. As far as I'm concerned I did beat it the right way, as I had one of those right-on-the-finish-line deaths. Dodging all that shit was the Cuphead of Cuphead.

My regrade (only missing Chef Saltbaker):

Aviary Action
BOOTLEGGER BOOGIE
Murine Corps
Hi Seas Hi Jinx
Dramatic Fanatic
Carnival Kerfuffle
HIGH NOON HOOPLA
Railroad Wrath
DOGGONE DOGFIGHT
GNOME WAY OUT
A Threatenin' Zeppelin
Sugarland Shimmy
Fiery Frolic
Ribby and Croaks
Shootin N' Lootin (got demoted on my replay)
The Root Pack
SNOW CULT SCUFFLE
Junkyard Jive (got promoted on my replay)
Pyramid Peril
Floral Fury
A Ruse of an Ooze
A Hell of a Time
Honeycomb Herald

Stop it.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Stop it.

 

[Picnic_Boy]

Favorite song: Aviary Action

Favorite boss design: Hilda Berg (unless you count the entirety of Phantom Express, which looks the most like a Fleischer cartoon)

Favorite boss mechanics: Phantom Express, so much fun stuff going on.

Boss who made me laugh?: Esther Winchester

Least favorite: Dr. Kahl's Robot. Fuck him. Mortimer Freeze is a close second, only he's not so much frustrating as he is forgettable.

 

[Coelacanth]

No lie Hilda Berg was the reason I decided to cave in and buy Cuphead. She's lived rent free in my head ever since.

Hilda has best battle. Hilda has best fight music. Hilda is best waifu. Hilda is best boss. And if you disagree with me you are fake and gay and are a normie.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

The one very severe flaw of Cuphead is the boss fights.

You make it all the way to the end, and then suddenly you have only ONE fight you can fight. I mean, you could take a break and fight someone else for the hell of it, but there's no longer any way to make progression fighting your choice of people. You can't work two to three different bosses at once until you break through on one. You are going to fight that Devil over and over and over again. He's not all that hard, but when that's all there is before you, it's very unappealing. That's why I've yet to beat him.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Favorite song: Aviary Action

Favorite boss design: Hilda Berg (unless you count the entirety of Phantom Express, which looks the most like a Fleischer cartoon)

Favorite boss mechanics: Phantom Express, so much fun stuff going on.

Boss who made me laugh?: Esther Winchester

Least favorite: Dr. Kahl's Robot. Fuck him. Mortimer Freeze is a close second, only he's not so much frustrating as he is forgettable.

Mortimer Freeze as wizard and snowflake is very forgettable, but I do really like his snowman/refrigerator section.

 

[Axiom.]

Sorry to necro, but I recently bought Cuphead because I'm a huge fan of Fleischer Bros cartoons, and it's already my favorite game so far. I love the aesthetic of 1930s black and white cartoons, mainly Talkatoons such as Bimbo, Koko the Clown, and Betty Boop. Even though it's only a platformer, I already am a huge fan of the game due to its creativeness and even though it looks easy, it can be genuinely difficult at times. 10/10 easily.