Cuphead: The Definitive Review – Part One

“Four times? You’re reviewing Cuphead a fourth time? Are you whoring for page views or something?” #1: Yes. Always. #2: in nearly 4,000 days as Indie Gamer Chick, with over six-hundred indies reviewed, there had been only one game I got wrong that I flipped my review status on without a single patch being applied: Terraria, which I did almost immediately. That one was easy to flip. I was annoyed by all the glitches. I was annoyed by the crashes and lagging while playing multiplayer. Then, as soon as I hit publish on the review, Brian and I turned it back on to “finish our projects” and “get it out of my system.” Twenty hours of playing Terraria later, we both realized that I might need to rethink things, and I did.

Cuphead is now the second time I admit I got a review wrong. Which is really fucking sad when you think about it since I wrote THREE previous reviews of it.

I needed a little more than a couple days to flip on Cuphead, a game that I thought I detested. In fact, took me four years to realize I never hated it so much as I hated the unfair aspects (that are REALLY in the game) that mostly happen late in the game and thus feel fresh when the time comes to do the writing. That and the fact that the final world is gated from players who choose the simple option the developers included. If Cuphead hadn’t told me “not good enough” when I got to the end with having finished all the bosses on simple, I probably wouldn’t have touched it again, given it Approved Status, and moved on.

But, I was a little.. a lot.. okay, extremely pissed that a tentpole indie game locked people out of the ending (and loads of other content). I rejected the universal argument of the developers and its superfans that “Cuphead couldn’t have an easy mode! It would have gone against the spirit of the game!” That’s seriously dumbest argument I’ve ever experienced as IGC. Cuphead DOES have an easy mode! Saying the easy mode for the bosses of the first three worlds should lock you out of the finale would be like arguing a car can’t have breaks because that prevents it from moving forward, which is all a car is supposed to do. Well, that’s just a stupid way of thinking, but locking players out of the finale of Cuphead is arguing that it only exists to create an extreme challenge. That the tribute to golden age cartoons, incredible attention to detail, and masterful direction are completely meaningless because the only point of Cuphead is to be hard. They probably didn’t mean to make that point, but by using difficulty to gate-off large amounts of content and thus defining Cuphead by its difficulty, Studio MDHR chose to make every other aspect but the difficulty of the game completely meaningless. Uh, Whoops?

My first time playing Cuphead, I beat all the bosses on SIMPLE. I didn’t consider myself especially skilled enough to beat the game on the game’s terms. The second time, I didn’t even try. The third time, I did beat Cuphead, and I admitted I’d gotten a lot wrong. I conceded that I really liked the shmup levels, and those moments of victory after suffering through dozens of defeats were some damn-potent happy thoughts. But, I still insisted I didn’t like the game. And, at the point I walked away from it after the end credits rolled, I believed that was true. Even when I ended up having talks with friends where they noticed I had a warmness about it I previously lacked. Then, my kid sister/future Spielberg-of-her-generation Angela, in the middle of a 30s/40s animation kick, picked up Cuphead last week to take a look at how a modern tribute to that style would work. I don’t watch the “video game awards” or whatever the fuck they’re called on TV, so I asked “hey, whatever happened to Cuphead’s DLC?” on Twitter. Everyone replied that Cuphead’s DLC had been dated finally literally the night before. June 30, 2022. Wait, that’s Indie Gamer Chick’s 11th Anniversary! I watched the trailer, and I became excited. And then this conversation happened in my head:

Me: Wait, why I am excited for Cuphead?

Brain: Because you love Cuphead, you fucking idiot.

Me: I…….. do love Cuphead! Oh. My. GOD!! I love Cuphead! Wait, I do? That can’t be right!

So, I loaded Cuphead up on my Nintendo Switch this time (the previous three sessions having taken place on my Xbox One) and set a new goal: instead of simply beating the Devil, I would get at least an A- on every boss AND collect every coin in the game, thus requiring me to beat all six Run & Gun levels as well. This time, I knew what to expect. All the surprises were gone. I’d gotten good at Cuphead, and with or without the Jiffy Pop hands that my Parkinson’s disease is starting to cause, by God, I’m going to beat this fucker good this time. How’d that go?

Well, if I’m doing another Cuphead review, I’m doing the most in-depth review on the game ever written, so that I never have to do another write-up about Cuphead ever again.. until the DLC launches.

I’m breaking it into four parts. One for each world in the game.

INKWELL ISLE I

RUN & GUN #1: Forest Follies
STATED INSPIRATION: Contra III, Gunstar Heroes, and Donkey Kong Country
IGC LIKES: Simple layout, clear targets.
IGC DISLIKES: Lack of big set-pieces.

Forest Follies, the first Run & Gun stage, will never get credit for being one of the all-time great opening levels in video games. That’s a shame, because it is an all-timer, yet nobody talks about it. A big reason for that is people think of Cuphead primarily as a boss rush game. The six “normal” levels are treated as after-thoughts in the game itself, and thus fans do as well. That’s borderline tragic, because all six levels are rich in gameplay and properly pay tribute to genre-defining titles like Gunstar Heroes and Contra. I’m a big fan of those games, and I think that’s a big part of why I was so drawn to the Cuphead’s Run & Gun stages, even when I wasn’t admitting to myself I loved the overall game.

Like any great intro level, Forest Follies is the perfect introduction to Cuphead’s platform-and-spray mechanics. The enemies are basic and can be clipped with a single bullet. The coins are easy enough to fetch. The parriable objects are practically set-up for you to bounce off. All set in a gorgeous level that feels like you’re taking-on actual cartoon characters from the golden age of animation. It’s one of the few times you can assign the word “basic” to Cuphead, but this is a basic level. Just, one done really well.

Each of the Run & Gun stages has at least one distinct “mini-boss” that makes you sort of wish they’d expanded it into a full boss fight. The acorn maker is the only one in Forest Follies, and one of the few in Cuphead’s Run & Gun stages that doesn’t feel like an event. It feels like a wall (Cuphead is full of those too) that you shoot through. This is as big a “set piece” as Forest Follies has, and if it’d been a little more epic, I think Cuphead’s intro stage would have to be in the discussion for best video game levels of all-time. It’s certainly among the best intro levels, even if nobody will call it that.

RUN & GUN #2: Treetop Trouble
STATED INSPIRATION: Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Mickey’s Garden (1935)
IGC LIKES: How perfectly the developers captured the spirit of their targeted inspiration: Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. The final platforming stretch and the battle with the giant beetle are among the best platforming sections in all of Cuphead.
IGC DISLIKES: The climbing section is a slog. The randomized lady bugs are annoying.

The second level is where Cuphead’s Run & Gun stages get teeth. From here out, the Run & Gun stages are all essentially as difficult as late-game levels in other titles.

Dealing with the woodpeckers would be tough enough without these lady bugs bouncing around. The randomness of which ones can be parried is especially annoying given that there’s a coin that can only be gotten via a parry. It’s one of those things that is wonderful in theory, but in practice, they really needed to rig the RNG so that there is one pink bug constantly bouncing around where the coin is. The stage is challenging enough without having a chance of missing the coin.

The climbing section goes too long and is made a bit annoying by how spongy the enemies are. You can forgo finesse by equipping the heat seeker. The trees soak up too many bullets no matter what you use, so you might as well cheese the whole thing. The left-right-left style of climbing gets pretty old. This is one of the weaker segments in all of Cuphead’s traditional stages.

Then, inspiration hits. Hopping across the leafs that are being held up by bugs makes you think they’re going to sink under your weight. Instead, semi-random fireballs kill the bugs, which make the platforms drop out under you. This is the type of memorable twist on traditional platforming that can only really work this well in a game that puts such a high premium on art and style. It’s really something special.

Finally, the mini-boss, a giant dragonfly, really hits all the marks of what you’d want in a battle that caps off this section (and indeed, the whole level). Unlike the climbing section, you absolutely need finesse and precision here, and the result is one of the most memorable and satisfying bosses in any platforming-shooter. In fact, like many of the best platforming sections, this part was so good it probably could have been turned into a full-on boss battle for the main game. If you could somehow combine this boss with Forest Follies, you’d have one of the great stages in gaming history.

BOSS #1: Goopy Le Grande in “Ruse of an Ooze”
STATED INSPIRATIONS: Dragon Quest, Balloon Land (1935)
IGC LIKES: Imaginative battle that encapsulates everything magical about Cuphead.
IGC DISLIKES: That I fought this boss second instead of first.

I’m using the incredible book The Art of Cuphead for discussing the order of the bosses. In ten years, I’ve never recommended any book on gaming more, at least until my own book comes out. Yes, I’m writing a book. It’s titled Indie Gamer Chick: Everything I Learned Telling People Their Games Suck, and it’s coming out in 2023. Anyway, while I fought the Root Pack first, this was meant to be the first boss. I think of them as co-first bosses. The Root Pack all remain stationary and fire projectiles at you. Goopy has no projectiles and instead educates players on a moving target.

PHASE ONE – LITTLE GOOPY: Goopy bounces around and occasionally throws a giant, inflated punch that you can easily duck under. It’s a really simple attack pattern that eases players into the boss battles. Combined with the Root Pack, these fights are probably as good a job at introducing players to the world and concept of Cuphead as possible. I really can think of no flaws with these encounters. With first bosses, keep it simple, stupid.

PHASE TWO – BIG GOOPY: After a few hits, in a homage to A Boy and His Blob, Goopy flips a jellybean in his mouth and becomes huge. The fight is still the same basic concept: let him jump over you, duck to avoid his punch. Everything is heavily telegraphed, so there’s no GOTCHA type gameplay. The genius of this fight is it gives the illusion of being more difficult, while in reality, it’s just mildly changing-up its attack pattern but uses the medium and art style to make the change-over spectacular looking.

PHASE THREE – GOOPY’S TOMBSTONE: This is one of the best end-of-encounter forms in Cuphead. You’re still following the same basic principle of something moving back and forth, only now, instead of it being lethal to the touch, there’s timed attacks to avoid. Originally, this was going to feature two of the little blue goopies from Forest Follies. Smart move taking them out, as it would have massively thrown-off the difficulty scaling. This is one of the few instances where the team at Studio MDHR got a boss fight absolutely perfect.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Apparently, Goopie is the boss that changed the most from the concept phase. In early trailers, you could see Cuphead battling two at once. Other ideas that didn’t make the cut were Goopie using Rock-Paper-Scissors-based attacks, and a closer tribute to the Tyson fight from Punch-Out!! than what remained in the game. The developers had to give up a lot of ideas, but the restraint they showed is something a lot of first timers wouldn’t do. It’s really remarkable.

BOSS #2: The Root Pack in “Botanic Panic”
STATED INSPIRATIONS: Woody Woodpecker, The Jungle Book (1967)
IGC LIKES: The perfect introductory boss. The idea of secret phases within boss battles.
IGC DISLIKES: That there’s not more secret phases in Cuphead. Sal and Ollie are kind of forgettable in their designs, especially compared to the ultra-creepy Chauncey the carrot.

Really, this is the first boss in Cuphead, and the team couldn’t have possibly done better. Who says perfection is unobtainable? Okay, so it’s not TOTALLY perfect, as I’ll get into below, but seriously, this is an all-time first (or second) boss. The stated goal was that every phase would train players in an essential aspect of controlling Cuphead. In your typical game, this is done through seasoning the first level with elements. “Hey look, there’s a block with a question mark on it. Perhaps you should jump up and hit it!” It’s game design 101. Then, for bosses, you apply what you learned in the levels in battling them. But, in Cuphead, it’s assumed most players will battle the bosses first. Educating players in the heat of combat is harder than you think. It’s truly astonishing Studio MDHR created a boss that retains just enough of that Cuphead challenge while also functioning perfectly as Cuphead’s instruction manual.

PHASE ONE – SAL SPUDDER: All three Root Pack characters remain stationary, and you simply have to ping at them while dodging their attacks. For Sal, it’s jumping over four projectiles while he attacks (three in simple mode). The last one is always a worm that can be parried. There’s three cycles of increasing velocity, to give players a chance to get a sense of Cuphead’s hangtime and get into a rhythm for how to jump over projectiles. Besides maybe randomizing the order of which projectile can be parried, I can’t think of anything that they could have done better here.

PHASE TWO – OLLIE BULB: From jumping over projectiles to avoiding them by left to right movement. This is also the first example of giving players a tight squeeze to deal with, which will be a common theme throughout the game. I do have a major knock on this fight: the pink teardrops come in too fast to parry, even on Normal mode. I think I successfully did it once in all my attempts. Of course, if you beat Sal too fast or missed one of his worms, this is your last chance to get the three parries you need to get a perfect score.

PHASE THREE – CHAUNCEY CHANTENAY: This is one creepy boss. While the other two Root Pack members are kind of forgettable, nobody will ever forget the creepy design of the finale of this encounter. This section is designed to get players used to the idea of multiple different types of projectiles coming at you at the same time AND firing while still moving. It’s really well done and makes for a truly exciting climax to one of the best intro bosses in gaming history. Of course, it could have played out very different. Then, the game was patched and suddenly it could play out very different!

SECRET PHASE THREE – CHAUNCEY CHANTENAY & HORACE RADICHE: Horace was one of the final attacks that was speced-out and deleted before the game went gold, and was so close to complete that Studio MDHR could patch it back in. So they did. If you do not shoot Ollie during his phase, he’ll vanish without crying, essentially skipping that entire phase. Doing this causes Horace Radish to spawn during the finale phase. He’s basically a homing top that you must jump over while also avoiding all of Chauncey’s attacks. It’s not a huge difference, but it makes the fight a more true “sum of all parts” finale.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT (HAH, NO PUN INTENDED!): Even though I’m flipping Cuphead’s ultimate verdict and conceding it’s one of the best video games ever made, indie or otherwise, I have a LOT of things to complain about, hence this comprehensive review being done so I never have to talk about the game again.. until the DLC hits on June 30. But, one aspect of Cuphead I don’t take any major issue with is The Root Pack. My one knock on it: that I think the pink teardrops during Ollie’s phase should have come in at lower speeds to make scoring a parry more reasonable. Otherwise, this is basically the perfect first boss for this kind of game. They nailed it! Maybe I’d make Horace a permanent addition to the third phase since he completes the “educate players” angle of the fight, but I’m happy they patched him in and won’t complain. Hell, the time between the main release and the DLC gives me hope even more deleted content will be re-added to the game. The Root Pack has another deleted member: Beetrice Lutz, who would throw her children at Cuphead. Come on, you gotta put that back in!

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BOSS #3: Ribby and Croaks in “Clip Joint Calamity”
STATED INSPIRATION: Street Fighter (franchise)
IGC LIKES: Most of the attacks and phases are fine-tuned and well balanced.
IGC DISLIKES: The final phase too heavily factors in RNG luck.

Cuphead changed a lot during its conception, and no fight exemplifies this more. Originally, every boss would have seen Cuphead fight it with different types of attacks. They wisely abandoned this for the sake of uniformity. Had they gone through with that plan, this fight would have been VERY different. Originally, lifebars would drop down on the fight and it would have felt much closer to the series they were paying tribute to with this battle: Street Fighter. Walking away from those plans didn’t hurt Clip Joint Calamity, but other issues cropped up that I can sink my critic teeth into. It’s a memorable fight, but also the first one where I can really get into the meat of the issues that keep Cuphead out of the conversation of “best game ever made.”

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PHASE ONE – BATTLE TOADS: The two characters alternate fire attacks. Ribby (the shorter, plumper one) shoots Ryu style fireballs, some of which can be parried. Croaks spits a series of fireflies that drift down at you. The fireballs must be avoided (or parried) but the fireflies are easily dispatched with a few bullets. In fact, they have four hit-points no matter which difficulty you play. When you get enough damage, this is one of the bosses where the transition between phases can still hurt you: the pair split apart, and Ribby must be lept over to avoid damage. Pretty basic stuff, nothing too intense.

PHASE TWO – FAN OF FROGS: Croaks turns into a fan and blows you towards Ribby, who claps energy balls that bounce towards you. It’s one of the easier attacks to avoid in Cuphead, The weird thing is, in simple mode (and Expert), the fireball attack from the previous phase also becomes part of this phase. Either way, it’s not too difficult to get the hang of the timing, even when you’re being pushed left by the current from the fan.

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PHASE THREE – CUPHEAD, YOU IGNORANT SLOT: For the first time in Cuphead, RNG luck overrides player skill. After having to dodge the machine spitting a few coins at you, the handle lowers and can be pulled by performing a parry on it, which starts the reels. The slot machine features three attack waves that are determined by a pull of the handle. The three waves are NOT equally difficult. The more desirable one is getting three snake heads (I thought they were frogs), which creates a series of platforms that must be jumped on. In regular mode, getting the timing down for these is a cinch (in expert difficulty, I kept messing it up). The other two modes are butt-clenching madness. Spin three tigers and the machine spits out a series of platforms that have balls bouncing up and down that must be jumped through. If three bulls are spun, the platforms will float in the middle of the screen with pillars of fire that randomly will go either above or below the platform. Oh, and the sides of all these “chips” are lethal.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I get that it’s a slot machine and it’s supposed to be random, but maybe for the sake of difficulty and consistency, they should have gone with the illusion of randomness while rigging the machine so a player experiences every wave. The really weird thing is, when I beat Cuphead the first time, I never got a “desirable” series of chips during the final wave. Then, when playing on Switch for this review, I got a double snake-head, which led to a fast knockout and a perfect score. Even weirder: when I went back to get media of the other waves, I kept getting the snake heads, to the point that I wondered if the Switch version removed other waves. I got a lot of crap from the “git gud” crowd with Cuphead, but it’s telling to me that so many bosses can be beaten by gittin’ lucky instead. For a game defined by extreme difficulty, how tightly designed can it really be when you can have entire runs determined by random chance?

BOSS #4: Hilda Berg in “Threatenin’ Zeppelin”
STATED INSPIRATION: Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Contra: Hard Crops
IGC LIKES: Wonderful introduction to the shmup fights. The RNG factors are well balanced and equally difficult.
IGC DISLIKES: There’s no reason to hold-off on giving players bombs until Inkwell II.

Cuphead including shmup levels was jarring as hell to me at first. It’s one of those genres that I didn’t realize how much I loved when I first reviewed Cuphead. It felt like a party crasher. I later came to realize the shmup levels are the most consistently solid and balanced stages in the game. And also I’m apparently really good at shmups, as I could take these down with the fewest attempts. It all starts with Hilda Berg, whose design came from a power-up in the game Alex Kidd in Miracle World of all things.

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PHASES ONE, THREE, AND FIVE – BLIMP CHICK: Throughout the fight, tiny Zepplins will fly in and shoot projectiles at you. Blue ones fire single shots, every fourth of which will be a pink bullet you can parry. Green ones shoot four bullets. The zepplins can be shot down easily, but players might be better served avoiding them and their bullets to focus on shooting the boss. Hilda herself will laugh at you, with giant HA bullets flying at a high velocity. She’ll also eventually generate a large tornado at you. When you’ve done enough damage, she’ll launch herself at you, leaving behind a sequence of stars that transitions to the second and fourth phases of the fight.

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PHASES TWO AND FOUR – WHAT’S YOUR SIGN?: Once Hilda floats through the cloud of stars, she’ll transform into one of three constellations. In simple mode, the order will always be Taurus in the second phase, then Gemini in the fourth. In expert, it will always be Gemini in the second phase, then Sagittarius in the fourth. Weirdly, standard mode is where random chance factors in, with Taurus always being the second phase, but the fourth phase could be either of the other two forms. Remarkably, Gemini and Sagittarius are well balanced, which eliminates the RNG factor during the battle. It’s why I can’t excuse Cuphead when luck and desirability of other random phases factors into other battles: because I know Studio MDHR is capable of balance.

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PHASE SIX – CURSE OF THE MOON: One of the most scary and imaginative character designs in Cuphead, the giant moon is an unforgettable finale to the first shmup level. It’s also one of those moments where trial-and-error will inevitably factor in. When the face is inside the moon, you’ll have to simply avoid a series of stars that fly across the screen (some of which can be parried). When the face opens up, the space you can work with is cut in half and a parade of UFOs will march across the top of the screen. Keeping yourself in front or behind the lethal beams of the UFOs has a huge learning curve to it. For most players, they’ll make it to this final phase and perish several times before they get it right. It’s a bit frustrating, since this is by far the best portion of the entire battle, and getting there can be a slog after a while.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: This is one of those stages where I wonder if the developers wouldn’t have been better off creating a separate “checkpoint” mode. As I’ve said in previous reviews, gamers are great at rising to the challenge if that’s what they’re into. I’ve seen people who beat games blindfolded, for God’s sake. But in longer stages like this, where the difficulty escalates to a massive degree during the end sequence, it turns a great game into a bit of a slog as you inch back towards the section that keeps owning you. Yea, we get it: difficulty is the point. But sometimes that backfires and turns something amazing into something tedious. Checkpoints do not hurt Cuphead’s integrity in any fashion. All the lack of them does is gate out lesser skilled players and make it clear: you’re not welcome here. It’s so mean-spirited.

BOSS #5: Cagney Carnation in “Floral Fury”
STATED INSPIRATIONS: Aztec Adventure, Ghostbusters (Genesis), Swing You Sinners! (1930), Flowers and Trees (1932)
IGC LIKES: A perfect finale to Inkwell Isle I and one of the great boss fights in gaming history.
IGC DISLIKES: I’m not a jazz person and I can’t believe THIS is the theme that made it into Smash Bros. Ugh.

One of THE icons of Cuphead, the battle with Cagney Carnation was heavily inspired by several plant-based bosses in gaming history. It’s more than simply the juxtaposition of a cute, wholesome flower that suddenly screams at you and then looks like the most evil thing that ever eviled. It’s a boss that checks every box of the Cuphead experience: crowded, relentless, and maybe just a little too reliant on RNG luck. Unlike a lot of bosses, Cagney really only has two phases. But, the variety of attacks in the first phase makes it one of the more intense battles in all of Cuphead. Hell, in around fifty attempts at beating it on expert mode, I only made it to the second phase twice. Twice! They might have gone a little over-board.

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PHASE ONE – I’M PRETTY SURE CARNATIONS ARE A DIFFERENT SPECIES: No matter the difficulty, RNG factors heavily into the battle. When he becomes a machine gun that fires seeds into the air, one of the seeds is capable of scoring a parry on. Whether or not you’ll have a safe chance at scoring that parry is total random chance based on where it’ll fall or if other hazards have already spawned that will prevent it. Another luck-based attack is Cagney’s full-screen stretch. If he does this across the bottom lane, you should have a few moments to cleanly, safely plug away bullets without having to move a muscle. It’s still safe even if he chooses the top lane, which requires you to duck below it. But, this attack might not even happen at all. I had several battles where he never fired it once.

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PHASE TWO – SERIOUSLY, THAT’S CLEARLY NOT A CARNATION: RNG factors into the second phase as well. At the start of this portion of the fight, the bottom channel become deadly, and the fight moves completely to the three floating platforms. Cagney only has two attacks here: spitting projectiles and having spikes emerge from the three platforms. The projectiles are easy enough to avoid, and occasionally one will be pink and thus able to score a parry on. The spikes are problematic. He targets two at a time, and you only have a brief moment to get to the safe platform. Where RNG truly factors in is if you’re already on the correct platform. Especially if you’re using the spread gun and on the front platform. It’s essentially giving players an extended period of not having to do anything. Almost all my most successful runs against Cagney involved the sheer dumb luck of not having to dodge the spikes. For a game that demands players “git gud” it’s stunning how often players are able to walk away saying how lucky they got. But, for all my bitching here, this was seriously one of THE great matches in Cuphead. Bravo, Studio MDHR!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: This is another boss that went through tons of changes over the course of development. This includes concepts like having all the seeds be parriable. I wish I could try that version of the fight. In fact, Cuphead was demoed several times over the course of its development at trade shows like E3, and I’d love to have access to those early demos. Maybe Studio MDHR should consider doing a collector’s edition of Cuphead that includes all the deleted content in playable form. They’re the developers of a game that has become a source of inspiration for a new generation of developers, and having access to those early builds would be very educational.

Click here for Cuphead: The Definitive Review – Part Two, where I’ll venture into Inkwell Isle II. The overwhelming majority of Cuphead owners never make it past this world. Why is that? I have the answers.