It can be vital to experiment with them, too I only managed to beat the final boss because of a change in ammunition. Some are more useful than others – I only used the shot that fires backwards in a single fight, and I genuinely can’t imagine playing without the ability that prevents you from taking damage during a dash – but they offer a splash of puzzle thinking to the mix.
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Unlockable shot types, extra abilities, and a series of super moves offer you different solutions to difficult levels. It’s not just a matter of playing the same way over and over, however.
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It reduces screen clutter while also encouraging (or perhaps that should be “berating”) you into taking another crack at it. No enemy has a health bar, nor an indication for when you’re getting close to a knockout – instead, when you die you’re shown a graph of how close you were to the KO or the next phase of the battle. Perhaps Cuphead’s smartest, most devilish addition is in how all these types of levels taunt you into playing more. One of the final levels changes the structure entirely, turning a series of fights into a miniature board game – it’s an absolute joy, and up there with the best boss battles I’ve ever played. Battling an actress in her theatre takes you through the different stages of a play, and the combat feels almost like a fighting game as she divekicks and uses props as special moves.
Taking on the workers on a ghost train has you not only shooting enemies, but also controlling the position of your rail trolley platform while stopping minions from moving you into dangerous positions. This is where MDHR flexes its imagination most, crafting weird, often hilarious bouts that have you interacting with the limited control scheme in more and more interesting ways. Best of all, though, are the platforming battles. As much tests of dexterity as they are pattern learning, they’re a throwback to the likes of classic Treasure games (just with fewer spaceships and more angry constellations), and slot comfortably alongside them for quality. Some take the form of bullet hell shooting, with Cuphead mounted in a free-flying plane. Thankfully, the other types are straight boss battles, and they are an entirely different sentient kettle of surreal, singing fish. They’re meant to provide some breathing space from endless boss battles, but they end up feeling more like a lull. Barring one that has you regularly flipping gravity to get through, these are both the easiest and least inventive stages that Cuphead has to offer. The least common – and least interesting – is run ‘n’ gun, left-to-right platforming drawn directly from the likes of Contra. Those levels can take one of three forms. In the moment it’s frenetic, but Cuphead’s structure is a linear sequence of three worlds filled with one-shot levels to complete, and a finale. My favourite boss design – a giant bird wearing cuckoo clock armour and its tiny, ray gun-wielding chick – fires wads of garbage at you by literally turning its head into a bin, but I only noticed that detail when I watched someone else play it hours later. When one boxing glove-wearing frog eats another to turn itself into an evil slot machine, that’s nothing more than a phase change.
That skyscraper-tall robot firing laser barriers is just three hovering hitboxes and a series of no-go zones. And so, as I played I gradually stopped noticing a lot of the glorious art, because actually interacting with Cuphead is so hectic, so stressful, that it just gets filed away by my right-brain as a distraction. I find it actively harder with a second player, if anything. And don’t think that local co-op will ease things up – dropping in a second player as Cuphead’s pal Mugman makes events onscreen that much harder to follow. You could hit levels that take hours to beat, and the finale is locked off until you beat every other level on “Regular” difficulty (i.e. No level includes checkpoints and, barring one late-game match-up, there is no way to regain lost health. It’s absolutely uncompromising in its difficulty from the outset.
You may have gleaned by now that this game is really, really hard. There’s no doubt that it’s gorgeous, and many people will be drawn to that, but that veneer conceals a very niche, hardcore design. I also feel duty-bound to point out that the way Porkrind the shopkeeper bellows “welcome” made me laugh every single time I heard it. It makes Cuphead feel truly out of time, and its bizarre mix of ‘30s aesthetics and ‘80s design more heady than ever. The sound work is an ideal match: a huge jumble of high-tempo ragtime, swing, big band, and jazz (the list of musicians is almost as long as the rest of the credits combined) pummels away wonderfully in the background of every fight.
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