Cuphead

So itchily addictive! Every time I die I feel determined rather than angry.

Overall Cuphead is a pretty decent game but it's deeper appeal might only be for a specific type of player. The game is 90% a boss rush, each level is just beating the boss. There are 2 types of battles, "on foot" where you use the normal weapons you bought and a Shmup type where you fly a plane. Generally I preferred the former. The Good: The aesthetic is phenomenal, the bosses are creative, the style is wonderful. The controls are tight the action is fairly difficult. if you want A or S rank everywhere it will take a lot of patience and practice. The Not So Good: Sometimes the graphics hurt the game, sometimes it's hard to tell if something will hit you or not, some bosses get way easier when you realize something can't hurt you. Annoying sound, while often appropriate are a bit over-the-top and some bosses have really annoying sounds, the fight announcer gets old almost immediately. A few times i just played the game with the sound off. No real indication of hurting the boss. some bosses you just can't miss so it becomes just a waiting game. there is no health meter so I can't really tell how much damage I'm doing, bosses don't flinch or react to hits, and no real indicators that I'm close to winning. they don't turn red or anything and at the final attack stage sometimes it just feels like you sit there and dodge until "KOCKOUT" appears. the fight would feel more engaging if i had a real sense of doing damage. a few bosses you pretty much always hit, you could take the weapons away and just have a timer when you win and the fight would feel exactly the same. Some obstacles and attack feel less interesting and more like people sat down and said "what would make this harder without really adding value or interest" Lots of randomness, if you liked challenges like Super Meat Boy you might hate this game since you can't rely on fully consistent execution. sometimes you can get badly snookered without feeling like you did anything wrong or even seeing a way you could have gotten out without taking a hit. Some attacks are vastly easier to dodge than others so which attack the boss pulls out can also hugely impact the fight. often luck feels like more of a component than it should Neutral : not bad per-se but there's no real strength progression. All the weapons are balanced and though you buy upgrades you never really get powerful. The first two upgrades you buy could easily take you through the whole game.

The Animation and the Music are just beautiful. And if you've read anything at all about the game you heard it's tough. And it is. Cuphead is essentially a series of boss fights you can select from an overworld map. With the defeat of each boss, you unlock more of the overworld, and you can find more boss fights. There are a few non-boss fight levels in the game (six if you're counting) where you run around, shoot things, and collect coins, but mostly this game is all about the boss fights. So whether you consider this game good or not will really depend on how much you enjoy the boss fights. I've heard a lot of other reviews saying that all the boss fights are 'tough, but fair'. That is a lie. Most of the fights are exercises in overcoming frustration, learning patterns, and hoping for some good RNG so you get patterns that won't hose you. That anyone thinks that the fights are in any way fair are a testament to just how charming this game is. Some of the needlessly frustrating things I've found with this game is how a lot of time objects that can hurt you are obscured by set dressing; Bullets hidden behind foreground detail means hidden surprises to sap your life bar, and losing one of your three hit points to something you literally had no idea was there sucks. On some stages you need to ascend platforms to avoid projectiles and other hazards, but where the platforms appear seems to be generated randomly. I often found myself in spots where there was nowhere for me to dodge without taking damage because of dumb luck. Also, on the overworld map there are hidden coins you must find (if you want to buy all items and get 100% completion), but save for one coin, there are no indications where they might be. You need to either hit every pixel or look at a guide to find the coins, and that just rubs me the wrong way. But these are fairly minor gripes. The game is charming, if difficult. If it's your sort of thing, then you'll like it, but know what you're getting into.

At times, it felt like Cuphead was in development cycle. After it was originally showed off at E3 a few years back, we kept getting little glimpses of the game, but it didn't really have a massive marketing cycle behind it. It has been proven that it doesn't matter. Cuphead has sold over a million copies already, and won't stop any time soon. The game definitely lives up to the hype. I had a lot of fun with this game. It can be incredibly frustrating at times, but the reward is worth it. When you hear the announcer say "knockout!" it is one of the most satisfying moments in gaming right now. My only issue with the game is the run and gun levels, and I wish the game rewarded you with coins for beating bosses. That is honestly my only issue with the game. Outside of the, it is so wonderfully crafted. I haven't even touched on art in the game! You can tell that every aspect of the visuals, and the audio, was created with so much care. Each character has so much personality, even the spectators in the background of boss battles. I can't recommend this game enough. Just realize that it is a hard game, but very rewarding. Remember, don't make a deal with the devil!

Firstly, the art-style, the music, the tight controls, the little secrets, the interesting and extremely varied enemies... this is an awesome game, and I want Cuphead 2. Reading some User Reviews, I want to make this clear. This is NOT Super Mario Bros, not even close. If you want to compare this to a classic game, compare it to Contra -- Megaman would be the next closest, but it's not really appropriate. The game is quite challenging, but the devs mitigate the frustration in smart ways (quick restarts, progress meters let you know how far you went, and the tight controls remind you that you are ultimately your own worst enemy). The game does a great job by not recycling enemies, and mixing up a few "plane" levels with the more numerous "ground" levels. Here's how this game is: There are 3 worlds (each with an overworld that allows you to pick where you go), where you need to defeat 5 bosses. Each boss has multiple stages where he'll transform into something new, and each individual stage has its own variation as well, so nothing is ever exactly the same. There are also 2 run and gun levels in each world... these play like a contra level, where you are actually platforming, and the game does a good job keeping things interesting -- the level design is quite well done. Finally, each world has a mausoleum where it is more of a jumping mini-game... to me, this should have been thrown into the levels somehow as it's a little too simple. This would have been a perfect game if they somehow combined the "run and gun" levels with a boss fight at the end. I like the idea of going through a level to meet the final boss for a battle. (Mind you, each level/boss fight is very difficult, so there would need to be checkpoints before the boss fight to account for this.) So maybe Cuphead 2 will implement this. But there you have it. A great game, oozing with style and well executed overall. Pick it up if you want to support more games like these.