A 1930s Walt Disney Fever Dream

Indie Rage 2017

The part where I recommend it

Few things please me more in indie games than unique art styles executed well. Cuphead leaps to the very top of my list of games that pull this off with near perfection. But anyone would be able to derive that from a minute or two of video. The real question is whether the game is actually fun to play, and luckily, the answer is yes – but with some hurdles for your average player.Right up front Cuphead impresses with a design and art style that is easily described as what an artist in the 1930s would create with the description of what a modern video game is supposed to be. It truly looks and feels like it was plucked from a strange anachronistic timeline. The designs and animations of every character could easily be transposed into old Warner Brothers cartoons and look right at home… and man are those designs something to behold. The main protagonists, Cuphead and Mugman (the second player’s character that won’t be around playing solo), are unique in their own right, but they end up being the least interesting thing you encounter in the game. Bosses transform multiple times for each encounter, offering up completely new visuals to go with their new set of abilities. The vast majority are fanciful characters from the start, ranging from anthropomorphic vegetables to some sort of Zeppelin woman that transforms into a moon for some reason, and everything in between. That’s just in the first act. It only gets wilder from there, but I won’t ruin the surprise trying to describe what turns out to be one of the more entertaining parts of the game. It is actually quite easy to forget that even the backgrounds of these levels and boss fights are beautiful and have their own little animations. I can’t imagine the effort it took in developing this to seamlessly combine the animations with the gameplay.The gameplay is where things are going to get a little feisty. I’ve come to realize over the years that exceptionally difficult games end up leaving me feeling a little more sour than games where progress is consistent. Retreading content is one of my least favorite things, whether it’s backtracking in RPGs or having to restart a level or checkpoint because of something that comes out of nowhere. Cuphead is without a doubt one of the toughest games I’ve played this year. With most of the events in the game dumping straight into a boss fight, the game is generally referenced as a “boss rush” title, though there are optional levels that are more traditional run and gun affairs that have you blasting away at tons of weak enemies in order to collect coins. The coins are then used at a shop to unlock various different perks and weapons that are essentially sidegrades – upgrading one attribute and downgrading another. So you may get a weapon that has a unique attribute like a wide angle of damage, but if has a shorter range. However, being able to carry two at a time and switch between them means you can set a loadout specific for a tough boss fight in order to make it a little easier on you.With the game being as tough as it is, there’s not really a way to make it appeal to everyone. I know I raged several times and even said aloud to my monitor that a particular boss or level was unfair, but every time I’ve gone to war against one of these “unfair” things, I’ve managed to overcome it to great relief. Cuphead manages to be equal parts immense frustration and gratifying success thanks to each boss fight being a matter of minutes at most. In some ways, it works out like Super Meat Boy with its quick turnaround, meaning even when you fail repeatedly on a boss, you end up trying many more times because it’s just a quick button press and you’re back in at the start of the fight. At first, I was a bit disappointed that the game didn’t feature the rich and extensive level design of a game like Megaman, despite sharing a lot of the core jumping and shooting side scroll gameplay, but I found the numerous unique boss battles to be even better than those you’d find in the classic blue bomber series.Difficulty alone wouldn’t be enough to make me hesitate to recommend this to nearly everyone. It’s really a marvelous piece of work that just radiates its quality of craftsmanship. I haven’t even completed the game because the frustration leads me to putting it down at relatively short intervals, but I keep coming back and wanting to make it just a little bit further to see what silly animated bits of nostalgia will be presented. I think that it might turn off people who are not at least a marginal fan of platformers, but if you were a fan of Megaman, Contra, or any classic platformer with shooting, you’ll probably have enough experience to enjoy the gameplay and also get the treat of seeing a developer raise the bar on creativity. I can only hope that Studio MDHR plans to make a sequel or at least another game featuring this fun aesthetic, because they really seem to know what they’re doing despite not having any previously released games as a company.If you'd like to see more of my reviews, check out my curator page here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/EndyoGaming#curation