Cuphead was originally released in 2017 as a Microsoft time exclusive, meaning that it was only playable for Pc and the Xbox console. Two Years later in 2019 the game was released for Nintendo switch
and a year further , in 2020 it was released for the Playstation. The game was developed by Studio MDHR Entertainment and was even published by themselves.
Cuphead is a unique game, as upon it's release it blew expectations as to how good looking it was and how hard it felt. The game also exposed the fact that some game journalist are not as trustworthy as the company
they work for make them up to be. In early reviews certain journalist attck the game for being very difficult, as they spent around twenty minutes stucked on the tutorial level. This incident spark many controversies
among the gaming community all over the social media.
The Game came together by two brothers called Chad & Jared Moldenhauer, the founders of the MDHR studio.. Cuphead is their first official IP
however the rights were bought from Microsoft thus the early exclusivity. Although the game was their first debut in the gaming industry, it was met with alot of success. Upon its release the game sold more than 2 million
copies and by the time it's playstation debut the game surpassed the 6 million sales. The numbers surely changed since then. Furthermore Cuphead had a succesfull streak within various game awards as it was nominated more than 35 times
and succesfully won 16 of them.
The Game only exist as downloadable from online stores, such as steam and Ps store, however, the Switch version is the only one as of now that has a physical form.
Story of the Game
The story of the Game is simple to follow which is quite handy as this is a game were Dying will be happening more often than people want to admit. Cuphead and his brother Mugman live under the guidance of
the Elder Kettle. Againts the Elder's advice to not approach the casino the two brothers go there anyway. They seemed to be on a winning streak and that gets the Devils attention, who approaches them and offers
them to raise the stakes. If they win on their the next roll they get all the money in the casino but if they were to lose, their souls will belong to the devil himself. Before the brothers even discuss it, Cuphead
throws the dice without Mugman's discretion and to threir surprise they lose. They beg the devil to spare them and in doing so he offers them a new deal. There were other creatures who made a deal with the devil
they obtain powers however they never kept their part of the deal. So the devil wants the Cups to go out there in order to collect their soul contracts and bring them to him. If they do so within 24 hours, then they
shall keep their souls. The brothers rush to the Elder Kettle , they inform him of the events and they were given a potion that allows them to attack by firing energy blasts. He wishes them best of luck and warns them
about the dangers that re ahead of them.
General Gameplay
The game begins by placing the player on a board called the Inkwell isle. The player gets to control either Cuphead or Mugman, depending on their character of preference or both in the case of multiplayer.
On the map there are various NPC, buildings and dots that are more higlighted that the rest of the map. This means that these items are interactable with the player.
The Npc, most of the time advice the player or even give them requests that uppon succession will reward the mugs with Coins. It is highly reccomended to interact with them as they give you different tasks that
reward you with different game modes such as music, coins and alternative coloring for the game such as Black and white and Two toned filter.The building and the dots represent the playable levels.
There are 4 types of Game Modes :
Run and Gun
There are six Run and gun levels. During these levels the players are tasked to expirience a 2D side scrawler level, where they have to get from the 1 part of the map to the other while being targeted by
enemies and platforming challenges. At the end of each level there's always a mini boss who is trying to prevent them from reaching their goal. The main profit of these levels are the coins, that can be used in the store.
Boss Fight
There are fourteen Boss Batlles. In these battles the cups have to constantly shoot at the boss, however at the same time they have to avoid being hit by the minions of the specific Boss and also avoid
all the projectiles thrown by the boss. In some cases Platforming should also be consider during boss fights, as some bosses do not follow the Rules. Defeating a boss will open more paths in the Inkle Isle.
Plane Boss Fight
There is a total of five Plane battles. They act very similar to the normal boss fights however this time around the cups are using a plane to manuver around. Unlike the normal levels, plane levels only allow the cups
to use two types of bullets and only one kind of ultimate. Once again, the players have to shoot the boss and avoid projectables and minions.
Mausoleum
There's a total of three of them. Each of them located in different parts of the Inkle Isles. They re represented with an ancient building. These are small levels where the mugs are required to defend the vase from incomming ghost
These ghost cannot be targeted with normal attacks and can only die through parry. They cannot harm the player but if they reach the vaze it's game over. The reward upon completion is a new ultimate attack.
The boss levels are extremely similar with each other. The player is attacking the boss while avoiding any incomming attacks and minions that support their boss. Each boss in the game has a number of phases that they go through.
When a boss swaps phase their attack patterns, hitbox and minion supports are most likely to change as well. The change of phase happens based on the amount of damage they received. This mechanism can be easily abused by the players
who may wish to go through a phase as fast as possible. The most common example is the second phase of Dr.Kahls robot . During that phase the robot shoots its head that goes in and out of the screen. It is very fast and as a result it is
very hard to hit it, as there's also tracking nukes that follow the player as well. Most players use the ultimate bomb on the head, which is all it takes before going straight into the 3rd phase, thus skipping the second phase unharmed.
The Game offers a selection of difficulties Regulan and Simple in every level, however the last two AKA King Dice and the Devil are only playable in Normal.
The difference between difficulties..
Playing on simple allows the player to experience the boss fight and the run and gun levels with less projectiles on screen. These changes may be very small such as removal of the boss's minions or even certain attacks. They do not sound
significant but when playing the game, these changes are very noticable. Fewer enemies means less projectiles to dodge of. However playing on single does not reward the player with the soul contract. As stated by the devil, he will
spare the cups only when they retrieve all the contracts from the other debtors,in fact King Dice who is the second to last boss will not fight the cups unless they have all the contracts in their possession. On the other hand playing the game
on regular will reward the player with the contract. The players are capable of keeping track on the levels they cleared and on which difficulty by manuvering around the inkle isles. When a level is cleared there's a white flag that appears
on the level. A level cleared on simple will have the flag painted in white. On the other hand clearing a level on regular will have Cuphead's Cup symbol on the flag.Run and Gun levels DO NOT get the cup treatment as there's no boss to
collect their contract from. Defeating the Devil will unlock the Expert difficulty. On expert difficuty, the boss change their attack patterns by combining steps from other phases and at the same time they increase their speed
and their attack speed, making timing an essential part of the game. Defeating any level on expert will visibly represented with the white flag with a golden cup in the middle of it. Levels completed with the Rank of S will replace the cup with a golden S
and run and gun levels where the player manage to win without killing a single enemy will get a golden P for pacifist.
Default buttons (buttons reference for the Playstation, Players can change them to their liking)
The gameplay of Cuphead is simple.As mentioned above the playes control one of the cups or both who normally have 3 hearts unless equiped with certain items. Movement is achieved with either the joystick or they keypad. Jumping by pressing X and
crouch by holding down. Trianle (Δ) is used for dodge and L1 is used to swap in between weapons. The player can have up to 2 different bullet types which can be seen below. Down in the left corner there are heart points that represent the players remaining HP
Next to the heart, there are cards that slowly fill, as long as the player deals damage or Parry enemies. Once they re filled they reveal themselves as an ace. This ace by pressing circle (O) will release a more powerful blast(super) of your equiped weapon. The player can
choose to hold on them He can unleash a total of 4 supers. If the amount of cards possesed reach five, circle will unleash the ultimate attack. The last tool on the cups pockets, is pary.
Everything painted bright pink can be parried by pressing X on them at perfect frame. Parrying will always give an extra card(for specials). In coop parrying the flying ghost of the fallen teammafte before it flies off screen will respawn the player back.
Power Ups
There are different types of abilities that the players can equiped to aid them on thei adventure. All of them but the ultimates and the defaul bullets can be acquired from the store, while the ultimates can be collected from the Mausoleums.
These items are:
Bullet types:
Peashooter (Blue)
The default weapon, given to the cups by the Elder Kettle. Shoots on a straigh line. It's super is a massive blast
Chaser (Green)
A weapon that has auto aim and chases after the enemies. When theres's more than one just move closer or aim to the one you wish to kill. Super forges a circle around the player protecting them from weak enemies
Spread (Red)
Low range powerful weapon. It's super unleashes eight large spikes that deal heavy damage.
Lobber (Purple)
Midium range, low firing speed and decent damage.For special it shoots a bigger Lobber that deal great amount of damage.
Charge (Orange)
Hold down to increase the damage of the shot. It's slow but does alot of damage. Its special cause for an explosion that deals even greater damage.
Roundabout (Cyan)
A weapon that acts as a boomerang. Aim the weapon the opposite site and the bullet will travel to the side of preference. Special launches a larger attack that acts similar to the bullets but deals better damage.
Smoke Bomb
Fades out of existance for a second when dodging
Coffee
The super meter auto fills, and also increases the ammount you fill when dealing damage
Heart and Twin Heart
Both reward the player with one or 2 extra hearts but lower their damage. More the hearts the less damage they deal
Sugar
The first parry move is automatic
Whetstone
The first parry move doubles as a damaging axe attack. Allows the player to attack people similar to how parry works.
Ultimate Attacks:
Energy Beam
Cuphead will jumb in the air and unleash a giant beam
Invincibility
Makes the player invincible for a little time, allows the cups to move around and shoot enemies while enemy projectiles go through the cups
Giant Ghost
Cuphead unleashes a powerful spirit that allows the player to attack with both Cuphead and his spirit.
Music and Graphics
The Game is very unique and it definetely earn it's place as one of the most outstanding games out there. The art style and the music of the game is referencing
the early 1930s cartoons. As a matter of fact the Moldenhauer brothers did confirm that the designs and all the artistic decisions were influenced from that aera.
Some shows that can be seen within the designs are Popeye the sailor, Mickey Mouse,Sonic the Hedgehog, Woody woodpecker Tom and Jerry and many , many others.
The music has that classic jazz style that the old cartoon used to have back in the day. The design of the game combines alot of traditional 2D hand drawn animation
which is not something we re used to in the modern day.
