CupHead Don't Deal With the Devil Review: DarkSouls in 2D
Cuphead is one of the best games in years that’s guaranteed to make you throw your controller across the room. Cuphead is a platform run and gun game inspired by the cartoons of the 1930s. The graphics and visual style are consistently top notch and integrate well into the type of game they’ve decided to make. The soundtrack is exceptional having a jazz/swing style very reminiscent of the 1930s and wouldn’t feel out of place attached to a cartoon from that era. The solid soundtrack is a welcome addition because the music helps prevent the stages from feeling too repetitive too fast because boy will you be replaying these stages over and over until you get through them.
The basic story behind Cuphead is that he was gambling at the local casino and winning a hot streak when the devil shows up and offers one last roll: win all the treasure in the casino or lose your souls. Of course Cuphead rolls snake eyes. The Devil agrees to spare Cuphead if he becomes his debt collector and gathers all the souls he’s owed from the inhabitants of the island.
It’s a simple story but pretty much all you need for this type of game.
Cuphead has two types of levels: run and gun stages and boss stages. In an odd twist the boss stages far out number the run and gun stages however this is definitely to the games advantage because the boss stages are much more fun.
We have to discuss the elephant in the room: this game is hard. Really hard. Old school hard. Cuphead has 3 hearts and loses one each time he gets hit. So three hits, and you need to start the stage over. No extra lives or checkpoints, no heals or in stage power ups. That being said all the stages are pretty short so the brutal difficulty never feels all that punishing.
Run and gun stages are largely just for farming. Each stage has 5 gold coins which can be used to buy special abilities. Most of the abilities are superfluous but some are useful and a few are down right necessary. I started by buying the homing attack which makes run and gun stages far easier but the shots are too weak to use against bosses. Against bosses I used the Spread shot which is a shot gun style attack that delivers brutal damage as long as you stay close to the boss and the Lobber which offers medium damage and medium range.
The one power up which is absolutely necessary is the Smoke screen. This modified your dash ability to allow you to teleport through enemies without taking damage and I don’t think you’ll get far in the game without it. Again, every run and gun stage only has five coins so you won’t be able to buy everything but then again, if you buy my shopping list you may not want anything else anyway. You can only equip one ability of each type at a time so you need to choose your armaments carefully.
Boss stages are where the game really shines. Each boss has 3 to five phases all of which are creative and will keep you playing for hours. The boss stages are usually about pattern recognition and figuring out the boss’s weak points. Even after you know what you’re doing you need fast reflexes and the ability to think on your feet or you will die and die fast.
The game does support full co-op play which can often make your life much much easier since if one player dies, the other player can bring them back with full health if they tag the player’s ghost. However this isn’t a freebie, it does take good timing to tag your partner back into the game but it can definitely help you get through the trickier parts.
I don’t have much criticism for this game. The controller setup is weird but luckily can be completely customizable. Do yourself a big favor and rearrange the fire button to be one of your controller’s triggers instead of the buttons. This will make your game far far easier.
The difficulty is brutal but enough has been said about that issue that it seems unfair to belabor that point as a criticism. You either love it or you’ll hate it.
One minor criticism for me was with the difficulty settings. Now there is an “easy” mode which they refer to as Simple but the mode is not very well implemented. It does indeed make the game easier but bosses have at least one fewer phase and their attack patterns are completely different so Simple mode does not do a good job training you for regular mode. What’s worse is that on simple mode, you don’t collect souls from the bosses (since the bosses don’t die) which means you can’t reach the final stage without playing through the game in a harder difficulty. I always hate it when a game does this. Especially since you are almost never told this in advance. It seems like a cheat. There is also an Expert mode you unlock after playing through the game if you happen to be a masochist.
The game has two endings but this seems kind of pointless. After gathering all the souls if you choose to give them to the devil instead of fighting him, Cuphead and Mugman become demons under his control. To get the good ending you need to fight the devil.
Why even bother to do this? It doesn’t really add anything to the game. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to get the bad ending if you fight through the game on Simple mode and thus wouldn’t HAVE the souls to give the devil? I don’t know. This feels dumb to me.
Anyway some minor complaints aside this really is an amazing game and well worth a play through. It’s punishingly hard so know that going in but for the amazing animation, fantastic music, and remarkable creativity it’s worth playing in Simple mode at least. I strongly recommend this game. At only $20 it offers well over 20 hours of content and that is serious value for your money. It’s worth pointing out that this game was made by a small indie shop for its first public offering and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next with more funding and industry attention.
Final Score: 9/10