Sumez wrote:It also feels like a game that would easily be reduced to predictable patterns, rote memorization and obvious safespots, Hard Corps style, but I'll commend the game massively for avoiding that pretty much entirely, thanks to its generous usage of RNG pretty much everywhere in the game.
I quite agree with this point. I quite like hard corps of course. However, I think most people will agree about most of the game (not just bosses) about simply knowing "what to do" before-hand
[and that being enough
].
Even though I haven't played cuphead much (nearly completed only first playthrough), I agree with the point mentioned.
In general, I think it is not just hard corps. Now there are fair number of arcade games (or old console games) in each basic platformer category
*** that are both very good and also not about memorization/safe-spots only
[of course there are quite a few good games that rely on these more heavily too
]. However, at least in my experience, still the boss battles in those games generally don't tend to be up to quality of to the rest of the game. But my experience is limited to some extent, so I am not sure whether this is something more general or not.
***
By category I mean various types of 2D-platformers broadly speaking. That is:
(a) Run N Gun or range attack game
(b) Melee attack game
(c) Basic Platformer
(d) Other
Feels like a decent compromise to remain approachable for casuls who'll just be scraping their way through each battle while also appealing to action game fans who want to ace every challenge.
