Cuphead, new run'n'gun with old-timey art

[Sumez]

Didn't have the chance to pick up the physical release that I preordered at my friend's store until now, so I'm finally plaiyng this game.
Really fun so far, which is unsurprising given its reputation. I'm glad that a run'n'gun boss rush game with mostly pure gameplay has managed to reach such popularity.
Of course the game is just pick a stage and play it with infinite lives, so it's a little disappointing there is no true arcade mode here - but I'll give the game a lot of credit for basically going "hey you'd be so much cooler if you did this faster and without getting hit" every time you beat a boss 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.

[Sumez]

A-ranked every boss, only for a new difficulty to unlock which allows S-ranking them. Did it for a few - I'll give the rest a try some time, but I'm content with what I've played now.

I think Cuphead ultimately has a lot of the issues you'd expect from this sort of game. There's visual clutter, ambiguous hitboxes, and awkward mixes of patterns which don't feel thought through. Having played both Tanuki Justice and Steel Assault recently, which are both some of my favourite run'n'guns released not just in recent years but probably close to ever, Cuphead absolutely feels weak in direct comparison.
But I'll cut it some slack, because the issues mentioned are generally much smaller than I'd have thought, and overall I had enough fun with the game to be unable to stop playing until I'd been through it all, including the (disappointingly short) DLC. 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 can see the arguments that it might be a little too much at times, and there are definitely encounters where you'll just fluke a much easier run against one boss than in others. Hell, there are some which have patterns or "minion bosses" which you might just randomly not see at all at times. The candy themed boss specifically spawns three minibosses out of a selection of five, and some of those are way easier than others. But given the opposite alternative, I'm glad they managed to design the game around so much randomness, as it keeps you on your feet at all times.

Ultimately Cuphead obviously just wins by virtue of its ridiculously amazing visual presentation. Graphics matter in video games, and being able to present the spectacle in a manner as fantastic as Cuphead does it is just a super rare quality. It wouldn't have been able to help a shitty run'n'gun, but Cuphead is absolutely adequate, so I wouldn't shy away from saying that the audivisual feedback you get from playing it easily lifts it to 8/10 or so regardless. It's just a fantastic thing to behold.

[wiNteR]

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

[BulletMagnet]

If you've ever wondered what it might look like if Yoshitaka Amano ever had a go at Cuphead's art, wonder no more.

[cfx]

.

[sunnshiner]

If that was the game's artstyle I'd actually be interested in it.

This forum needs a 'like' button.

[Sumez]

I love Amano's artwork, but that piece literally just looks like Setzer, Locke, and Terra from FF6 fighting a behemoth.

If that was the game's artstyle I'd actually be interested in it.

Again, I do love Amano, but I think a comment like this is really selling Cuphead short. If there's one thing you can't really argue against in this game, it's the artwork and animation. It's hands down one of the best looking games I have any memory of playing. Even if you don't have any nostalgia for old-timey Max Fleischer cartoons, I can't imagine anyone being turned off by that of all things.

[Sumez]

In general, I think it is not just hard corps.

Missed this response first time around.
Yeah, it's a common issue in the genre, and I only mentioned Hard Corps because it's probably one of the worst examples of this. But Cuphead does feel like a game that could very easily have fallen into the same trap.

[sunnshiner]

I love Amano's artwork, but that piece literally just looks like Setzer, Locke, and Terra from FF6 fighting a behemoth.

If that was the game's artstyle I'd actually be interested in it.

Again, I do love Amano, but I think a comment like this is really selling Cuphead short. If there's one thing you can't really argue against in this game, it's the artwork and animation. It's hands down one of the best looking games I have any memory of playing. Even if you don't have any nostalgia for old-timey Max Fleischer cartoons, I can't imagine anyone being turned off by that of all things.

This is the thing for me, Cuphead looks technically good but I really can't stand that style of art and animation.

[cfx]

.

[Udderdude]

I don't have a problem with it. Never had a problem with it. The music is kindof annoying, though. Not a dealbreaker.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I bought the cool hardcover book of "The Art of Cuphead" some time back and it's absolutely incredible. As a fan of hand-drawn animation, Cuphead has it in spades.

Only if there was another anime sequel to Redline (circa 2010) with it's hand drawn animation, what new racing ventures await our characters this time around? Still no 4K UHD disc release of Redline either as it's only available on dvd & blu-ray for now.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[RGC]

Finally got around to giving this a go (only took me five years!). Tour de force visuals, as has been noted a squillion times already, and deserving of every accolade received. I imagine these are appreciated more fully as a spectator rather than the player though (whose visual focus is going to be shifting about all over the place). I'm generally poor at run-n-guns -- so often find myself getting killed by enemies who find that gap between forward and diagonal shot. Not very good at adjusting my ground position when jump plus forward shot is not an option. Oh for a melee attack.

Just finished the first world and enjoying it so far, although having come to this right off the back of finishing Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, I've lost count of the number of deaths from trying to parry regular enemies; this action has bedded down firmly in the old muscle memory banks. So that's taking some adjustment. I also can't seem to find an appropriate/comfortable binding for dash. R2 is too close to R1 when the latter is in constant use, triangle (the default) is just too awkward (and I guess unfamiliar as a primary action trigger). I've stuck it on L1 for now and moved weapon switch to L2 as this is used less often.

I'd been intending to go back and improve my stage ranking/tackle hard mode on Ragebound, but this was available for cheaps and is proving a fun distraction.

[Sumez]

I've lost count of the number of deaths from trying to parry regular enemies; this action has bedded down firmly in the old muscle memory banks. So that's taking some adjustment.

Cuphead parries aren't too hard, timing wise, and I don't think they are meant to be. The occasional risky trade-off is the positioning necessary to get to something parryable.
I think it's best to not think of it as a parry, but just a regular melee attack (because that's how it works), and if you melee attack anything pink, something good happens. You can miss a parry and don't get hit, you don't need to bait an attack into your face in the way you'd do something like a Dark Souls parry.

[RGC]

Yeah, I need to experiment with it a bit more. So far I've clutzed my way through world 1 with mostly B grades and the occasional A, really just to see what the game is like. One thing I find myself wondering is whether everything pink can be parried without taking a hit, or whether some objects are there to bait you into trying. I don't have a specific example to hand, but there have been occasions where it looks like you couldn't get above/alongside the object to parry it without colliding into another nearby projectile.

[Sumez]

There are definitely situations (and I think it relies a lot on RNG, Cuphead is a very RNG-heavy game, which is probably its strongest asset next to the art) where going for a parry is too risky.
I think you should focus on when it's actually an advantage. There are some fights where the only reason to bother with parries is to meet the S-rank requirement, and some where *not* doing it only makes things harder for you. It's very situational.

[RGC]

World 2 steps things up a bit. I beat Beppi the Clown (with a shitty B rank), but not without a fair amount of cursing and a lot of deaths. Not a game to play when you're half asleep.

Not sure how I feel about the RNG element yet. I take onboard that having fixed patterns might reduce the game to a pure memoriser, but honestly this one really dumps on you with the randomness at times. Train coming along the ground, a bunch of overhead projectiles blocking any ability to jump onto said train before it squashes me. Guess I'll be writing that attempt off. Infinite lives though, so no matter! I find there's definitely room to strategise amid the chaos, e.g. getting ultra aggressive toward the dog balloons as soon as they spawn helps avoid getting overwhelmed. But yeah it's quite comical at times when they still find a way to swamp you and all you can do is try to get away (as there's no space to even turn around and shoot them!).

What's especially brutal is that special attacks need to be very carefully timed since they freeze you on the spot. It's easy to come out of an attack and fuck yourself up on some obstacle or newly spawned enemy.

The shmup stages feel quite floaty, but man those visuals on the pyramid stage!

[Sumez]

Yeah, the RNG isn't all gold. I think I touched on that earlier in this thread as well, but it's been a while.
In some instances it can randomly make a fight much harder or easier, and combined with the infinite lives, that means you can some times just retry the same thing until you're lucky and it works, rather than needing a strategy to deal with the worst-case scenario like you would in most arcade games.

I still think this game would have been a lot worse if it was all just rote memorization though.