Cuphead- a 30's-styled, Contra-inspired Run-and-gun indie game

Did ya'll hear that this game is hard?

EDIT: Epic page top?

edited 14th Oct '17 8:55:02 PM by Geist-Fox

I hear that it'll drive you... *shades pull* Berserk.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

edited 14th Oct '17 9:20:12 PM by EndlessSea

Okay, I swear to heck, these area 2 bosses are gonna be the end of me. Especially the clown and the genie. I knew the game was gonna be tricky, but this is still pretty nuts. x3

Also, I was surprised to see the Mecha Dragon from Mega Man 2 pulled out of retirement for this game. :P

The genie wasn't any problem for me. I'm not sure what to suggest there.

If you're lucky, you get get Beppi's hobby horse form when the train isn't running by. You can get under him and fire your spread shot straight up. Spread shot in general is very good after the first phase of his fight.

edited 15th Oct '17 1:01:14 AM by Zeromaeus

Reached Isle 2. I have only 12 deaths from Isle 1 according to the pool of death. That means restarts don't count. since I'm sure I restarted like crazy at Treetop Trouble and Cagney Carnation. I bet if restarts counted it should be about 30+ "deaths" total.

Also don't take this as a benchmark—I watched Jesse Cox and Aris play this beforehand so I have foresight.

Roundabout is my favorite shot so far.

Roundabout is legit one of the best weapons in the game. People are always screaming about the charge shot which yeah it's good(but it's going to get nerfed) but roundabout is NO slouch and I found it really useful on the devil.

I had 269 deaths by the end. Hardest bosses were the bee, King Dice, Djimmi, the robot, and baroness. For the dragon's hydra phase be patient, use the glob shot, don't shoot the fireballs and avoid his fire breath. It's not THAT hard of a phase but you need to be patient.

I gotta say, it feels like it's been a long while since I've enjoyed playing a game so much that I bought it twice. I think it was kind of a blessing in disguise that I played through the Xbox version entirely in co-op, which ramped up the difficulty to almost absurd standards by the end. I just finished a regular playthrough on the Steam version a few hours ago in one sitting and it was still just as fun to play. Not sure if I'll do the expert mode runs solo yet though.

Some takeaways from my experience:

• I didn't realize how short this game can be if you know what you're doing. In co-op it took us about three days to beat the game normally, while I finished the Steam version solo in about three or four hours.

• I don't remember what my death count was in either run, but I know we were over 200 by the time we got to Inkwell Hell. During the solo run, I accrued about 50 deaths, but that was after I had already beat the game and a lot of those deaths came from me failing to S rank the Devil on Regular (I think I died about 7 or 8 times doing that though).

• I didn't know there were hidden coins on the maps. I also forgot about the missing member of the barbershop quartet on Xbox because I kind of expected him to be obvious.

• My favorite setup is Charger, Roundabout, Smoke Bomb, and the Invisibility Super. I'd sometimes change Roundabout to the Lobber or Chaser depending on the stage. When I played co-op, I never bought the Spread Shot, since my buddies had it themselves, but I figure I'd need it for any Expert runs I do on Steam. I still don't know what to make of the final Super, which I only used a couple of times before changing back to Super II.
  • I'm also going to be slightly sad when the Charger gets nerfed. It is stupid how OP it is if you're good at using it, especially by yourself.

• Favorite normal stage bosses were mostly in final half of the game, but consist of Honeybottoms, Bon Bon, Sally, Brineybeard, Werner, Grim Matchstick, and the Devil himself.

• I didn't really like the plane stages that much and felt that they weren't as good as the on-foot stages (most of my deaths came from these stages), but overall appreciate the change of pace in the end. Favorite bosses were Cala Maria. Djimmi, and Hilda Berg.

• Overall, I'd say my absolute, unforgettable favorite bosses would be Honeybottoms^note She accounted for a shitton of co-op deaths, alongside the Robot and Wally, but I still enjoyed the hell out of her fight. Then again, I also have a thing for fictional bees., Cala Maria ^note She's basically a giant Konami reference, being an oddly simultaneous nod to the mermaid boss from Parodius, the Medusa boss from a later Parodius game, and Castlevania. Aside from that, I kept dying early to her in co-op, so I never "beat" her. She accounted for most of my deaths in the Steam solo run because of my inexperience with her, making me appreciate her fight a whole lot more than I had originally. Plus her and her dancing are adorable., Sally Stageplay^note There are a couple of songs in the soundtrack that wouldn't sound out of place in Skullgirls, so having Sally, who is basically a regular woman compared to all the other bosses, fight like some sort of fighting game character was pretty cool to me. Hell, the way her umbrella was used almost reminded me of characters like Parasoul (and her unused sister) from that game. She was basically the Badass Normal of the bosses (in regards to crazy transformations at least) and I love her for it., Baroness von Bon Bon^note She seemed pretty psychotic honestly, especially during her final phase, but I enjoyed the miniboss rush her fight employed., Grim Matchstick^note He seemed oddly pleasant if you lose to him (except in his final phase), plus I loved his animations (especially the faces his heads makes when he hits his final phase). He almost seemed aware that he was in a video game/cartoon and seemed to make more aside glances than any of the other characters in the game., and the Devil^note I'd been anticipating how the game's use of transformations would be applied to the Devil, and I wasn't disappointed. I actually liked his first phase more than his other ones because of how crazy appropriate his transformations felt. Plus his boss theme for the first phase is a frantic medley of all the other boss themes, which was awesome. And the fact that his final phase is just him crying was icing on the cake..

• One final note, but I don't really agree with the seemingly common assertion that some of the bosses had been Killed Off for Real because they're missing from the ending scene. I'm pretty sure that's just the devs not bothering to put every boss on that screen, 'cause then it'd be too cluttered. The fact that Elder Kettle mentions that you seem to still want to fight after besting the Devil somewhat implies that not only did everyone survive losing to Cuphead and Mugman, but that all their transformations seem to be a part of who they are and the world they live in (as in, not a result of their contracts). It kind of feels like people trying to rationalize the absurdity of what the game is, which I feel goes against the spirit of the game's design origin.

edited 15th Oct '17 5:23:55 AM by Customer

Isle 2 done. 56 deaths (again, excluding restarts, though I usually just do it only on the first phase)

My usual setup is Roundabout, Spread, Smoke Bomb, Super 1.

I changed Spread to Charge for Grim Matchstick to deal with that hydra phase. (I didn't use lobber in the second phase, I just shot the Roundabout to the upper right.)

Also I play on keyboard!

There's a useful autofire glitch I discovered where you don't need to hold the fire button anymore. I'm using a regular keyboard not a gaming one with anti-ghosting so your results may vary. I hold up right and shoot, lock then release the aim the shot, and if done correctly, your player will just fire as if you held down the button.

This game needs to be released for the Switch/3DS so we have an excuse to include Cuphead in the next smash bros

edited 15th Oct '17 6:53:34 AM by Ultimatum

welp, game finished, in 379 deaths. Fuck you king dice and your only attack, and fuck my brain for thinking wide shot was a good idea against the devil's first phase. It took me a good hour before trying directly roundabouting him in the face and noticing the super gauge was filling much faster than with wide shot. Suddenly his first phase wasn't so much of a Stone Wall.

Very good game in any case, I hope they'll get the financial succes they deserve.

I've gone through most of Isle 3 but haven't had time to finish yet. I'm down to the train boss, and then it's only the dice king and devil standing in my way.

I wanna add to the "Whetstone is cool" train. The axe basically lets you attack any enemy and it makes the parry sound along with a double jump if you kill them just like you parried a pink enemy. I should try it on non-pink bullets or the airplane sometime if it works.

My controls: WASD - directions | left shift - lock | space - dash | numpad . - jump | Numpad 0 - fire | Numpad 1 - special/EX | Numpad 2 - weapon swap

Whetstone won't parry non-pink bullets, it just lets you parry off of anything that can be damaged otherwise. It also counts against you if you're trying for a Pacifist run on the Run 'N Gun stages and use it to kill random enemies.

It works the same in plane mode, although since there's no parry chaining, every parry is a Whetstone parry, essentially giving you a melee attack. Since the Smoke Bomb is pretty useless in plane mode, I usually swap out for Whetstone during those stages.

I just cleared the game again A ranking every boss (and the 2-film visual style you unlock for that is pretty neat). The hardest one for me to A rank was King Dice's stage. I did one run fighting almost every boss but two (basically trying to fill out the Casino boss card with the names of the bosses I skipped the first time around), got gold in every category except for HP (which was at 0/3) but ended up with a B. My A rank run had me fight the requisite three bosses and King Dice, getting hit once, somehow earning a "worse" time (my 6:30 time in the B rank one was gold, but the 3 minute run was white), but still managed to end up at A, despite looking worse on the record screen. I guess the HP category counted for a lot.

I see I can get an S rank in the achievements, but how do you get an S rank? Is it Expert only?

edited 16th Oct '17 9:14:12 PM by Customer

Yeah S Rank is on Expert only.

I use Coffee in the plane levels. And since you confirmed you can't parry non-pink bullets, that'll still have limited use in planes IMO.

When I get home I better check out how the axe (or whatever) looks on the airplane.

I don't think time matters for rank. The only things that matter seem to be everything else: HP, Parry and Super.

edit: Missing "non-" changes the meaning, sorry, fixed.

In Isle 3 so far I had moderate trouble with Rumor Honeybottoms and Cala Maria, lots of trouble with Dr. Kahl's robot, but had an easy time with Sally (2 tries), the pirate (3 tries - and two of that was getting blindsided by the boat's beam attack) and Werner (~6 tries).

For Cala Maria, I had to pick the +1 HP powerup to win. Coffee wasn't helping much because that tunnel at the end is so cheap (and I'm not good at mashing out of petrification).

IMO toughest Run n' Guns, the harbor one is the hardest, followed by Treetop Trouble.

edited 17th Oct '17 12:30:29 AM by Malco

I've cleared Isle 2 and am working on Isle 3. I've beaten the (annoying as fuck) Queen Bee Rumor Honeybottoms and sank Captain Brineybeard. (He was surprisingly easy except for his ship FIRIN HIS LAZOR BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!)

Brineybeard was hilarious, he sends literal sea dogs after you.

Also I've found the barbershop quartet guy and 3 overworld coins as well as two others from ambient NPC's on the map. (Plus the 3 gimme coins from the traveling apple right at the start.)

Charger has made a world of difference weapon wise. It almost made the Dragon boss too easy.

Charger is great on the final phase at least, with less shots fired there's less chance of hitting the exploding fireball.

Beat the game. 143 deaths (excluding restarts) total. Again, not to be taken as average, I watched people play it. :)

King Dice killed me a lot. It's hard to jump the cards, there's a timing involved. Eventually I used Whetstone to get an edge, but it gave me a disadvantage against the rabbit and ballerina without the smoke dash...

edited 18th Oct '17 8:02:46 AM by Malco

I found a video ranking the bosses from the easiest to the hardest.

1. The Root Pack.

2. Goopy Le Grande.

3. Captain Brineybeard.

4. Cagney Carnation.

5. Baroness von Bon Bon.

6. The Phantom Express.

7. Djimmi the Great.

8. Grim Matchstick.

9. Hilda Berg.

10. Werner Werman.

11. Beppi the Clown.

12. Ribby and Croaks.

13. Sally Stageplay.

14. Wally Warbles.

15. King Dice.

16. Dr. Kahl.

17. Cala Maria.

18. Rumor Honeybottoms.

19. The Devil.

Isn't that sort of subjective question though? .-.

Yeah, there subjective as fuck written in letters bigger than Dr.kahl's robot.

not completely off the mark for me tho.

Baroness and Djimmi way too low. Brineybeard is too low as well. found him harder than the rat and stageplay. He's easy to figure out yes but clutters the screen a lot.

Devil too high. Duck the hoof clap. It's hard but not number 1 hard. King dice is harder as is honeybottoms.

Djimmi is harder than beppi IMO. Cala Maria isn't that bad, midtier at most.

wereman over matchstick invalidates this list completely IMO.

edited 19th Oct '17 12:40:42 PM by Vertigo_High

All the bosses are hard and impossible

all of them

One of the things I like about this game is that everyone has their own That One Boss that gave them the most trouble. Like, I've seen people say that almost all of Isle 3's bosses were easier than all of Isle 2's, or that the Devil was a chump compared to Bon Bon and Cagney. I feel it helps makes the game feel more personal to each player. Like I kind of find Cala Maria harder than Kahl's Robot, who I'm beginning to feel was only difficult when there were two of us fighting him (same with Djimmi for that matter).

Personally, I think the toughest fights I had were all the flying stages, with Honeybottoms being the main on-foot boss that gave me the most trouble.

At least everyone agrees that the Root Pack is the easiest.

It's cool to see the order other people found bosses difficult though.

Sally Stageplay was a cakewalk to me, and the Devil wasn't that tough. My worst bosses in terms of deaths, restarts and how long it took* were Dr. Kahl's robot, Beppi the Clown, and Grim Matchstick.

* Accounting for the tons of loading screens King Dice's palace has, of course.

Root Pack, Goopy and Brineybeard were easy to me, as well. I'd place Sally before Brineybeard and after Goopy.

Finally, that blasted harbor run and gun level. That was horrible. As well as Treetop Trouble. All the other Run and Guns were easy-to-manageable.

I haven't gotten to Isle 3 yet mostly because I've been trounced by Grim Matchstick again and again. That, and also because of Yo-Kai Watch 2 and Etrian Odyssey V...

Besides Grim Matchstick, the boss I've had the most trouble on (that I've actually beaten, at least) was Baroness von Bon Bon, up until I decided to ditch the extra heart charm and use the Smoke Dodge (or whatever it's called) charm instead. Definitely made the Candy Corn and Jawbreaker minibosses easier, at least.

So... am I the only one who thought Rugged Ridge was the worst Run-n-Gun? Perilous Pier felt like a cakewalk after that, but maybe that's because I caved and almost immediately looked up a walkthrough after dying once or twice at the last leg...

And holy FUCK yes Dr. Kahl's Robot was awful. I know not everyone's gonna rank him as their toughest, but I doubt there's a single player who won't at least put him in the Top 5.

(One last thing - the Lightbulb NPC on Isle 2 talks about meeting "Quadratus" across the isle. Is he talking about the death-counting pool, or is this some fancier in-joke? Anyone know?)