4/5 ★ – NiGHTS108's review of Cuphead.

It's time to ask The Important Questions. *Do* I have anything to say about Cuphead that nobody else has said before? Absolutely not but I did have a pretty good time. It's kinda funny, I was skill issued by this game for the longest time but then just the other day I decided to take another crack at it, and I ended up beating the entirety of the third isle and finishing the game in a matter of hours, so I'm not actually sure if I found the game very hard or not. I guess I didn't going off my recent experience. I'm at least not cooked enough to bore you by talking about how the game looks so we'll skip that part, I'll just say it's obviously very cool and impressive. I think many of Cuphead's bosses especially near the end achieve juggling tricks worthy of praise. There's a lot of stuff happening in many of them and only once (Dr. Kahl's Robot) did I ever think anything really got out of hand. I wouldn't say the game never makes you get a little creative with your choice of equipment you bring to each fight, though I will say I fell into a very reliable combination of the red shotgun-like shot and the purple lobber. It worked about 75% of the time, and the other 25% of the time I only had to change one of those two shots to something else, and I hardly even bothered touching the other charms and super arts. I'll be fair to it though, maybe you'd say this is a little bit like Doom's weapon balancing, where although just about every fight has certainly optimal weapon choices, really you can just do whatever you want and get away with it. Ok I guess I can kinda talk indirectly about the visuals. I'll admit on paper at least I'm not wild about the 1930's cartoon aesthetic, for no other reason than it's never exactly been my thing, but there are some pretty great applications of this aesthetic that'd only make sense in a game that looks Exactly Like This. Even effectively the first boss is a good example of this, where even after he dies you have to contend against a final phase with his gravestone. That's Cute! Probably my favourite example is the evident Tom and Jerry reference in the third isle, where the mouse (My research tells me he's named "Werner Werman") gets eaten by a cat that you have to fight for the final phase, and after you beat the cat it's revealed Mr. Werner Werman was piloting it as a mech the whole time. Well damn, I guess I did have at least something to say about Cuphead. I'm surprised by that. I do wish I could've played it co-op in some way though. I mean have you seen how much of Cuphead's art features Cuphead *and* Mugman side by side? Clearly MDHR meant something by that, right? Not even the Mario brothers are that close.