Cuphead Review | Green Ornstein's Bucket List Of Games

You know those games you always heard were ground-breaking and era-defining but you never got round to playing? The ones you know, as a devout gamer, you must experience at some point in your life? 

Have you piled up 50 or so of these games over the years and need an excuse to play through them? 

...No? 

Well I do!

Welcome to Green Ornstein’s Bucket List! Where we go through the classics, the gems, and the hyped to which we all went “Wow, I should play that...if I have time and it goes on sale”. 

Will these games ring true to their reputations or will all those recommendations have been for nothing? Either way, let’s have some fun.

Let’s kick off with a recent gem! *Cue ragtime music*

As an experienced Dark Souls (2011) player (*cough*I have a Platinum in Bloodborne (2015)*cough*) I am no stranger to difficulty in video games. While they can repeatedly crush your self-worth like a hammer made of crystallised failure, there’s nothing like a hard game to empower you with the will of an anime hero. “It doesn’t matter how many times I fail”, you proclaim “I’ll persevere and overcome every obstacle in my path!”

Having played the PS3/PS4 ports of the Souls games, however, I was armed with a properly mapped controller with professional, ergonomic design.

Studio MDHR's Cuphead (2017) afforded me no such luxury. I had a laptop keyboard and no option to add a mouse. It doesn’t sound like a massive difference, but to compare, this would be like playing Dark Souls but you have to lick your elbow to dodge-roll.

In any case...

The game follows the misadventures of Cuphead and his brother, Mugman (who has opted to extradite his name from the title due to sibling rivalry). After gambling at a casino owned by the Devil himself, they lose a bet which costs them their souls. Pleading for their lives, the Devil cuts them a deal: Gather up the souls of all those who are indebted to him, and they’ll be free. The brothers embark on a journey of giant battles and spectacular bosses, squeezed through the clenched glutes of good ol’, 1930s ‘toons.

Cuphead is certainly a game everyone should have on their radar. This is mainly down to the traditional, hand-drawn visuals that give you those nostalgia-bumps for early 20th Century Disney… or at least the 2 films remaining after you chisel off all the racist ones.  

It would be lovely to just take a stroll through the world of Cuphead. But given what I’ve learned since playing it, a stroll would probably result in my death-by-bludgeoning at the hands of a jaunty, humanoid flower.

This is when the real fun begins…

I would actually go so far as to say this game is harder than the Souls series; Mainly because with those, once you ‘git gud’ at one, you git gud at them all. They’re never not hard, but you know your preferred play style and get the gist of how most of the bosses work. Cuphead, on the other hand, is an indie platformer/bullet-hell shooter where you only have 3 health points and no recovery. By the end, you’ll yearn for that second of breathing space you got with the generous Capra Demon.

I can’t even remember what Cuphead’s controls were at the beginning, they were so atrocious and hard to remember. When you’re fighting a giant bird in a cuckoo clock who shoots feathers, cannonballs, and his own children at you, it’s hard to keep track of which key is the counter.

Take my advice: re-map the controls on your keyboard before you even start. Personally, I lay my left hand flat and had “jump” under my thumb and “fire” under my pinkie finger. 

Because trust me...

YOU’RE NEVER

NOT

FIRING!

Attacks are moderately customisable. You fire projectiles out of your finger, Yu-Yu Hakusho (1992-1994) style, and can change your loadout to whatever type of bullet fits the upcoming boss best. They’re all useful at some point against at least one of the bosses… well, except the one that fires boomerangs that just U-turn behind you, not adding a single kernel of contribution. The only positive thing I can say about that attack is when I tell it to fuck off, that’s technically what it does.

You can set one of 3 special attacks which I guarantee you will only remember you have before you die again. And even when you use it, you’ll question whether it actually did any damage. The equippable upgrades you can buy to help aren’t too great either. Though thankfully they can be sorted into 2, easy-to-remember categories: 

1. The ones that give you more health.
2. The useless ones.

But not even those will make the game any easier. It echoes the Dark Souls ethos of “upgrade yourself all you want; it ain’t gonna help ya”. And all customisation follows the boomerang projectiles out the window when you’re doing the plane levels. There’s little/no choice of attack when you’re in the plane and you have to take on half the bosses with it. 

No boss emphasises the audacity of the plane levels more than one: Dr. Kahl and the giant robot he pilots. After the 245.3rd failed attempt, that boss succeeded in purging all emotional attachment I had to The Iron Giant (1999).

But through all my frustrations (and the ones you will undoubtedly have, also) I feel that its upbeat tone and fantastic visuals make me smile and say “I can’t stay mad at you”. The benefit of being a smaller 2D indie game as opposed to a 3D open world is there’s less setup between each boss attempt, meaning you’re free to hit restart straight away; Whereas it’s basically thematic for Dark Souls to be as disheartening as possible. You journey for ages, praying you don’t get scraped by the smaller enemies and finally reach the boss arena, only to be instantly Bautista-bombed and die of shame.

Dark Souls could perhaps benefit from a tone similar to Cuphead - maybe have “YOU DIED” plaster the screen like the credits to Looney Tunes (1930-1969).

I’m glad it was on my bucket list and I would recommend you stick it on yours. Oh boy, it’ll be tough, but I guarantee nothing is as dopamine-inducing as Cuphead’s “level complete” music. If you do beat it, be proud of your achievement: you can probably slap it on your CV, alongside your Bloodborne Platinum and your long-standing maintenance of your virginity.

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Did someone mention Animal Crossing? Well yeah, I did. 

This is his first contribution, but should he be lucid enough to make more, check out Green Ornstein's content right here.

Oh yeah there's The Curmudgeon's Pieces too.