The advantage of retrieving titles with a few days of delay is to get more or less prepared for comparison: read reviews, watch videos, and realize what kind of experience you will be facing.
With Cuphead this process was very interesting, thanks to a very positive but also slightly controversial welcome, especially by those players who consider the game developed by the Moldenhauer brothers very difficult and in some ways prohibitive.
Whoever wounds, cup perishes
We start from the basics, fundamental to be able to go deeper into the analysis. Cuphead is a Run And Gun game, not a Platform. The substantial difference is represented by weapons, the only method useful to kill enemies. On Platform, for example, you can jump to the head. If we wanted to make concrete examples, Cupheadbelongs to the same genre as the legendary Contra and the latest and iconic Metal Slug.
The game is divided into three islands plus a bonus; each of them consists of boss fight, run and gun levels and some bonus stages. Obviously, as you all know, boss-fighting is the main dynamic of the title. These particular levels are divided into several parts, represented by the various evolution of the bad guy in the turn (from three to five, on average). Dying will force you to start over again.
Cuphead’sgameplayseems to be immediate but actually will be very well assimilated: the main discriminant is represented by the different patterns of attack of the enemies. Once understood, you can plan a strategy that is appropriate to the situation.
Obviously when we talk about “learning” it means, in soldoons, to die several times until we have memorized the various movements well. It is not always so, and the difficulty is not scalable, in the sense that it will not increase island in the island. Each boss fight is therefore a separate parenthesis, which will require skill and speed of thought.
However, the structure of the game also includes the possibility of purchasing weapons and objects that allow you to somehow boost it, although it is not really so and now we explain why. In Cuphead there are no stronger weapons than others, but only different. This means that having all the available arsenal will not give us any advantage in terms of statistics, but rather will give us “only” the ability to build the most suitable build for the boss in turn. Some will require tracing shots, some classic ones, and so on. In short, a gameplay that behind an arcade soul brings with it a more than pleasing array of options that stimulate the player to diversify their mindset and approach. Once you ‘ve all liked it, Cuphead is it really that hard?
Yes, and also no. The tediosity of some levels is undeniable, just as one can not ignore the process of absorption and understanding of the various boss attacks that for some may prove to be too demanding. But Cuphead is never frustrating, on the contrary, it poses the difficulty that viscerally stimulates the improvement: both from the point of view of skill but also the construction of the equipment, although in some ways this feature is very basic.
In short, those players who are more familiar with the genre will immediately understand how to face the Cuphead experience and will live a faster learning curve, despite the difficulties they will have to face. On the other hand, we say that the game of the Moldenhauer brothers will never let you down, rather it will spur you to improve.
During our gaming sessions we have experienced difficult times, but we never have the idea of turning off the console and giving up. This is not the soul of Cuphead, and above all, he never communicates. Helped also by an art section that will keep you glued to the screen.
