Cuphead (PS4)
7OK, so I'm a bit behind the times with this game, but I finally played Cuphead for the first time yesterday. It's every bit as incredible looking and sounding as I'd been lead to believe and, oh boy, it's every bit as difficult as well. This game amps the hardness factor up to 11 straight off the bat. Despite looking like a traditional run and gun game it's really more like a boss rush and most of the boss characters here feel like the sort of difficulty an end of game boss did back in the 16 bit days, especially with the whole multiple forms thing. Forest Follies, the opening run and gun level, and Botanic Panic, the first boss, initially weren't too bad, but as soon as I got to Ribby and Croaks and got spanked for almost an hour trying to beat them I knew this was going to be tough. Goopy Le Grand fortunately wasn't quite as difficult, but Hilda Berg put up one hell of a fight (Those damn UFOs in the final, incredible looking, stage of her form!).
I was going to leave it at that, but then picked it up again for a quick play later in the evening using Mugman. Treetop fury is actually my 2nd run through of that level, as I'd missed one of the coins at the end (I went back to the first Run and Gun to pick up the one coin I'd missed there too). And then finally (before I went to bed) Cagney Carnation, who I think proved to be the toughest boss so far. One of his seed attacks creates a flower that flies above you and is indestructible until it opens up and shoots at you. The seed is pink and sometime I was able to parry it, but more often than not I'd miss... The amount of times, though, that frigging thing spawned, just before the boss morphed into it's final form, was infuriating. You need to focus all your attention on what platforms are safe and which aren't at that point and having an invincible-until-it-opens-up-and-shoots-at-you residual left over from the boss's previous form at this point resulted in me dying so many times. Felt like kind of a cheap shot that the boss's previous attack drones from it's previous form didn't disappear in this last stage.
So yeah, mixed feelings on this. It looks incredible, but I don't know if I can be arsed persevering with such a brutal difficulty level. It does feel pretty awesome when you FINALLY manage to take a particularly difficult boss out though and the bosses themselves are amazing to look at. As Frustrating as Cagney was, there's something sort of mesmerising about the dance he does and I love the fact that when the level starts he looks all sweet and innocent. Hilda Berg's final form was mind blowing too.
Anyway, I've divided up the different boss fight and run and gun levels into chapters for anyone who's interested:
1: 00:00 - Title Screen
2: 00:57 - Forest Follies (Run and Gun)
3: 03:48 - Botanic Panic (The Root Pack)
4: 06:39 - Clip joint Calamity (Ribby and Croaks)
5: 10:49 - Masoleum 1
6: 13:08 - The Ruse of an Ooze (Goopy Le Grand)
7: 16:10 - Threatenin' Zepplin (Hilda Berg)
8: 19:39 -Treetop Trouble (Run and Gun)
9: 23:16 - Floral Fury - (Cagney Carnation)
#Cuphead #CupheadPS4 #RunAndGun