Cuphead: Hand-Drawn Run and Gun Action Built Around Boss Fights
A losing streak at the Devil's casino leaves two brothers owing him their souls. To get out of the deal, Cuphead and Mugman have to cross Inkwell Isle and take back contracts from debtors who skipped town, and every one of those debtors is a boss.
Play alternates between compact platforming stages and duels against enemies that fill most of the screen, all drawn in the style of 1930s cartoons.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
- Boss fights with several phases - Every world is built around boss duels, and most of them run through three phases, each with different attacks. Enemies show no health bars, so the only sign of progress is the moment a pattern shifts. The final casino chains a series of mini-bosses into one long gauntlet.
- Presentation that collected awards - The animation runs at 24 frames per second, the standard for American film, while the game itself plays at 60. At The Game Awards 2017 it won Best Art Direction and Best Independent Game, and its music took a British Academy Games Award. The soundtrack album later became the first video game release to reach number one on Billboard's jazz albums chart.
- Failure costs very little -Lives are unlimited and equipment carries over after every defeat. Loading is quick, a point GameSpot's reviewer singled out as helpful for trial and error.
Story and Lore
Elder Kettle looks after Cuphead and Mugman on Inkwell Isle, and he has told them to stay away from the Devil's Casino. They go anyway. A winning streak at the craps table ends when the Devil offers them the whole casino if they win one more roll, with their souls as the stake, and Cuphead throws snake eyes. Begging earns a second deal: bring back the soul contracts of the Devil's runaway debtors by midnight of the following day.
Elder Kettle sends the brothers off with a potion that lets them fire energy blasts from their fingers, and warns that the debtors will not hand anything over willingly. As the duo grows stronger, he urges them to choose well when they finally face the Devil. That choice is a real fork in the ending.
- Inkwell Isles One to Three: the brothers' home turf, where each island has its own debtors and stages.
- Inkwell Hell: the casino where the whole affair begins and ends.
- Inkwell Isle Four: a separate island added by the expansion, with its own storyline.
That storyline begins when the Legendary Chalice, a spirit freed from one of the mausoleums in the main game, calls the brothers to the new island. A baker named Chef Saltbaker has a recipe for a Wondertart that could give her a body again, and the ingredients are held by the island's hostile residents.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Levels are picked from a top-down overworld that hides secret areas of its own. Two kinds of stage make up the game: boss arenas, and run and gun levels where the brothers shoot their way from left to right. Coins turn up in stages and on the overworld, and some boss fights put the brothers in aeroplanes and turn into side-scrolling shoot 'em ups.
Parrying pink objects feeds the super meter, which is displayed as a row of five playing cards. One card powers an EX version of the equipped weapon, while a full meter is spent on a Super Art. The base game has three of those: Energy Beam, Invincibility and Giant Ghost. Each one is earned by entering a mausoleum in one of the first three worlds and parrying the ghosts that rush toward an urn.
- Peashooter – the default shot, long range with average damage.
- Spread fires a short-range fan that hits hardest up close.
- Chaser homes in on the nearest target but deals below-average damage.
- Lobber: arcing shots that bounce along the ground, fired slowly.
- Roundabout throws a boomerang that comes back after flying out.
- Charge: a single bullet whose damage grows the longer the button is held.
Charms in the base game are Smoke Bomb, Heart, P. Sugar, Coffee, Twin Heart and Whetstone. Only a limited number of weapons and charms can be equipped at a time.
Difficulty is chosen per boss. Simple, Regular and Expert are all available, but Simple cannot advance the story: each boss must be beaten on Regular before the game moves on, and that win unlocks Expert for the same fight. The last two bosses have no Simple setting at all.
Characters and Factions
Cuphead and Mugman are the playable brothers. In single player either can be selected, and in co-op each player takes one.
- Inkwell Isle locals: Elder Kettle, who watches over the brothers and hands them the potion behind their shots, and Porkrind, who keeps the shop where weapons and charms are sold.
- The Devil's casino: The Devil himself and King Dice, his right-hand man, who runs the last stretch of boss fights before the final confrontation.
- The debtors: Each carries a soul contract and a boss fight: the Root Pack, Baroness Von Bon Bon, Beppi the Clown, Djimmi the Great, Sally Stageplay, Captain Brineybeard and the mermaid Cala Maria are among them.
- Expansion cast: Chef Saltbaker, the baker with the Wondertart recipe, and island bosses such as the ice cult leader Mortimer Freeze and the corrupted sheriff Esther Winchester.
Ms. Chalice belongs to the expansion cast but plays differently from everyone else. Equipping the Astral Cookie charm swaps her in for one of the brothers, and she trades the slap parry for a double jump, a parry dash and an invincible roll.
Editions
Two products make up the game on PC, and Steam also sells them together.
- Cuphead: The complete base campaign, from the first island to the Devil.
- Cuphead – The Delicious Last Course: An expansion released on June 30, 2022, that needs the base game. It adds Inkwell Isle Four, Ms. Chalice, the Converge, Crackshot and Twist-Up weapons, and new charms such as Astral Cookie, Broken Relic and Heart Ring. Once unlocked, Ms. Chalice can also be used in the original campaign.
- Cuphead & The Delicious Last Course: Steam's bundle of the base game and the expansion in a single purchase.