You take on a series of tough boss fights drawn in a hand-painted style meant to look like 1930s cartoons, running and jumping around a boss while looking for the right moment to counter or dodge their attacks. There is very little regular exploration, it is mostly boss after boss. Expect to lose many times before winning a single fight, since it is built to be difficult from the start.
Gameplay video
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Screenshots & review notes
The short version
It set a new bar for what indie animation could look like, and the fact that it backs that up with genuinely excellent boss design is almost greedy. A visual and mechanical triumph.
In the hands
Boss rush structure means there's little downtime between brutal, pattern-memorization fights, and the difficulty rarely lets up. Parries and a well-timed dash go a long way once you learn the rhythm.
Look and sound
Every frame looks hand-inked straight out of a 1930s cartoon, complete with a big band score that never lets the tension drop. It's a technical showcase disguised as a run-and-gun.
The long haul
Local co-op softens the difficulty curve nicely for friends willing to suffer together. Recommended for anyone chasing a real challenge, less so for players allergic to trial and error.
Frames captured from the gameplay video above; notes are our own take on the game.
What it's like to play
You play Cuphead or his brother Mugman, tiny cartoon characters drawn in the style of a 1930s animated short, walking and jumping through a hand-inked world set to a live jazz band recording. You move with the left stick, jump and shoot with two buttons, and can duck a shot into a slower parry-able pink attack, which the game uses to teach a rhythm of dodging and countering rather than just running and gunning. Most levels are built entirely around one boss fight, and within your first few minutes you'll already be facing off against a giant vegetable or an angry frog with multiple distinct attack patterns.
Each boss fight unfolds in phases, so a fight you fail early can still surprise you later once the boss changes its whole attack pattern, and learning to recognize and react to each phase is the entire point of the game. A single boss can take anywhere from a few tries to dozens of attempts before you finally beat it, and a full playthrough of every boss and stage runs eight to fifteen hours depending on how much the difficulty slows you down. A second player can join at any time as Mugman for co-op, which softens the challenge somewhat but adds its own chaos.
The difficulty is the game's defining feature, expecting real memorization and repeated failure before most bosses go down, which will frustrate anyone hoping for a casual runthrough. The hand drawn animation and swinging soundtrack make even repeated failures pleasant to watch and listen to. If you enjoy tough boss-focused challenges and want something that looks and sounds unlike anything else on the console, this is a standout, though patience is required.