Cuphead: Retro Animation Meets Hardcore Gaming

Cuphead is a very hard game, but fun nonetheless. It is not only amazing to watch but also and above all a marvel to play. This game can be placed in the same category as Gunstar Heroes, Metal Slug and other great exponents of the genre.

The Cuphead Game Mechanics

Cuphead’s mechanics are few and really simple to explain. Our unlikely hero can jump, shoot in eight directions and sprint left or right and jump on pink objects. By pressing the jump button twice when you are landing on a pink object, a so-called “parry” is executed. This blows Cuphead again and adds a card to the super meter. The cup brothers have a total of six powers, which they shoot from their fingers.

At first you only have a basic grapeshot attack, but by spending coins you can buy special attacks. These attacks includes a charged attack, slow and powerful. An automatic targeting attack that makes aiming unnecessary but does little damage. Other attacks include wavy spheres, with a short range of action, but with good power. Boomerangs that give excellent coverage from weaker enemies, both frontally and from behind and a classic three-way attack.

The Cuphead Experience

Certainly what captures you, at least initially, is the retro cartoonish aspect of the game. A subversive, surrealist, hallucinated and at times even openly esoteric soul. This perfectly embodies the spirit of an era now very distant from ours. In Cuphead there is then all the creative verve of the ’30s. There are the suggestions of an imagery so colorful but at the same time dark and seductive. There are explicit allusions to gambling, alcohol, tobacco, death and the Devil himself. Imagine a fulminating journey into an era that belongs to the past.

Masterfully punctuated by ragtime sounds and experienced through the distorted perspective of a cartoon with theatrical poses and irresistible moves that often recall grotesque ballets. In this first work of Studio MDHR, there is something intangible yet very palpable. Something mysterious that can pierce the screen to get straight to your chest. Perhaps it is because of the indisputable charm of the maniacal authenticity at the basis of a project. Considering that it is built also in terms of production starting from proudly very little modern methods.

The Cuphead Creative Process

Cuphead was in fact made entirely by hand, drawing on an unimaginable amount of sheets of paper and then painting them. Step by step, frame by frame – 24 per second to be precise, interpolated in any way on a 60fps frame rate. The moving elements have been scanned and colored digitally, but only and only because the difference compared to the coloring is almost indistinguishable. The final result is, in fact, a sort of bewitching spell that seriously leaves you breathless. Evocative watercolor landscapes are the background to excellent animations, with incredible characters characterized by exaggerated movements and simply phantasmagoric transitions. To complete an already memorable picture, the game has a sublime soundtrack made up of almost three hours of unpublished pieces. These pieces were composed and recorded for the occasion by a jazz orchestra of over a dozen elements.

The Final Verdict

But what is it like, after so many laudable intentions in the name of the most advanced craftsmanship, to play an old cartoon from the 1930s? Without beating about the bush, an unforgettable experience. As previously anticipated, Cuphead shines in fact for the superfine quality of the controls, for the excellent game design and for the stellar gameplay. The core of the offer remains without a doubt the choreographic clashes with the thirty bosses. Speaking of head-to-head with bosses: the solutions designed by the Moldenhauer brothers are nothing less than brilliant.

With a dose of creativity and inventiveness to frankly leave you speechless. In several hours of play there is no fight equal to another, and indeed the amount of situations that the diabolical Canadians have been able to invent starting from an almost elementary gameplay framework, basically based on three mechanics (jump , shooting and dodging, plus the ability to interact with all the pink-colored objects by performing a quick double jump with the right timing).