I said I'd review it. And I'm keeping a promise. I've already beaten Cuphead, now here's the review!
In this day in age. Everyone loves the cartoons of the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s. Whenever someone tries to recreate the golden age of animation, there are times they dont get what made the golden age good in the first place. They try too hard to be like it without doing their own thing with it(e.g Tiny Toons, Wacky World of Tex Avery to name a few). One video game has managed to do the impossible, be its own thing while taking some pointers from the golden age of animation. The video game in question is Cuphead.
The game was announced in 2014, all that was there was a trailer. Cuphead heavily stood out from the rest of the video games that were revealed for its 2D hand-drawn art style. It started as mostly a boss rush game, after the surprising amount of positive acclaim that was given from critics and gamers alike. Studio MDHR decided to add some platforming levels to make things even out for the game. The game was delayed a couple of times, Cuphead was then released on September 29th of 2017.
Now what's this game about? Cuphead and his brother Mugman take a bet with the devil in gambling, both of them lose, in order to get out of the debt, they got to get the soul contracts from various characters across the game that are in debt to the devil as well. What makes this video game fun is that it's always willing to throw you a challenge when you least expect it. Its filled with a lot of surprises from the various bosses that you have to fight. None of them are the same when it comes to attack patterns. It feels very much inspired by games such as Contra and gunstar heroes.
One major positive thing I want to say about the game here is its animation. Rather than go fully digital, they went with old school animating here. Every character animation in this game was done by hand and inked traditionally(while the coloring of the game's character animation is colored digitally) including beautifully crafted watercolor backgrounds to give it that 'feel' you're watching an old animated short from the mid 1930s(they even went out of their way to get the effects of old film in this game). One of my favorite levels in the game are the boss fights between the dragon Grim Matchwick(named after animator Grim Natwick who worked for the Fleischer studio, and some random trivia was the creator of Betty boop) and djimi the great is that the game's background changes to a 3D esque background. In some of the Fleischer cartoons(notably the Popeye shorts from Flesicher), the background would change from a painted background to a 3D like background set that was made by hand to give it a different 'feel' to it. Like looking at a fully crafted background you'd see in a stop-motion film. Here's a comparison from the Grim Matchwick boss and a scene from the two reeler popeye cartoon POPEYE MEETS SINBAD THE SAILOR(that uses the background technique I mentioned before).
![[Image: tumblr_oxwdvsK1321rx9er0o1_1280.jpg]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/e2c5db47b128ad15b22bb936e4ebc4c7/tumblr_oxwdvsK1321rx9er0o1_1280.jpg)
This only appears in two boss fights, but it made me happy that Studio MDHR got this part down for the game. The only downside to this game isn't the game itself, its the gaming journalists who spend too much time on realistic video games to realize that there are more video games out there that are just hack and slash fantasy. If anyone asks, yes, I got through the tutorial stage in a snap, it's not that difficult.
This is a game that truly does pay homage to what it was inspired by. It does its own thing, and I tip my hat off to the people who worked on this game. I hope if a sequel does happen, they go for the Tex Avery approach(in terms of animation and humor but with a touch that they think is right) for the game. In the end I can highly recommend you playing this game. If you loved the golden age cartoons, loved playing games like Contra and Gunstar heroes. Then this is the game for you. Buy it in its full glory. Its worth every cent. The people who worked on this did their best to make a great video game.
In this day in age. Everyone loves the cartoons of the golden age of the 1930s and 1940s. Whenever someone tries to recreate the golden age of animation, there are times they dont get what made the golden age good in the first place. They try too hard to be like it without doing their own thing with it(e.g Tiny Toons, Wacky World of Tex Avery to name a few). One video game has managed to do the impossible, be its own thing while taking some pointers from the golden age of animation. The video game in question is Cuphead.
The game was announced in 2014, all that was there was a trailer. Cuphead heavily stood out from the rest of the video games that were revealed for its 2D hand-drawn art style. It started as mostly a boss rush game, after the surprising amount of positive acclaim that was given from critics and gamers alike. Studio MDHR decided to add some platforming levels to make things even out for the game. The game was delayed a couple of times, Cuphead was then released on September 29th of 2017.
Now what's this game about? Cuphead and his brother Mugman take a bet with the devil in gambling, both of them lose, in order to get out of the debt, they got to get the soul contracts from various characters across the game that are in debt to the devil as well. What makes this video game fun is that it's always willing to throw you a challenge when you least expect it. Its filled with a lot of surprises from the various bosses that you have to fight. None of them are the same when it comes to attack patterns. It feels very much inspired by games such as Contra and gunstar heroes.
One major positive thing I want to say about the game here is its animation. Rather than go fully digital, they went with old school animating here. Every character animation in this game was done by hand and inked traditionally(while the coloring of the game's character animation is colored digitally) including beautifully crafted watercolor backgrounds to give it that 'feel' you're watching an old animated short from the mid 1930s(they even went out of their way to get the effects of old film in this game). One of my favorite levels in the game are the boss fights between the dragon Grim Matchwick(named after animator Grim Natwick who worked for the Fleischer studio, and some random trivia was the creator of Betty boop) and djimi the great is that the game's background changes to a 3D esque background. In some of the Fleischer cartoons(notably the Popeye shorts from Flesicher), the background would change from a painted background to a 3D like background set that was made by hand to give it a different 'feel' to it. Like looking at a fully crafted background you'd see in a stop-motion film. Here's a comparison from the Grim Matchwick boss and a scene from the two reeler popeye cartoon POPEYE MEETS SINBAD THE SAILOR(that uses the background technique I mentioned before).
This only appears in two boss fights, but it made me happy that Studio MDHR got this part down for the game. The only downside to this game isn't the game itself, its the gaming journalists who spend too much time on realistic video games to realize that there are more video games out there that are just hack and slash fantasy. If anyone asks, yes, I got through the tutorial stage in a snap, it's not that difficult.
This is a game that truly does pay homage to what it was inspired by. It does its own thing, and I tip my hat off to the people who worked on this game. I hope if a sequel does happen, they go for the Tex Avery approach(in terms of animation and humor but with a touch that they think is right) for the game. In the end I can highly recommend you playing this game. If you loved the golden age cartoons, loved playing games like Contra and Gunstar heroes. Then this is the game for you. Buy it in its full glory. Its worth every cent. The people who worked on this did their best to make a great video game.