Cuphead

Cuphead is a cognitive dissonance simulator. First, you admire these cute graphics in the spirit of Disney cartoons from the beginning of the last century, incredibly smooth animation, beautiful backgrounds and funny characters, and then you try to play.

And gods, it would be better if you just admired the funny animation and beautiful graphics.

Don't deal with the Devil!

Once upon a time there was Cuphead, an ordinary boy, only instead of a head he had a mug. It's okay, in the world of Cuphead this is quite normal. One day, he and his brother Magmen find themselves in a casino, which is not at all meaningless called the "Devil's Casino". He starts to be lucky with those, and as a result, the owner of the gambling establishment appears.

The devil offers Cuphead a special game. The stakes are incredibly high. If Cuphead wins, then the whole casino goes to him. If he loses, then he gives the Devil his soul. Relying on luck, Cuphead rolls the dice ... and understandably, now he turns out to be the servant of the master of evil. But the brothers ask the Devil to spare them.

Then the Devil sends them to work as collectors - to visit various characters who have become debtors of the master of evil, and take their souls away. True, these creatures are at least strong and powerful, if the devil himself does not order them. So Cuphead and Magmen will have to do their best to get out of debt.

Cuphead is clearly not a game for children

Cuphead is a classic jerk-em-up, like those that came out on consoles when they were called "consoles", only with an absolutely incredible style. The developers managed to convey the setting of classic Disney cartoons and similar studios from the first half of the last century, from drawing characters to musical accompaniment, only accompanied it with truly furious action and complex gameplay, so you have to run through the levels over and over again and try to find special tactics to fight particularly vicious bosses.

A feast for the eyes that comes with Cuphead is primarily due to the incredible work that went into making the game. Everything from the backdrops to the characters is hand-drawn on paper, and the animators have used the most traditional animation techniques, such as transparencies with characters that are overlaid on colored backgrounds. As a result, both graphics and movements are not “made in the style of Disney”. These are real, full-fledged cartoons, you just need to control the characters manually.

Yes, even the soundtrack was recorded by a real jazz orchestra! As a result, the development of Cuphead took 7 (seven!) Years. But the result is also appropriate. Every Cuphead frame can now be printed on a sheet and hung on the wall. Well, or record the gameplay and watch it like a cartoon - choose yourself.

However, they won't let us admire the beauty for a long time. Cuphead is a very difficult game. There are always dozens of opponents, each with special skills, and two-thirds of the gameplay is just a fight with bosses. At the same time, there are a lot of gameplay mechanics themselves: vertical and horizontal platforming, tracking threats that appear at the level, checking for accuracy of shooting, hard timers, the need to observe multitasking ... Wonderful windows with the inscription You Died! you will have to see it very often, and after each death of the character - again, everything is classic - it is thrown to the beginning of the level.

Cuphead Bosses

So, Cuphead is a clown em-up with boss rush elements, so two-thirds of the gameplay is devoted to fighting big, dangerous, but extremely unusual opponents. There are several dozen of them here. They are located on four islands:

• The first ink island. Here you will meet a big blue blob, a gang of root vegetables (potatoes, onions and carrots), frogs-fighters, a girl-airship, an aggressive flower;
• Second Ink Island. The Devil Clown, Genie, Candy Baroness, Green Dragon, Clock Cuckoo are waiting here;
• Third Ink Island. Inhabited by a huge bee, a rat in a tank, a pirate captain, a mermaid, just an aggressive woman, a train with ghost passengers, a large robot and its creator, a mad scientist;
• Ink hell. Here you will face the most dangerous bosses in the game - King Dice (anthropomorphic cube) and the devil.

With the latter, however, you can not fight. But then the so-called "bad" ending will come, and it turns out that all the previous passage was for nothing. So it's better to fight after all.

And now - an important point. If you select the low difficulty level before starting the game, Ink Hell will not be available. So you have to either run the world first, or choose a higher difficulty level, and enjoy all the hardcore Cuphead. And this is clearly not a game for beginners.