AX EAST: CUPHEAD: STILL STUNNING, STILL PUNISHING
Cuphead will, if nothing else, stop you dead in your tracks. The stunning bullet-hell, boss-rush side-scroller is like a playable 1930’s Steamboat Willie cartoon – right down to the smallest visual detail (though Cuphead is, of course, in glorious color). It’s dropped the jaw of anyone I’ve ever shown the trailer to, including non-gamer family members.
But it’s not been seen since last year’s E3. Though the concrete still isn’t dry on its release date (in fact, it arguably hasn’t even been poured yet), it nevertheless is back out on tour at PAX East in order to remind everyone that, visually, it stands second to none.
I played two-player co-op with creator Chad Moldenhauer, who, along with his brother Jared and his wife Maja, all quit their day jobs in order to go all-in on Cuphead and a hopeful future as video game developers. Since we last saw it, Cuphead has mercifully added an Easy mode (and before you thump your chest and declare that an Easy mode is only for wimps, know that, to date, Cuphead has gleefully broken the spirits of nearly everyone who’s played it, and no one has escaped completely unscathed). The difficulty also scales based on whether you’re playing by yourself or in co-op. In addition, the Moldenhauers and their tiny team of about a dozen have increased the scope of the game, implementing a series of traditional side-scrolling platforming stages as a break from the punishing back-to-back boss rushes.
Sadly those new areas aren’t in the PAX demo, but I nevertheless let Chad Moldenhauer guide me through a hands-on tour (on Normal difficulty) of some new bosses and boss forms we haven’t seen before. First there was the full version of the carrot boss battle we’ve seen before, this time showing the vegetable-from-Hell’s final form: an onion that will crush you if you’re not quick.
A giant flower boss, meanwhile, is anything but pretty. It hurls pods and seeds at you, the latter of which plant in the ground and sprout up, a la Super Mario Bros. Piranha Plants. A giant bouncing blue ball will splat you underneath before taking its final form as a mammoth gravestone that tips over to flatten you. And then in “A Threatenin’ Zeppelin,” Cuphead channels R-Type and becomes a shmup. A “Betty Boop from Hell” literally attacks you with laughter before ultimately transforming into the meanest moon you’ve ever seen.
Finally, there’s the new shop, where you can spend the currency earned from defeating bosses. You’ll have the option to buy and equip battle-assisting power-ups, such as an extra hit point (PRO TIP: CHOOSE THIS!), a charm that lets you dash invulnerably, a homing beacon that nudges every shot you take towards your target, and more.
Cuphead continues to amaze me, but at the same time it’s also nearing that hard-to-quantify point where it needs to set a release date, stick to it, and let the full game do the talking. Hopefully we won’t have to wait much longer.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/04/22/pax-east-cuphead-still-stunning-still-punishing
