Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, review of the highly anticipated expansion

Cuphead is great. It’s not the mechanics that make him happy run and shootIt is the bewilderment of what is in a certain sense just a pretext, but which is precisely to find itself an unusual and personal aesthetic, avant-garde and at the same time deeply nostalgic. from American cartoons of the 20s / 30s). The curiosity to see all the bosses and all the gorgeous animations hand-drawn by Studio MDHR artists is the driving force of the whole experience, so satisfying it is the real, great pleasure you feel while playing. It should be said that it also works well as a game in itself, although it lacks who knows what original elements, but it is the beauty that emerges from each frame that inspires the player and keeps him in front of the screen until the end. and beyond.

The game’s first and possibly only expansion has the same strengths, as you’ll discover by reading below, given the time it took to produce it. Cuphead review: Delicious Final Course.

Lady Goblet

Cuphead: Delicious Final Course a more of the same plain and simple, but in this case in a good way. Considering Cuphead, it could be seen as a new season in a successful series, by all appropriate proportions. Basically the game remains the same, but expanded with a new island home to extremely difficult bosses. But let’s go in order. The fourth island is not immediately accessible after installation. That is, if you already have an advanced rescue, where you passed the first shrine, where you met. Lady Goblet. From then on, it becomes possible to reach between the three islands of the main game by boat, which is always used for fast movement. Miss Chalice is the true heroine of the adventure, not only because she is a playable character, but also because she is the engine of the entire story.

Attention, because in the next paragraph we will have to give some small previews of the Cuphead plot essential to understanding the DLC. Well, if you haven’t played it yet… what are you waiting for? Come on, don’t stay here and waste your time.

As you can understand if you’ve read this far, Kadehi Hanım is a ghost who lives in shrines and helps Cuphead and Mugman by giving them strength. On the fourth island, Pinzimonio Salieri, a very famous cook, has succeeded in preparing biscuits that bring ghosts to life. Unfortunately, its effects are time-limited, but the gentle walrus claims to know a recipe that will make the girl’s return to the physical world permanent. The problem is that the ingredients to craft it are scattered all over the island and are in the hands of some dreaded boss who will do anything to put sticks between the grips of our heroes.

bosses

Ms. To use the chalice, you must choose the Salieri biscuit, which is called astral cookies, as an amulet. Although she resembles the original two heroes in essential features, the cheerful girl has unique abilities that make her quite different to use. Meanwhile, she fends off with a sprint, not a double jump. She also has a roll that makes her immortal and an extra life point. These extras are used in order not to miss other amulets, which obviously cannot be selected with it. DLC, Ms. In addition to Chalice, it adds new weapons and talismans that can also be used in older levels. These are variants of the original weapons (slower but more powerful search attack, longer range triple shot, etc.), like the others, more or less useful depending on the boss. In reality weapons aren’t really transcendent (variations of the ancients) and we didn’t find the amulets very useful as we almost always played with Miss Chalice.

Talking about ManagerThe DLC adds a total of five plus a final showdown, and as stated, they’re all very difficult. In fact, the difficulty is already so high on Normal difficulty that it’s pretty obvious to experienced players how the new content is designed. Each boss has multiple stages, all with different animations; this forces you to practice multiple tactics within the same fight and change them accordingly. The variety is huge, including snow-capped mountain-dwelling giants, ice mages, and more. In addition to the normal bosses that produce the materials, there is also a special challenge against the chess-inspired bosses, which instead serves to get very useful gold coins, from which you buy items (same as in the game). basis).

In this game, which we can consider as a bonus stage, you have to defeat four bosses by using only defenders, trying to understand when to use them and how to avoid the attacks of the enemy in the mission. There’s no missing at the end Manager You will be challenged in a classic shooter level: a friendly nerd that literally makes you spit blood. As usual, once the bosses are defeated, it’s possible to challenge them on the highest difficulty level to extend the game time.

Beauty

It is not difficult to be stunned by the content of Cuphead, and thus of Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course. graphic, when you realize that something like this is literally unrepeatable. Looking at moving images, we can define them as an artisanal experience where it is possible to clearly see the inspiration, effort and joy of those who made them frame by frame. This is an impossible feeling to experience in front of even more technically advanced games because it comes from the very experience of beauty that reaches such heights in epidermal and Cuphead. In this sense, The Delicious Final Course is an excellent addition to an already rich picture, showing once again the talent of Studio MDHR artists and how their refusal to bow to the logic of more efficient production has led to the creation of the perfect add-on. in the package to expand the game.

As in this case, the experience is not intrinsically enriched, because new contents are born from the same passion that led to the realization of the entire project. What more could you want?