Never have I played a game that nails what it wants to be so much. Cuphead is a beautiful game, with amazing ambiance thanks to memorable music, characters that are full of charm and beautiful animation work.
Gameplay can however be hurt by this. Shooting is very imprecise, as any projectile coming at you from an odd angle will be in the deadzone of your basic shot. In order to fill the base shots problems though, you can buy different shots, that cover a wider range, or even are guided to potential targets. However, I have two problems with these. Firstly, you need to buy these in a shop, and I feel like the item descriptions in said shop really don't do a good job. Having short videos to show what the shot does would've been favorable in my opinion. Secondly, I do feel like the base shot should be more versatile than it is, because in a game like cuphead, with so much going on at the same time, you need to be able to react quickly. I understand why they didn't give you full 360° degree shooting (that would be dreadful), but maybe having 12 directions rather than 8 would've been better.
Also, the game sometimes wants to do too much visually speaking. There is a fight in the game against a bee, the bottom of the screen is covered by a transparent yellow liquid which bubbles and moves around, like a sea agitated by waves, and honey is falling from the sides of the screen. The background is also more agitated than a lot of the fights in the game. The thing is, all this info is useless: the honey doesn't hurt you, neither does the yellow liquid, and the background is just decor. This fight is a prime example of the game putting style over gameplay: there is way too much going on, making it really hard to focus on the fight because so much movement is going on, begging for your eyeballs' attention.
Also, the game often traps you into taking damage unfairly. Basically, the boss fights often have independant factors form the main enemy running around (smaller enemies, decor collapsing etc...) and the game isn't programmed in a way to stop those two independant elements from traping the player. So basically, you could have a crumbling decor not allowing you to jump above you and a projectile that requires you to jump to avoid it activated at the same time, leading to frustrating damage.
I found it immensily frustrating that only two jump heights exist, with no "small jump" option. It made some sections quite frustrating.
Finally, 4/6 run and gun levels suck ass.
Cuphead is really amazing, and is a title worthy of the praise it gets for its visuals and general ambiance. However, in gameplay, some weird choices about mechanics can lead to a lot fo frustrating deaths. Maybe it's a skill issue, but I really do believe that this game could've been way less frustrating than what it is.
Gameplay can however be hurt by this. Shooting is very imprecise, as any projectile coming at you from an odd angle will be in the deadzone of your basic shot. In order to fill the base shots problems though, you can buy different shots, that cover a wider range, or even are guided to potential targets. However, I have two problems with these. Firstly, you need to buy these in a shop, and I feel like the item descriptions in said shop really don't do a good job. Having short videos to show what the shot does would've been favorable in my opinion. Secondly, I do feel like the base shot should be more versatile than it is, because in a game like cuphead, with so much going on at the same time, you need to be able to react quickly. I understand why they didn't give you full 360° degree shooting (that would be dreadful), but maybe having 12 directions rather than 8 would've been better.
Also, the game sometimes wants to do too much visually speaking. There is a fight in the game against a bee, the bottom of the screen is covered by a transparent yellow liquid which bubbles and moves around, like a sea agitated by waves, and honey is falling from the sides of the screen. The background is also more agitated than a lot of the fights in the game. The thing is, all this info is useless: the honey doesn't hurt you, neither does the yellow liquid, and the background is just decor. This fight is a prime example of the game putting style over gameplay: there is way too much going on, making it really hard to focus on the fight because so much movement is going on, begging for your eyeballs' attention.
Also, the game often traps you into taking damage unfairly. Basically, the boss fights often have independant factors form the main enemy running around (smaller enemies, decor collapsing etc...) and the game isn't programmed in a way to stop those two independant elements from traping the player. So basically, you could have a crumbling decor not allowing you to jump above you and a projectile that requires you to jump to avoid it activated at the same time, leading to frustrating damage.
I found it immensily frustrating that only two jump heights exist, with no "small jump" option. It made some sections quite frustrating.
Finally, 4/6 run and gun levels suck ass.
Cuphead is really amazing, and is a title worthy of the praise it gets for its visuals and general ambiance. However, in gameplay, some weird choices about mechanics can lead to a lot fo frustrating deaths. Maybe it's a skill issue, but I really do believe that this game could've been way less frustrating than what it is.