The obvious thing to start of with is the incredible charming and cute art style. They really nailed the old Steamboat Willie Disney both visually and auditory. It gives the game an astronomical amount of personality and the variety in enemies and level design keeps the game fresh and exciting throughout.
The cliché is to call this the Disney version of Dark Souls, which I feel does a disservice to both Cuphead and Dark Souls. The only thing they have in common is a similar approach to difficulty and boss design. That's about it. What I mean by this is that both games approach boss design by making it difficult but ultimately fair. Every boss can be beaten without taking damage with enough skill and, most importantly practice. This makes it less frustrating when you fail because you tend to blame yourself rather than the game being unfair. "If I hadn't jumped at that time then I would've probably done it" or "I need to make sure to not get greedy after he does that particular attack" are just some of the reasonings you employ after a fair and honest defeat in order to improve and, pardon my french, git gud.
One gripe I have with the game is that the parry mechanic seems to be slightly bugged during co-op. I played this with my brother and everytime we tried to parry the same object at the same time, one of us simply didn't. This made it very frustrating during certain levels when you had to parry something in order to make a particular jump or avoid an attack. Whether this is intentional or just an oversight, nevertheless it made the game feel less adapted to cooperative play rather than singleplayer.
I also feel like the majority of the weapons and abilities that you could buy in the shop was not very useful. As soon as you got 'chaser' and didn't have to aim anymore, that was it for all other weapons since you usually have to be on the move for most bosses. I'll admit that this can just as easily just be me and my particular playstyle, or the fact that I played this in co-op.
Overall though, it's a great game that I would highly recommend. It's a super charming delight for both your visual and auditory senses, and with a fair but challenging difficulty the gameplay excels in a the right ways. It's a fantastic game for local co-op, something that sadly has become more and more rare with time; though the cooperative side just needs a few tweaks when it comes to how the parry mechanic works. Get this if you can!
The cliché is to call this the Disney version of Dark Souls, which I feel does a disservice to both Cuphead and Dark Souls. The only thing they have in common is a similar approach to difficulty and boss design. That's about it. What I mean by this is that both games approach boss design by making it difficult but ultimately fair. Every boss can be beaten without taking damage with enough skill and, most importantly practice. This makes it less frustrating when you fail because you tend to blame yourself rather than the game being unfair. "If I hadn't jumped at that time then I would've probably done it" or "I need to make sure to not get greedy after he does that particular attack" are just some of the reasonings you employ after a fair and honest defeat in order to improve and, pardon my french, git gud.
One gripe I have with the game is that the parry mechanic seems to be slightly bugged during co-op. I played this with my brother and everytime we tried to parry the same object at the same time, one of us simply didn't. This made it very frustrating during certain levels when you had to parry something in order to make a particular jump or avoid an attack. Whether this is intentional or just an oversight, nevertheless it made the game feel less adapted to cooperative play rather than singleplayer.
I also feel like the majority of the weapons and abilities that you could buy in the shop was not very useful. As soon as you got 'chaser' and didn't have to aim anymore, that was it for all other weapons since you usually have to be on the move for most bosses. I'll admit that this can just as easily just be me and my particular playstyle, or the fact that I played this in co-op.
Overall though, it's a great game that I would highly recommend. It's a super charming delight for both your visual and auditory senses, and with a fair but challenging difficulty the gameplay excels in a the right ways. It's a fantastic game for local co-op, something that sadly has become more and more rare with time; though the cooperative side just needs a few tweaks when it comes to how the parry mechanic works. Get this if you can!