When I heard that this expansion was finally coming out after 5 years of waiting I was beyond excited. 2022 felt like the year of cuphead in alot of ways yet this truly felt like the franchises final hurrah in alot of ways, and what a hurrah it was. The animation in this one goes from the 1930s rubberhose that the style is known for, to full on disney movie quality animation and its truly a joy to watch. The game also features the best bosses in the game, with music just as amazing as the main game thankfully. Ms.Chalice is an amazing addition that I am very much thankful for. Its a more accessible character while not being a straightup easily mode, with her double jump and dash parry and extra health making her better than the boys to me, though shes less capable at actually fighting. I still used her to beat the game though, and it was very much satisfying. Especially for the parry bosses that give you extra coins, I didnt know if they were gonna add runandgun stages so this was an amazing compromise, and ingeniously designed. There isn't really much to say, this is genually one of the gold standard for dlc for me. And for fucking 10 dollars this is simply a must own alongside the original that is highway robbery my god. I'm eagerly awaiting what MDHR will do next and I cant wait to see it regardless of what it'll be.

Also the final boss is genually one of the best bossfights ever made this is spoiler free but my god I cant believe it its so good

I started the DLC right after I replayed the game about 2 months ago, but I put it off for a while because I got stumped in the Moonshine Mob boss fight (the third phase to be exact).
I decided to finish the whole thing in a sitting and what a ride this was.
Instead of just adding new boss fights (which is what might be expected from a DLC for a game like this), they went above and beyond that.
All bosses just ooze with creativity and style, be it in the small details in their expressions or how each boss fight has distinct phases very different from one another.
The addition of Ms. Chalice wasn't just for pure cosmetics, her new moves, the double jump, the invincible roll and the one-button parry have made the boss fights more fun and opened the way for more creative maneuvers.
The chess boss fights that relied solely on the parry are still one of my favorite parts in both the base game and the DLC.
I still don't appreciate the randomness that sometimes plague certain sections of the boss fights, as it makes reaching the final phase that much more frustrating, like the laser placement in the third phase of the Doggone Dogfight, though it was an awesome boss fights and I was really proud after beating the final phase (I had to turn my head 90 degrees).
The final boss is definitely the most challenging, and also the best-looking boss fight in all of Cuphead.

When I first booted up Cuphead a few days ago, I was greeted with a brand-new title screen and song. It was for The Delicious Last Course and honestly, I like it a lot more than the new title screen. This was a sign of good things to come with the new DLC and I'm happy to say it's pretty great.

I actually used one of the new weapons a ton in my replay of the base game but crackshot really is amazing. It's basically chaser but better and it was my primary weapon in this DLC alongside charge shot. Converge and Twist-up were the other two new weapons and I wasn't really a fan of either so I barely used them. There were also some new charms that were added as well. Astral cookie let's you play as Ms. Chalice, the ghost that awards you your different supers in the base game. She can be kinda broken since she has 4 health, an invincible role and a dash that parries. I also found it kind of weird to use her so I used Cuphead for the most part. The divine relic is one you need to put a bit of work into. It starts as a broken relic which you can basically activate by defeating this weird secret graveyard boss. Once you do, you can start defeating other bosses to eventually turn it into the divine relic. While you do, all sorts of effects happen like starting at 1 HP, having your normal attack change constantly and having an in-consistent smoke bomb. Once you defeat enough bosses tho, you get the divine relic which can be incredibly OP if you're skilled enough. The changing normal attacks are still a thing, which is why you need to be skilled enough I said, but you get a normal smoke bomb, the axe parry move and you have an ability where you get health on your 1st, 3rd and 6th parry which can be crazy broken. The last charm is basically just that last parry effect on its own and its the one I stuck with throughout the DLC, it can make A and S ranks stupid easy to get.

Speaking of Ms. Chalice again, I did use her a lot in one area of the game. The king's leap is a series of parry challenges and she is super useful with her dash parry. This one one of my favorite parts of the DLC ngl, it was really fun. I even did The Gauntlet which has you doing all of the challenges in a row without a break in between. It wasn't too bad and the executioner was definitely my favorite of the bunch. Also the presentation of the castle and it looking like it's made out of clay was amazing.

Now onto the meat and potatoes once again, the bosses. Yeah, there's only bosses now and no Run and Gun stages. While I do prefer the bosses a bunch, with there only being 6 total this DLC just flies by and is one of my biggest criticisms tbh. Idk, I just wish this was a little longer because what's here is great, you can just beat it in no time is the problem. Anyways onto the bosses. It has some of the best bosses in the entire game and some alright ones. The Howling Aces was easily my least favorite when I first played and that was all because of the last phase where the screen rotates. It felt cheap at the time and I really did not like it but now after S ranking it (yes this is the one and only S rank I got funnily enough) if you turn your head and understand that the dog bowl color lets you know what they will do, it's not that bad. I'm still not the biggest fan of it tho. Esther Winchester was the only flying stage and I thought it was okay. I just found some of the later stages really annoying but again funnily enough, it was another one I was able to expert in the end. Mortimer Freeze and Glumstone the Giant I don't really have much to say besides they were both pretty good. I didn't expert either, Mortimer especially is a pain in the ass on expert. Chef Saltbaker was definitely one of the best in the game even though his fight can be a real bullet hell at times. The spectacle of it really did it for me and he was another one I didn't expert. I saved the best for last and while the fight is fun, the presentation alone made this my favorite. Moonshine Mob was easily my favorite fight just because it was so creative. It's a mob of bugs that all play a part in the fight. First off the announcer was different this time and it was one of the members of the mob which was great. The spider and the light bug were both fun and very expressive. The music is also sung by the light bug which is a nice touch. Then near the end of the fight, we find out the head of the mob was actually the announcer from the beginning..the snail. He's teaming up with an anteater which is so brilliant because you know he uses the anteater to scare or even kill other bugs. Then when you defeat the anteater there's a fucking fake knock out screen that can actually trip you up since I thought it was just a quirky little change up like the initial announcer was but the fact it's a fake out from the snail, it was the cherry on top of the already incredible presentation in this fight. Like I said, easily the best in this DLC and may even be the best in the game. This was another fight I was able to expert as well.

I got all trophies which only required me to S rank one boss so I didn't expert everything like I said. I just don't find expert mode too fun so I don't think it's a huge deal. Either way, great DLC overall. I think I do like the base game more just because this DLC was really short and I didn't love every boss here, but what was good was really damn good so I definitely recommend every Cuphead fan plays it.

Okay I swear my next review will be Chrono Trigger. I keep putting it off and I really got to get back to it 😭

I need to say what a great idea the King's Lead was. They took the boring mausoleum gameplay from the base game, added the level reward of coins to it, and created five unique encounters as a sort of puzzle boss! After you beat each one individually, you can also challenge them all in a row. It's a bit disappointing that your health regenerates after each fight, since I wish they could have tossed in something extra for doing it with one life, like a filter or something similar. They already added a reward for just beating every fight in the entire game with Ms. Chalice, so I figured they would have also done that oh well. 

The chess gauntlet is just one of the new exciting things on Inkwell Isle IV. The other is a puzzle that leads to a secret boss. Pretty unique of a boss, but I wish we could rematch them or rank them like the others. After beating that boss, one of the new items from the DLC gets upgraded into a cursed relic. This takes your charm slot, puts you at 1 HP, and gives you a random shot each time you press the button or dash. If you beat a certain value of bosses with it equipped, it gets upgraded into a very powerful divine relic. Yeah, it is pretty broken with the amount of benefits it gives, but I love how you get it and build towards it. I really liked how they added so much to this DLC other than just boss levels, despite selling it for very cheap.

On top of these, there are also six new boss levels, some of which are some of the most creative fights in the game. You can also play as Ms. Chalice in place of your charm slot, but she has so many benefits that I really think she just breaks the DLC, let alone the whole game. She gets a dash parry, an invincible roll, a double jump, extra health, and one of her supers even gives you more chances of taking damage. You also get a few new items and shots, making the game a lot easier, which I understand is a choice, but it really seems like having both Ms. Chalice and these new items was not needed at all. It kind of sucks there's still an issue with trying to get just three parry moves in general, like Mortimer...