While this DLC did offer some fun, I gotta say... I came away a bit disappointed! Five years was a long time to wait, but that time obviously allowed the development team to perfect their artistic craft (while preventing crunch, which is important!) and make some of the finest animation ever seen in video games. However, to me, it feels like their desire to one-up the animation of the base game led to everything else getting neglected. This DLC has very little in the way of meaningful mechanical additions, does nothing to address (and even doubles down on!) some of Cuphead's weaknesses, and even its story veers too closely to that of the main game's with its "twist". The base game managed to strike an extremely skillful balance between its presentation and its gameplay, but here it feels like they leaned much harder towards style over substance. Cuphead is known first and foremost for how gorgeous it is, so I understand the impulse, but I can't help but feel disappointed with that choice considering how successors to games like Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier are so rare and difficult to get feeling mechanically right, which is something that the base game genuinely succeeded in doing. You could also just say that I'm being too harsh towards a DLC that they only charged $8 for and could have easily gotten away with charging more for, but hey, we like to have fun here, right?
The focal point of this DLC is the introduction of Ms. Chalice as a playable character, which sounded great on paper, but I found the execution to be surprisingly lacking. Cuphead and Mugman are identical, but Ms. Chalice feels superior in every way. She gets an extra hit point, she can double jump, she has a dodge roll with invincibility frames built in, her parry feels more reliable to do thanks to it being part of her dash instead of an additional button press mid-jump, and her specials are conveniently better suited for the new bosses too. The "catch" is supposed to be that using her requires you to reserve your charm slot for the Astral Cookie needed to summon her, but considering that every charm from the base game except the Smoke Bomb either kinda sucks or is partially built into Ms. Chalice anyway, this isn't actually a drawback at all! It definitely feels like they want you to play as Ms. Chalice exclusively, which is understandable since she's new, but this becomes a problem if you're playing in co-op. Since there's only one Astral Cookie, only one person gets to play as her, which means that only one person actually gets to experience one of the DLC's major selling points. It wouldn't have made sense for story reasons to have two Ms. Chalices running around, but I think it ultimately would have been to the game's benefit instead of making one person feel like they're having a compromised experience.
Another selling point of the DLC was the addition of new weapons and charms. This was something I was excited for since the weapons in the base game had some noticeable balance issues (like the Charge Shot being way better than everything else until they patched it later) and injecting some new options for playstyle variety is exactly what the base game needed. The selection of charms in the base game also felt very underwhelming and in need of some more appealing options beyond the Smoke Bomb, so the idea of fixing that was practically worth the $8 alone. That... did not work out here at all! Somehow, they managed to reintroduce the exact same issue through the new Crackshot weapon, which combines the tracking capabilities of the Chaser with the power of the Charge Shot to create something that's too good to pass up. Why bother with pesky things like swapping weapons based on the situation when you can just do more damage more quickly than any other weapon without having to worry about aiming? The other new weapons, Converge and Twist Up, are certainly good too, but they're not on the same level as the Crackshot. The Heart Ring is pretty good against certain bosses since you can accumulate extra health by parrying enough, but I just found myself relying on the Smoke Ball like I had been. You can still succeed just fine without the Crackshot if you want, but it was disappointing to see that the team made the same mistake again after 5 years and having already dealt with a similar problem not long after the game's original release.
As for the bosses themselves, I found that none of them compared favorably to even the mid-tier stuff from the base game in terms of quality. Cuphead is a frantic game full of things to react to and patterns to analyze, but the bosses in this DLC feel downright incoherent at times. Because of how beautifully animated each boss is and how much effort was put into them, the bosses aren't so much an opponent to face as they are a scene to decipher. So many elements are at play all the time, from detailed, moving backgrounds to multiple bosses appearing at once and minions constantly showing up simultaneously alongside them, that it feels nearly impossible to understand what you're even looking at the first few times you try any boss. Eventually, you'll be able to parse the noise and realize that the bosses really aren't so bad, but at the same time, you'll also realize that they all rely on the same few dirty tricks that occasionally comprised the worst parts of the original game.
The fight against Glumstone the giant loves to obscure information from you in ways that don't feel intentional, like gnomes popping out at random and doing whatever attack they want to, the platforms always going up and down at the absolute worst time and not in a specific pattern, or even spawning gnomes behind background elements during the second part, making them nearly impossible to notice. Some of the other fights, like the ones against the Moonshine Mob, Esther Winchester, and the final boss have strange rules alongside the constant barrage of onscreen elements that either never leave or pop up and do whatever they want, making any misunderstandings or surprises harshly punishing. Why does touching the mob's gramophone (not its energy beams) hurt you? Why is the eagle that Esther employs during her first phase completely invincible unlike every other minion in the game? Why is the third phase of the final boss like five seconds long and almost completely non-threatening? It just feels like some choices were made because they looked really cool or because they didn't want certain animations interrupted, not because they had mechanical cohesion. I've always been the kind of guy who can play the ugliest game in the world if it's mechanically rich and I really don't place that much value in visuals most of the time in general, so I found this increased focus on the "rule of cool" to be frustrating. Games are ultimately a set of rules when you boil them down, so if those rules don't make sense, then the trust between you and the developers begins to break down, and nobody wants that.
The fight against the Howling Aces is notable in that it's pretty straightforward in comparison and actually chills out on the screen clutter, which is great until they decide to throw in a screen rotating gimmick that's deeply disorienting and serves as the only reason the fight is challenging at all. The weirdest part about it is that the gimmick is strangely lacking in confidence and handled in a sloppy fashion - pausing the game spoils the surprise because it lets you change the controls to a different scheme specifically for that section before you even get there. The problem is, how am I supposed to know what the options do without context? I know something about the fight is going to change, but how can I make an educated choice without any explanation for them? If you need to offer different control options just for a minute or two of your game because it might be frustrating or incomprehensible to players by default, maybe that part is worth reconsidering entirely then? Apparently, there's a trick that lets you avoid dealing with the screen rotations entirely, but said trick isn't likely to be found by most people naturally and still begs the question of why the gimmick is even there in the first place if they knew that avoiding it altogether would be the more appealing option to discover.
It's just weird, is all! The base game had such a wide swath of bosses that challenged you in different ways along with run and gun stages that tested different mechanical sensibilities. Some bosses were pretty basic, others challenged you by using the arena in different ways, parries felt more valuable, and there was even a boss rush with its own self contained progression mechanics. In the DLC, almost every boss is exactly the same mechanically to such a degree that it feels like they ran out of ideas on how to design bosses and challenge players - drown the screen in nonsense, distract the player with beautiful animations, spawn minions constantly from random parts of the screen, have at least one element remain on the screen to harass the player, and make some projectiles constantly vary in trajectory in unpredictable ways. Ironically, the most tightly designed and unique boss is hidden behind an elaborate optional puzzle that's not particularly well explained and has its solution randomized per save file. The boss is much closer to the strong design philosophy of the original game - it's more consistent in its patterns, it doesn't constantly move around the screen, it doesn't have any minions, and it has a unique mechanic that affects how you damage it without having to drastically change how you play the game. Solving this puzzle without any help and getting such a cool reward was my favorite part of the DLC and yet there's a good chance people missed out on it!
Aside from that boss and puzzle, the only other part of the DLC I particularly enjoyed was the King's Leap, a series of minibosses that challenge you to defeat them with only your parry ability. These bosses are bite sized compared to the regular ones, since they only have a few methods of attack and don't change phases, but not being able to pump them full of Crackshot for an easy win inherently makes them far more interesting. With such a limited arsenal (and no Smoke Ball!), you really need to familiarize yourself with how to avoid each attack, since these fights require a bit of stamina and patience to endure long enough. They're not all perfectly designed - the Knight is hell on earth until you figure out that you're supposed to stay near it, and the Rook feels so clearly designed for Ms. Chalice that playing as Cuphead during it felt like I was being mocked in comparison - but just having to think outside of the box and fight new bosses in new ways is exactly what I wanted from the DLC. The simplicity of their designs and their arenas does so much to make the action more readable and fair, so dying was rarely a displeasure. Having to coordinate with my co-op partner to decide which of us parries when and how to get around each attack was so much more satisfying than the "play this stage a dozen times until you figure out what randomly spawning thing out of the fifty different things onscreen is hitting you" design ethos of the rest of the DLC.
I suppose that's my personal issue with the DLC overall: after 5 years of waiting, I didn't just want "more Cuphead", I wanted some kind of evolution or twist on Cuphead that felt like a proper expansion. King's Leap and the graveyard puzzle were exactly the kinds of things I consider a worthy expansion to the high quality of the base game, so it was disappointing to me that most of the content wasn't that clever or enjoyable. This DLC didn't reignite my passion for the game, but instead made me question it more than I previously did, which does in fact wound me! I imagine this is going to be the last bit of Cuphead content for a very long time, so I hope the development team takes some time to really reevaluate what they want to do with the gameplay. To me, it feels like they were running out of ideas on how to add onto the existing Cuphead formula without just making it harder in ways that don't always feel fair, so maybe something more drastic is needed entirely. A new genre of gameplay, maybe a greater focus on different aspects like levels or the story and world itself, or heck, maybe even that Netflix show is closer to what they want going forward! Regardless, I really am curious to see what Studio MDHR does next, since they're clearly extremely talented individuals who have a lot to offer. I just think that, maybe, they need to decide whether or not they want to keep focusing so strongly on animation in their games and whether or not video games are the ideal avenue for their particular specialty in the first place. I wonder how that Netflix show is, now that I think about it...
The focal point of this DLC is the introduction of Ms. Chalice as a playable character, which sounded great on paper, but I found the execution to be surprisingly lacking. Cuphead and Mugman are identical, but Ms. Chalice feels superior in every way. She gets an extra hit point, she can double jump, she has a dodge roll with invincibility frames built in, her parry feels more reliable to do thanks to it being part of her dash instead of an additional button press mid-jump, and her specials are conveniently better suited for the new bosses too. The "catch" is supposed to be that using her requires you to reserve your charm slot for the Astral Cookie needed to summon her, but considering that every charm from the base game except the Smoke Bomb either kinda sucks or is partially built into Ms. Chalice anyway, this isn't actually a drawback at all! It definitely feels like they want you to play as Ms. Chalice exclusively, which is understandable since she's new, but this becomes a problem if you're playing in co-op. Since there's only one Astral Cookie, only one person gets to play as her, which means that only one person actually gets to experience one of the DLC's major selling points. It wouldn't have made sense for story reasons to have two Ms. Chalices running around, but I think it ultimately would have been to the game's benefit instead of making one person feel like they're having a compromised experience.
Another selling point of the DLC was the addition of new weapons and charms. This was something I was excited for since the weapons in the base game had some noticeable balance issues (like the Charge Shot being way better than everything else until they patched it later) and injecting some new options for playstyle variety is exactly what the base game needed. The selection of charms in the base game also felt very underwhelming and in need of some more appealing options beyond the Smoke Bomb, so the idea of fixing that was practically worth the $8 alone. That... did not work out here at all! Somehow, they managed to reintroduce the exact same issue through the new Crackshot weapon, which combines the tracking capabilities of the Chaser with the power of the Charge Shot to create something that's too good to pass up. Why bother with pesky things like swapping weapons based on the situation when you can just do more damage more quickly than any other weapon without having to worry about aiming? The other new weapons, Converge and Twist Up, are certainly good too, but they're not on the same level as the Crackshot. The Heart Ring is pretty good against certain bosses since you can accumulate extra health by parrying enough, but I just found myself relying on the Smoke Ball like I had been. You can still succeed just fine without the Crackshot if you want, but it was disappointing to see that the team made the same mistake again after 5 years and having already dealt with a similar problem not long after the game's original release.
As for the bosses themselves, I found that none of them compared favorably to even the mid-tier stuff from the base game in terms of quality. Cuphead is a frantic game full of things to react to and patterns to analyze, but the bosses in this DLC feel downright incoherent at times. Because of how beautifully animated each boss is and how much effort was put into them, the bosses aren't so much an opponent to face as they are a scene to decipher. So many elements are at play all the time, from detailed, moving backgrounds to multiple bosses appearing at once and minions constantly showing up simultaneously alongside them, that it feels nearly impossible to understand what you're even looking at the first few times you try any boss. Eventually, you'll be able to parse the noise and realize that the bosses really aren't so bad, but at the same time, you'll also realize that they all rely on the same few dirty tricks that occasionally comprised the worst parts of the original game.
The fight against Glumstone the giant loves to obscure information from you in ways that don't feel intentional, like gnomes popping out at random and doing whatever attack they want to, the platforms always going up and down at the absolute worst time and not in a specific pattern, or even spawning gnomes behind background elements during the second part, making them nearly impossible to notice. Some of the other fights, like the ones against the Moonshine Mob, Esther Winchester, and the final boss have strange rules alongside the constant barrage of onscreen elements that either never leave or pop up and do whatever they want, making any misunderstandings or surprises harshly punishing. Why does touching the mob's gramophone (not its energy beams) hurt you? Why is the eagle that Esther employs during her first phase completely invincible unlike every other minion in the game? Why is the third phase of the final boss like five seconds long and almost completely non-threatening? It just feels like some choices were made because they looked really cool or because they didn't want certain animations interrupted, not because they had mechanical cohesion. I've always been the kind of guy who can play the ugliest game in the world if it's mechanically rich and I really don't place that much value in visuals most of the time in general, so I found this increased focus on the "rule of cool" to be frustrating. Games are ultimately a set of rules when you boil them down, so if those rules don't make sense, then the trust between you and the developers begins to break down, and nobody wants that.
The fight against the Howling Aces is notable in that it's pretty straightforward in comparison and actually chills out on the screen clutter, which is great until they decide to throw in a screen rotating gimmick that's deeply disorienting and serves as the only reason the fight is challenging at all. The weirdest part about it is that the gimmick is strangely lacking in confidence and handled in a sloppy fashion - pausing the game spoils the surprise because it lets you change the controls to a different scheme specifically for that section before you even get there. The problem is, how am I supposed to know what the options do without context? I know something about the fight is going to change, but how can I make an educated choice without any explanation for them? If you need to offer different control options just for a minute or two of your game because it might be frustrating or incomprehensible to players by default, maybe that part is worth reconsidering entirely then? Apparently, there's a trick that lets you avoid dealing with the screen rotations entirely, but said trick isn't likely to be found by most people naturally and still begs the question of why the gimmick is even there in the first place if they knew that avoiding it altogether would be the more appealing option to discover.
It's just weird, is all! The base game had such a wide swath of bosses that challenged you in different ways along with run and gun stages that tested different mechanical sensibilities. Some bosses were pretty basic, others challenged you by using the arena in different ways, parries felt more valuable, and there was even a boss rush with its own self contained progression mechanics. In the DLC, almost every boss is exactly the same mechanically to such a degree that it feels like they ran out of ideas on how to design bosses and challenge players - drown the screen in nonsense, distract the player with beautiful animations, spawn minions constantly from random parts of the screen, have at least one element remain on the screen to harass the player, and make some projectiles constantly vary in trajectory in unpredictable ways. Ironically, the most tightly designed and unique boss is hidden behind an elaborate optional puzzle that's not particularly well explained and has its solution randomized per save file. The boss is much closer to the strong design philosophy of the original game - it's more consistent in its patterns, it doesn't constantly move around the screen, it doesn't have any minions, and it has a unique mechanic that affects how you damage it without having to drastically change how you play the game. Solving this puzzle without any help and getting such a cool reward was my favorite part of the DLC and yet there's a good chance people missed out on it!
Aside from that boss and puzzle, the only other part of the DLC I particularly enjoyed was the King's Leap, a series of minibosses that challenge you to defeat them with only your parry ability. These bosses are bite sized compared to the regular ones, since they only have a few methods of attack and don't change phases, but not being able to pump them full of Crackshot for an easy win inherently makes them far more interesting. With such a limited arsenal (and no Smoke Ball!), you really need to familiarize yourself with how to avoid each attack, since these fights require a bit of stamina and patience to endure long enough. They're not all perfectly designed - the Knight is hell on earth until you figure out that you're supposed to stay near it, and the Rook feels so clearly designed for Ms. Chalice that playing as Cuphead during it felt like I was being mocked in comparison - but just having to think outside of the box and fight new bosses in new ways is exactly what I wanted from the DLC. The simplicity of their designs and their arenas does so much to make the action more readable and fair, so dying was rarely a displeasure. Having to coordinate with my co-op partner to decide which of us parries when and how to get around each attack was so much more satisfying than the "play this stage a dozen times until you figure out what randomly spawning thing out of the fifty different things onscreen is hitting you" design ethos of the rest of the DLC.
I suppose that's my personal issue with the DLC overall: after 5 years of waiting, I didn't just want "more Cuphead", I wanted some kind of evolution or twist on Cuphead that felt like a proper expansion. King's Leap and the graveyard puzzle were exactly the kinds of things I consider a worthy expansion to the high quality of the base game, so it was disappointing to me that most of the content wasn't that clever or enjoyable. This DLC didn't reignite my passion for the game, but instead made me question it more than I previously did, which does in fact wound me! I imagine this is going to be the last bit of Cuphead content for a very long time, so I hope the development team takes some time to really reevaluate what they want to do with the gameplay. To me, it feels like they were running out of ideas on how to add onto the existing Cuphead formula without just making it harder in ways that don't always feel fair, so maybe something more drastic is needed entirely. A new genre of gameplay, maybe a greater focus on different aspects like levels or the story and world itself, or heck, maybe even that Netflix show is closer to what they want going forward! Regardless, I really am curious to see what Studio MDHR does next, since they're clearly extremely talented individuals who have a lot to offer. I just think that, maybe, they need to decide whether or not they want to keep focusing so strongly on animation in their games and whether or not video games are the ideal avenue for their particular specialty in the first place. I wonder how that Netflix show is, now that I think about it...