Cuphead: A Delicious Last Dish Review
need to know
what is it? Additional chapters for the tough but gorgeous platform shooter Cuphead.
expect to pay $8/£6.79
release date June 30, 2022
developer MDHR studio
Publisher MDHR studio
audit date RTX 2070, i7-10750H, 16GB RAM
multiplayer game? 2 people cooperate.
association Official website(opens in a new tab)
There aren’t many games that call themselves delicious, but who’d deny that it applies to Cuphead? Studio MDHR’s meticulously crafted take on the 1930s Disney aesthetic oozes candy, allowing you to travel between its delicacies like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Even if the new dish on the platform is a bit lukewarm nearly five years after the original game’s release, it’s still a juicy proposition. Just don’t forget Cuphead is known for its boss fights and it’ll give you the hell of a joy. Prepare di(n)e.
At least you can even jump right into this DLC from a new save without finishing the main meal. Reaching and completing the first Mausoleum challenge, with only a few stages to enter, you unleash the star of the episode, Ms. Chalice. From there, a clock-faced boatman will row you to the new fourth island, where your task is to restore the ghostly Grail to its physical form. To do that, all you need is a Wondertart, at least according to the happy local chef Saltbaker. As long as you can collect five special ingredients, he will be happy to do so. But you don’t know that these special groceries are protected by burly bosses and you have to defeat them first.
(Image credit: Studio MDHR)
Before you start trying to crack these tough nuts, though, MDHR adds a little extra spice to the mix. Not only can you play these new levels (and old ones) as Cuphead or Mugman, but you can also play Chalice yourself. Equip a magic cookie in your bowl hero’s charm slot, and the Holy Grail “borrows” their body. Unfortunately, this means you can’t use one of the game’s useful trinkets (especially the Invincible Dash cane), but that’s more than made up for by Chalice’s unique skill set.
The biggest changes are her ability to double jump and parry pink projectiles with a simple sprint, plus she has a fourth health by default – for a game that rarely breaks its three-hit rule in the past, That’s a major concession. With this, it’s no surprise that using the Holy Grail can be a little easier, although in some fights it might be better to use your favorite ceramic bro. Of course, if you want to use any of the game’s new charms — including a handy ring that adds cue points for your first, third, and sixth parry on stage — you’ll need a boy.
run it
As for the combat, they really feel like they benefit from the slow cooker, as The Last Course brings more color and richness to Cuphead’s iconic character designs, animations, and irrepressible soundtrack. This fresh platter is not only delicious but flawless – hiding a greater sense of drama under the bell jar. The new opponents have more bounce in their steps, more comical exaggeration in their faces, and some spectacular moments of escalation in their final stages.
At the same time, the machine beneath this luxury is firmly in a well-lubricated cycle, with quick restarts smoothing out the bumps of failure, learning, and failing better. As ever, it requires you to get into a time-trial mentality, where each race feels like a lap of the track, driving more clinically as you test the limits of each corner. Sure, the corners here come in the form of missiles, minions, dangling obstacles, and the rolling, dancing bodies of your opponents, but mastery of reflexes to every move is a similar principle.
(Image credit: Studio MDHR)
Then again, if Cuphead were a racing game, it would have featured oncoming traffic to keep you out of the racing line, and this time the screen is usually busier, with attack modes criss-crossing at inopportune moments, forcing you to Pat and belly rub to escape another mess. The first boss I tried, Bootlegger Boogie, was an ideal scene setter in this regard, playing out across three vertical layers, connecting three otherwise disparate opponents. All of these require the flexibility to jump up and down, but force you to navigate the space in very different ways. There’s a lot to consider, safe areas are important, and a heinous failure is almost guaranteed. However, once you start riffing on its upbeat jazz beats, it’s definitely a hustle.
The new opponents have more bounce in their steps, more comic exaggeration in their faces, and some escalating spectacular moments.
Between the main events, there’s also an entertaining respite from a series of side tests that fortunately replace the original’s running and gun levels. Climb a mysterious rope ladder and you’ll find yourself in the King’s Leap, a castle in the clouds where the monarch asks you to defeat his chess-themed vassals without the use of weapons. If you can resist the temptation to overeat soon, these more checks on your dodging and parrying skills are best viewed as palette cleaners between bigger challenges.
thoughtful
Indeed, the only really weak link in the packaging is the final boss (I was asked not to reveal their identities) after you get the ingredients. It simply doesn’t outperform what’s happened before, and showcases the downside of chaotic encounters, as you don’t feel like you’re dealing with the boss itself, but instead lots of random objects flying around the screen. For most of its presentation, the big bad guy fades into the background.
(Image credit: Studio MDHR)
Still, this isn’t the only time stunning visuals have gotten lost in the demands of such an insane action game. For example, Esther Winchester, a cow in denim—a reverse cowgirl, you might say—has a similar problem. Her animations have never been more enjoyable than when she accosts you with a giant vacuum as she jumps back on the right half of the screen. But you probably barely notice because that’s exactly the point where you need to stay focused on the left side, weaving between the missiles she’s sucking at you.
At a point like this, the final class doesn’t quite integrate with itself, and then, like a Mega Man being thrown into the world of a silly symphony, hopefully they’ll get along. Also, it’s odd that Cuphead never finds a place for character development and storytelling skills in its scenes, despite its deep sensibilities to those old cartoons. While the character designs here are more visually powerful than ever, these bosses are really just colorful mechanical puzzles that condense whatever personalities they want to kill you and how they react to being shot. That’s forgivable in the original game because the cast is so large. Right now, it’s a missed opportunity to wrap up the personal encounter with more context and outline the narrative arc through the fight itself.
A delicious final dish is still top cupheading. I’d even say two or three of its bosses break into my first five cuphead stages, which translates to pretty strong returns. On an artistic level, however, there’s something underutilized in the practice of mining the history of animation in such detail, just aligning its treasures with its overhead goals. As delicious as it may be, there’s always a tinge of regret when you get a piece of really clever cooking and the only thing to do is to dismantle it.
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