From a Gamer's Perspective - Cuphead Review

I come to you as a embassador. An emissary if you will. Simple and clean coming straight from a gamer's mouth. While I don't like to call myself a "gamer" mostly due to the connotation the term "gamer" entails. I only use the word "gamer" in a sense to speak in a way people not in the 'scene' (referred as normies) would understand. Now to say the least: I am not a video game journalist. I have no intent on becoming a video game journalist. As you can see with my writing, I lack the talent to become a video game journalist.

Though I wanted to let loose my thoughts of what I have found from playing Cuphead. A genuine and honest review. Pulling away from what a video game journalist would find entertaining and horrible, difficult and not difficult. This perspective comes from one of you. A "Gamer". The "vidya gaem" player alone.  I feel it is important for those to realize you don't have to be a fancy shmancy journalist to spew your thoughts and even have people listen. Rife with grammatical errors, misspellings and runon sentences -- lets get started!

The Development

It's no secret that the development of this game had taken a very long time.  You can see where it went as well when playing the game itself. Each character running at 60 frames per second with rubber hose animation -- you can tell they had to draw each character frame by frame. Unlike when you look at current animation it is a waste of time to be drawing the entire character frame by frame, it is easy enough to only draw the parts that move. Though to fill out the look of a rubber hose animation, you must draw the entire character piece by piece. When I first set my eyes on the game playing it for the first time I thought: "Holy crap they put a lot of work into this."

The Gameplay

This is easily the most important section of this review. It goes without saying and DESPITE what other journalists will tell you: "A game without gameplay is no game at all." There. I said it. Now with this game, as "filled to the brim" in animation, also is not short of awesome gameplay. It takes use of extremely difficult twitch-based movement mechanics that cause you to constantly be on your toes when playing. Whether you're playing through a regular boss fight, a shmup (shoot-em-up) stage, or a run-and-gun stage -- It feels like you're playing an old school game with super-high quality animations.  If I had to compare this game to another it falls closest with Contra 3 with its high level of difficulty and very cool animations, sounds, and unforgiving gameplay. This is not a game for the kids unless that kid likes some good old fashioned "hard-ass game."

The Style

Man it's cool. This oldschool 1930's vibe shows off in all its splendor, perfect animation and great music/sounds to go with it. You really feel like you took a step back to the past. It is filled with jazz beats and the style was landed on perfectly. Due to this style, it will be looked at as a classic in the future with its seemingly "bullet-proof" shield against aging games. We will look back at Cuphead as we would think of Ocarina of Time or Doom.

The Glitches

This is no shill fest. I will point out that this game has a few glitches. The biggest ones to note:

• When playing on two-player and both players get hit at the same time, one controller will vibrate until that person gets hit again. Sometimes disconnecting the controller works but this is an annoying glitch that happens all the time when playing two-player. The best bet is to simply ignore it till it is patched out.
• Apparently if you press a key on your keyboard and you close out of the game, it will kill a save file if you're on Windows 10. I can't confirm that this is real but I am not willing to try it on my S rank run.
• There have been other 'small' glitches found where you have to perform a string of different commands to make happen, and honestly is so minor and most people won't be able to see in the first place.

And while these next few are not glitches but deserve to be mentioned:

• When using a super power move you cannot be moved while you are performing your super. Because of this you can often be put into a position in a fight that causes you to get hit freely by the boss. No slight invincibility after going through a super seemed a bit cheap to me. Though fine if you can plan it out properly.
• Controls for the dashing button is downright sad. Most people who have played through this game have switched that button so you don't have to subject yourself to some very strange finger movements where you want to shoot and dodge at the same time. Default should be one of the shoulder buttons.

With all that being said to put it simply: I love this game. Glitches or no glitches I can see that there was a huge amount of time and effort jam packed in. I felt I had gotten my moneys worth within about 10 minutes of playing. The thought of having such high-quality "Nintendo-esque" polish on a game made by an indie studio gives me high hopes that we start to see more challenging games like this in the future. Easily a solid 9/10 and would be a 10/10 if they fix the glitches as well.