LogFAQs > #910833686

#12: The Devil
Difficulty: 6/10
Design: 6/10
Fun Factor: 6/10

Those numbers weren't intentional, I swear. Ok, so fun factor is probably more of a 5, but it was too tasty an opportunity to pass up.

The Devil suffers a bit from the expectation game. I don't know what I was expecting from the final boss in Cuphead, quite honestly, but I don't think it was this. He is neither the most difficult, nor is there anything special or unique about him really. King Dice gets a big, interesting mini boss gauntlet, but then The Devil is just kind of another boss. He isn't the hardest you fight in the game (there are probably a good half the game I'd put above him in terms of difficulty honestly) and he doesn't really have any unique design choices. He's just another boss in the game. A perfectly good boss, mind you, but not quite the epic conclusion I was hoping for. It's like sitting through the grand finale of the fireworks show, and then like four or five more go off by accident and now you're not sure if things are really over or not.

This is also the very last boss on the list (I think) where I really liked only one phase. That would be the first phase, which is fantastic. You have little goblin demons running at your randomly along the four and The Devil has one of four random attacks he can use at the same time. So you have a bit of the RNG gods to deal with and the whole "multitasking to avoid concurrent attacks" thing I love, and it really does work quite well. The attacks are all different, they can be difficult to dodge until you get some experience with them, and The Devil is just sort of sitting back relaxing the entire time like he has some big epic conclusion planned.

And...he just doesn't. The next three phases are all perfectly fine, but they don't have that "WOW HOW DID I PULL THAT OFF" factor to them after you get passed each one. The second and fourth phases, in particular, are kind of a joke and while I do like how there are a couple of reinforcements along the side of the third phase they're pretty easy to deal with and you can actually kill them to make things even easier. Again, none of this is bad and it works quite well and it is fun enough. But I was just hoping for more from the final boss. I thought, after getting through everything else, that I was really going to tear my hear out. I tentatively tried it late at night to see how much pain I was in for during my next play session, and I wound up beating him within twenty minutes or so. Which, again, FINE. I am a glutton for pain though, and I was expecting more.

The design is perfectly fine as well, although again I vastly prefer everything you see in the first phase to the concluding three phases. "Giant floating head" isn't quite what I was hoping for, although I did kind of love the sobbing Devil at the end to give you a bit of a victory lap. His design is a bit basic when compared to every other boss left on this list, but I actually think he fits quite well in comparison to other cartoony devils at the time so I give him a bit more leeway here.

Again, everything was perfectly enjoyable and I can't quite say that I'm judging him more harshly just because he wasn't the final boss I was hoping for. At the same time though, there are a lot of REALLY GOOD bosses in this game, and I think that on its own The Devil doesn't really stack up with a lot of them.
---

Moops?
"I thought you were making up diseases? That's spontaneous dental hydroplosion."