Board 8 > The Definitive Ranking Of All The Cuphead Bosses

(+) Yeah! (+)

If anyone else tells you otherwise, they are wrong and lying to you and not really your friends. Just keep that in mind.

Cuphead is great and you should play it.

AND GO

#19: Goopy Le Grande
Difficulty: 1/10
Design: 2/10
Fun Factor: 2/10

This is the only boss I beat my first time through. I also beat him in one go on Expert mode and honestly there isn't much of a difference between the two. A lot of boss fights in the game will have you pulling of insane platforming, or proper dodging, or figuring out the best combination of perks and upgrades to get you through in one piece. Not Goopy, who just slowly jumps back and forth and very clearly telegraphs all of his very slow attacks. I don't know if he is "technically" supposed to be the first fight in the game, but he is far and away the easiest.

I think they were going for a slime motif here, borrowing from games like Dragon Quest and the whole blob monster trope but it just doesn't really work. Look at all the other enemies in the game and their design and then look at Goopy. The gulf between them is crazy. It's like you have the starting line up of the Dream Team and then some drunk 15 year old that managed to sprint out onto the court before face planting. There isn't anything good to say about Goopy, and even his final phase as a tombstone is pretty poorly thought out and implemented.

Plop Tier:
19) Goopy Le Grande
---

tag

Good choice for worst. Probably not the easiest but certainly the least memorable.
---

This is awesome
---

Goopy Le Grande is a truly fantastic name, but yeah, I agree that he's the least interesting boss.
---

tag
---

#18: Hilda Berg
Difficulty: 4/10
Design: 2/10
Fun Factor: 3/10

Early on in the game there was a point where I was like "oh I just don't like the airplane fights" and to a certain extent that is true. It kind of takes away a major component I love to a lot of the boss fights, which is a certain level of precise platforming and a restriction on movement. In airplanes you can just sort of fly anywhere, and while that does add a certain strategy to some of the fights (where is the best place on the screen to position yourself, if you should move forward or back, etc) it doesn't really make up for what it loses. You don't have your choice of secondary weapons here and a lot of the perks are just useless, so you lose that element to the fights as well.

BUT there are actually a couple airplane fights I quite enjoy because they do a better job working within the airplane mechanics so this is a bit more than "ugh stupid airplane fight". A lot of the attacks here are pretty basic and unlike some of the better fights later on, they don't really do a good job mixing attacks together. So, yeah, she can say "HAAAAA" like the hype man at a late 90s rap concert, and planes will come in and fire off attacks, but there really isn't all that much complexity to this and it is very easy to figure out where to position yourself.

My main issue here though is I just kind of hate the design. The fight was probably a bit more fun than a couple of the ones I'm listing next, but at least those had enemies where I was like "oh hey that's pretty cool". This just didn't feel cohesive, and I'm not entirely sure what I was supposed to be fighting. "Ok so she's a blimp on a unicycle? Who turns into a cloud bull? And...is that the moon?" I guess it is supposed to be some air themed boss, but I like it where the transitions at least kind of make sense, and this kind of just felt like a hodgepodge of ideas that people yelled out at some point and they all made the fight. It plays a bit like they made the boss using Mad Libs and I just didn't like the transitions like I did with a lot of the other bosses.

Something I did really like about Hilda Berg though is she is the fight where Expert Mode shows up a bit and kicks you in the teeth. A lot on the first island aren't all that tough, but the changes in speed and extra things flying around the screen really made me appreciate the fact I moved up a difficultly. Oh, and I did like the timing of the UFOs at the end. Figuring out which ones to dash through and which ones to trigger and then move back was pretty cool.
---

Good topic.
---

Tag, love me some Cuphead
---

Good day for a swell battle! Tag.

the blimp boss turns into zodiac signs though, that's the theme. I like astronomy so it was fun to see.
---

Tag!
Rooting for Sally Stageplay.
---

#17: The Root Pack
Difficulty: 1/10
Design: 4/10
Fun Factor: 2/10

Like Goopy, The Root Pack is a fairly straightforward introductory fight. Well, as straightforward as a fight against three giant evil vegetables could be. And it does a pretty good job introducing you to the basic concepts of the game. You've got dodging projectiles, avoiding a mini bullet hell in the form of onion tears, and an enemy with a hitbox that requires you to aim upwards. It is pretty much everything you want from an introduction level, and so it gets points for that.

You also get the first "different enemy per phase" fight and while other fights do that better its still interesting to see what is coming next. You start off against a potato spitting dirt clods, move on to a crying onion, and finish off with a...psychic...carrot? Is that a thing? Unlike Hilda Berg, the next phase feels like a logical continuation of the previous one, even though in this fight you're fighting entirely different enemies. This level is also easy enough it works great to show it off to people. It captures that old timey cartoon feel perfectly, and it is easy enough that most people can beat it within a couple tries so it is a lot more accessible than some of the later fights in the game.

In spite of all that though, this is just sort of a boring fight. I got the "S" rank here on my second try, and that was only because I killed it too fast and didn't have a chance to get a third parry after missing one of the incoming worms. The attack patterns of the first two foes are particularly boring, and while it works great as an introduction it is decidedly far less fun to play through once you have the hang of everything. There are a lot of fights I played through a bunch of times to get higher ranks, or because they were fun, or just because I felt like it. You don't really go back to this fight because you won't need to and it wasn't all that interesting your first time through.
---

It's probably a reference to how carrots are supposed to be good for your eyes, hence it has a third eye which in itself is a common shorthand for psychic powers.
---

Ohhhh that at least makes a bit more sense. Good for eyes -> third eye -> psychic powers is a bit of a convoluted thought process, but I at least see how they could get there.

A+ job Raka you're alright
---

That actually wraps up the "eh I'm kinda bored" tier because this next batch of bosses I like a decent amount better. In fact, pretty much everything from here on out is fun. Jeez its like Cuphead is a good game or something.

Plop Tier
19. Goopy Le Grande

Listening To Someone Tell You About Their Fantasy Team Tier
18. Hilda Berg
17. The Root Pack

Which brings us to...

#16: Djimmi The Great
Difficulty: 6/10
Design: 3/10
Fun Factor: 4/10

This is a huge step up from the last plane battle, and you at least get flashes of the better plane fights at the end of the game. Of the fights I talked about so far, it is really the first one that gives you multiple things to focus on in earnest, which occurs during the fourth phase of the fight. The genie both throws out his hat (which fires bullets) and summons a puppet (which fires energy blasts) and you're forced to move back and forth, dodging both incoming projectiles. It is parts like this that the game really shines for me, when I'm juggling like three different things and barely paying attention to whether my bullets are actually hitting him or not.

There is also that fun amount of randomness in the battle, particularly in the first fight when the attack he uses is completely random. Will he summon swords, giving you pretty much a free pass to the next phase of the fight or is he going to summon those DAMN CATS again which are particularly a headache on expert difficulty. I like it when enemies have a random element to their attacks like this, because it makes them significantly more interesting to fight on subsequent playthroughs.

Part of the issue here is this is a boss of middling difficulty and middling design, so it doesn't really excel at anything. It is challenging enough, but he was the easiest (for me) of the second island bosses and while all of the phases were fine there weren't any that were particularly fun except the fourth one.

Another annoyance is the pseudo-autoscroller after the first stage. There are a bunch of pillars you have to fly through by destroying the face portions, and it really slows down the fight to a crawl. The first phase is pretty easy while the last couple might take a couple tries to get used to, which means you'll have to repeat this autoscroller several times while you're learning the boss. This is the only fight like this in the entire game, where there's a portion you just have to get through some obstacles before getting back to the fight, and it doesn't work too well with the pace you get from the other fights.

On top of this, I'm just not crazy about the design. The level feels lifeless compared to some of the other levels, and this might be a bit of a complaint that not too many others share but I always loved it when there was something else going on. Other levels felt alive, with either background characters or small little enemy support units like fish or bees, but here everything is pretty much just the genie. The level feels a bit sterile because of it, and the background is probably the ugliest in the entire game. The genie himself is "fine" but I would certainly put him on the lower end in terms of creativity and design. There are some good ideas here for the various phases, and I particularly like when he gets all HUGE and PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER at the very end, but so many bosses in this game are so cleverly designed that "pretty cool" almost feels like a let down.
---

One of those games where everyone disagrees on which boss us the hardest. But even so theres no reason to hate on a list that claims to be definitive...its a fun little diversion.

For instance I thought the train and djinn were the hardest
---

Yeah I definitely don't think I've ever seen a good consensus on what the hardest are. Djinn wasn't all that bad for me, but I would at least agree that Ghost Train puts up a good fight.

(And I was being tongue in cheek about this being definitive, if that wasn't obvious!)
---

I thought Djimmi was one of the easiest bosses, while the train was brutal (yet awesome).

On the flip side, I had a really tough go of it with Baroness von Bon Bon, who's usually considered one of the easier fights.
---

Grim Matchstick destroyed me so badly that I just came back and did it later. Beppi and that robot in world 3 were really hard too.
---

#15: Cagney Carnation
Difficulty: 3/10
Design: 5/10
Fun Factor: 4/10

I had a hard time ranking this boss and the next boss, because they kind of have a lot of the same positives and negatives to me (CAN YOU GUESS WHO IS COMING NEXT?). Island 1 starts out kind of slowly as the game eases you into things, so a lot of these bosses are pretty simple and Cagney Carnation fits into that grouping. But Cagney at least does enough to be FUN and he's a definite step up over The Root Pack and Goopy.

The first couple phases (or phase?) is kind of basic. There are platforms giving you different places to move around to, which I usually love, but Cagney doesn't really implement them all that well. He has one attack where he attacks the top row or the bottom row, and another where an attack hits the top row and then loops around to the bottom, but other than that there isn't a tremendous amount of use of these platforms during the early fight. You more use them vertically (top to bottom) than laterally (one to the next) which is always more fun to me.

What I had a lot of fun with though is the final phase, where Cagney sends out his roots and you absolutely have to use the top platforms. Roots come up through one platform, then a second, leaving only a third safe to move around on. By itself its a fun attack, but then Cagney will also spit flowers at you at the same time, meaning you're figuring out which platform is safe and at the same time avoiding other projectiles and there is this multitasking you have to do to try and avoid everything. It is the first fight listed here I actually had fun getting an A+/S rank on because getting through this phase without getting hit a single time requires some good execution of your movement. I love it when fights combine this sort of platforming with the combat, and while this is a very mild implementation of it, it does a good job showing you just what kid of stuff is waiting for you.

In terms of negatives, this is one of those fights in the game where the phases don't feel all that distinct and you're mostly doing the same thing throughout the entire fight. I can't even remember if there are two phases or three here, but regardless there isn't a lot of variety during the fight. My favorite bosses are those that have you completely changing strategy from one phase to the next, or have a lot of different things you need to adjust to. The roots are a nice touch at the end, but other than that this fight really starts to feel a little samey since you are only really fighting two different forms. This is also one of the easiest fights in the game, and outside of the introduction fights there aren't too many others that are this simple.

The design is also pretty basic as well. I do love the movement of the flower, the back and forth shimmy he does in between his attacks, and the death screen is weirdly creepy in comparison to most of the others. But Cagney is just a flower, and there aren't too many attacks here that stand out as creative. I like the roots and the sort of air turret he does where he rains down seeds, but the background art is extremely basic and he just sort of looks like a flower without much special to him.
---

I actually have the next one written up already because I wrote it first, realized I preferred it to Cagney, and did a last minute swap. Cagney is one I for some reason remember liking more than I did after playing through the game a couple more times, and I guess I didn't realize how basic he was until I got a taste for some of the later bosses in the game.
---

#14: Captain Brineybeard
Difficulty: 5/10
Design: 3/10
Fun Factor: 5/10

YAR. I feel like this is just about the classic of classic old school cartoon drawings. He looks like every big brute you've ever seen from cartoons of the era, with hints of Bluto and Pete and all those big loafs you know and love. The hit box here is interesting in that it is completely static and in the top right corner of the screen, meaning you'll have to figure out a good way to attack. Do you go risky and get in close, dodging back when attacks start coming? Or do you play it safe and go to the back and jump and attack, knowing you'll get less hits in but that the incoming attacks will be easier to dodge? It is a nice change from some of the other bosses that move around a bit more during the course of the fight.

What I love about this fight is the third phase, where you're dodging three different attacks at once. You have the ship spitting cannonballs, the chest dropping from above, and then combine that with whatever random attack Brineybeard himself is doing. This is peak Cuphead gameplay for me, where I'm frantically dodging attacks from all over the screen and it needs my full concentration. There is strategy to this too, where you want to bait the chest into falling earlier sometime so you can focus on dodging the other two attacks while it is recharging. I love when this happens in the game, where you get a segment and at first you're like "this is impossible" and then after discovering a couple tricks or useful patterns, it becomes completely manageable (as long as your reflexes are great and your timing is perfect).

The final phase is a nice change of pace, too, and I like keeping the chest in addition to having to deal with the new attacks. The huge laser beam, for example, is fairly easy to deal with as long as you've been paying attention to the chest but you can absolutely get hit here if you get lazy and not pay attention to where the chest is going. It is a bit of a let down, I suppose, after how good the third phase is, but there are a lot of bosses like this where the final phase is actually a bit easier than some of the ones before it (presumably because the game thinks you might be at low health and a lot of the challenge is just GETTING TO that part of the fight).

With all that said, Brineybeard overall is a tad on the boring side. This is one of those fights where there is almost no difference between one phase and the next, and while there is a huge shift for the final phase the first three are almost indistinguishable (to the point I wasn't even entirely sure what was added to the second phase of the fight until I played it several times). It adds a new attack, sure, but there isn't a big shift in the strategy here. So the first three phases almost feel like one phase, which is particularly annoying in expert where he is an absolute tank and this goes on forever. All of the best bosses in the game constantly switch things up between phases, offering new and unique challenges with each new phase and Brineybeard is a bit lazy in that regard.

And Brineybeard is essentially just a pirate, with just about everything you'd expect from the battle. There really aren't any cool twists in the fight other than the ship itself joining the fight (and becoming a whale for the final phase) and it just feels like they wrote "pirate enemy" on the design document and didn't get much more creative than that.
---

#13: Sally Stageplay
Difficulty: 2/10
Design: 8/10
Fun Factor: 3/10

Sorry Raka :(

Sally might be the most "disappointing" fight in the game, in that I really like the design here but I don't particularly like the fight itself. It feel like it should be a first island fight with how basic it is, but it'll likely be one of the last fights in the game. I had just finished off Dr. Kahl's Robot before this, so it felt a bit like beating literal Bruce Lee in a fight before moving on to fight some guy named Bruce Lee who is an accountant from Akron.

I do absolutely love the second phase of the fight, and it is another one of those segments that perfectly encapsulates the good of Cuphead. You have Sally attacking, babies throwing bottles from the windows, and little wind up animals that you both need to jump over and dodge from above. There is a lot going on and it can get chaotic, but it is a thoughtful sort of chaotic where it doesn't feel like you're just going to get screwed over by RNG.

I also love the design, both in general concept and in execution. The transitions represent different stages in her life, and you go from a chapel to a house full of babies to more ethereal final forms after she "dies". This is also a great example of what I talk about when I say certain levels don't feel "alive" or feel boring, because it demonstrates what Cuphead can pull off when its really trying. Her concerned husband running back and forth in the background during the first phase is great, and similarly the way he morns at the end of the second phase is a cool animation you may miss if you aren't paying attention. And then she has babies helping her during the second phase, and it really just feels like they thought about how the maximize the background which some of the lower ranked levels just don't do. Compare this to Cagney Carnation for example, which takes place in a forest and doesn't have anything interesting going on in the background and you can see how much something like this really helps elevate a fight.

Unfortunately, Sally relies almost exclusively on the presentation because it is a completely unremarkable fight outside of that. I had a harder time getting the A+ rank on this my first time through not because of the fight itself, but because I kept killing her too quickly during the first phase and I didn't see enough things to parry. This has no business being on the third island, because she's even easier than Cagney Carnation and arguably less difficult than Goopy. If you have the Invisible Dash skill here, the only phase you will possibly get hit on is the second. She doesn't even move during the third phase, and the fourth just has you mostly jumping over an umbrella while shooting upwards.

This is a great example at how a good presentation can make a fight much more fun, because I definitely enjoy this more than Brineybeard or Djimmi even though those are probably better designed from a gameplay perspective. Outside of the second phase here, this is a completely unremarkable fight outside of the presentation, and would probably be bottom tier if I didn't like all of that so much.

Which brings us to the last of the "these were good, but I know there's something better out there tier of fights". Everything else from here on out I enjoy a lot.

Plop Tier
19. Goopy Le Grande

Listening To Someone Tell You About Their Fantasy Team Tier
18. Hilda Berg
17. The Root Pack

The Pink Starburst Tier
16. Djimmi the Great
15. Cagney Carnation
14. Captain Brineybeard
13. Sally Stageplay
---

"I had just finished off Dr. Kahl's Robot before this, so it felt a bit like beating literal Bruce Lee in a fight before moving on to fight some guy named Bruce Lee who is an accountant from Akron."

Can we get this man a Pulitzer already?
---

My favorite is Grim Matchstick so I'm hoping he does well.
---

TheCodeisBosco posted...

"I had just finished off Dr. Kahl's Robot before this, so it felt a bit like beating literal Bruce Lee in a fight before moving on to fight some guy named Bruce Lee who is an accountant from Akron."

Can we get this man a Pulitzer already?

I tried to submit my Definitive Ranking of Phoenix Wright Cases but I was told that "wasn't literature" and "stop bothering us" and "Maya/Phoenix OTP".

Damn Phoenix/Maya shippers.
---

Well I'll come clean that I haven't played Cuphead myself so I don't know firsthand how fun the enemies are to battle. :p
But as a theatre fan, I'm really happy she's there and yeah, both the concept and execution are great. And you didn't even mention the JRPG-like spell 'names' she uses in her...I want to say last? Phase.

TheCodeisBosco posted...

"I had just finished off Dr. Kahl's Robot before this, so it felt a bit like beating literal Bruce Lee in a fight before moving on to fight some guy named Bruce Lee who is an accountant from Akron."

Can we get this man a Pulitzer already?

I agree.
---

#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.
---

Raka_Putra posted...

Well I'll come clean that I haven't played Cuphead myself so I don't know firsthand how fun the enemies are to battle. :p
But as a theatre fan, I'm really happy she's there and yeah, both the concept and execution are great. And you didn't even mention the JRPG-like spell 'names' she uses in her...I want to say last? Phase.

TheCodeisBosco posted...

"I had just finished off Dr. Kahl's Robot before this, so it felt a bit like beating literal Bruce Lee in a fight before moving on to fight some guy named Bruce Lee who is an accountant from Akron."

Can we get this man a Pulitzer already?

I agree.

Ohhhh. Well, yes, from a design perspective I like her quite a lot.

I didn't even mention the spell names, but that was more because there was so much else about her design I liked better. I'm a sucker for those sort of little touches, and like I said I loved her "husband" running around frantically at the start of the fight and other touches like that. The spells I kind of glossed over because the third phase of the fight is a joke. If you have the invisible dash move, you probably will only see four or so attacks total and the only one you're at a real risk for is the lightning. The meteor is kind of a cool idea because theoretically you need to attack it to get the pink star you can parry off of to get the height to go over the tidal wave. But it is so much easier to ignore it entirely, just wait for the wave, and then dash through it.

But, yeah, those were a nice touch. I also kind of got a Kefka vibe from her during that phase, but I'm not entirely sure if I was supposed to or not.
---

Tag
---

The Root Pack always seemed even easier than Goopy to me.
---

They're pretty close, at least. I mostly just like the design of the Root Pack better.

But to me, the carrot phase was the hardest phase out of both bosses (although he still wasn't really tough). Goopy's third phase can't really hit you if you have figured out the dash mechanic.
---

Lightning Strikes posted...

Good topic.

---

#11: Wally Warbles
Difficulty: 5/10
Design: 8/10
Fun Factor: 7/10

The best part about Wally is it showed me that not all plane fights were terrible. I was kind of down on plan fights after the first two encounters, but after this one I wasn't sighing each time I ran into a new one. You're still missing out on some of the better aspects of the gameplay when it gets restricted like this, but Wally Warbles and there other plane fights at least adds enough new gameplay ideas that I don't feel like it is such a drastic step down.

My favorite example here is phase 2 with evolves into a bullet hell (feather hell) fight where the entire screen gets flooded with feathers. Its got this sort of old school shmup kind of feel to it, only you're fighting a giant bird in the midst of molting. Its like Ikargura meets an exploding bird, and I swear its less gross than it sounds. Its a nice new change on the gameplay, and its works incredibly well with the plane controls. The final stage of this fight is just as good, and it is the first time in the game you have a boss entirely below you. The now featherless Wally is getting carried and spitting up trash and pills at you, and you'll need to switch to your bombs while you avoid the incoming debris. Each phase really feels unique and there aren't any that feel all that dull.

What I really love about the design is that it feels like a natural progression and each fight logically leads into the next phase. There is huge differences between each phase, and yet it feels like one cohesive encounter. I love how the final phase is two other birds carrying a featherless Wally in on a stretcher, and the attacks during each phase actually fit really well with the actual design. Oh, and the death scene where his helper birds are seasoning his body? That's probably my second favorite victory screen in the game. I really do love the design here and this is one of the fights where it feels like everything was thought out. I would've liked a bit more active background because the scenery here is kind of dull, but beyond that everything is pretty much perfect.

So why only 11? Well, the competition from here on out is pretty damn tough so all it takes is some minor shortcoming at this point. The first phase is kind of unremarkable, and while I like the idea of the third phase it winds up being kind of boring. I also have all the same issues I do with a lot of the other plane fights, even though this one is a much better implementation of the system than the other two I talked about. Still though, you can see where there is still room for improvement. The bullet hell segment is kind of simple in comparison of some things yet to come, and it isn't until the last phase that you really need to stress out about multiple incoming projectiles.

Also, as a final aside RIP poor Wally. I dunno if he actually dies at the end or not, but he is one of only like four bosses that doesn't show up at the final victory screen so that is my OFFICIAL SUPRAK LORE.
---

Make sure you rank dante
---

#20: Dante
Difficulty: 1/10
Design: 1/10
Fun Factor: 1/10

wat ever hes just a big dum emo anyways
---

!!!??!

I cant even RESPOND to that!

Im gonna punch some bobs to calm down
---

#10: Cala Maria
Difficulty: 9/10
Design: 9/10
Fun Factor: 6/10

This is the kind of fight that makes me realize what they were trying to do with plane fights. This is just a brilliant execution of the concept, and it makes almost all of the other plane fights look worse just by comparison. You have her firing off two completely different attacks at once in the first phase, for example sinking three ghosts at you while you're dodging explosive fish mines, and you really need to use all the screen the game gives you to avoid getting hit. And then you have the second phase, where you need to move between killing the snakes and attacking her head and there is a legit strategy to your movement here that can't really be duplicated in the standard levels. This is proof of how good the plane levels can be if they're really trying.

And the design is phenomenal. There's almost too much I like here. The transition from the first phase to the second phase, where electric eels come up, bite her, and awake her snake hair is absolutely incredibly. I love her playful movement and how it kicks up a bit during the second phase. I love all of her sea based attacks and all her different little fish helpers that come out at aid her in battle. I love the way the snakes play the violin for her after your victory. I love everything about this battle. You saw this all over the promotion for this game and for good reason - it is one of the best designed in the entire game.

The only thing holding her back from being a top three boss for me is I think this is the only example in the entire game of what I consider "unfair" difficulty. It's not game breaking or anything like that (although it can be nearly controller breaking when you're going for your final S rank), but it is the one example in the entire game I can think of where you can take damage and it feels cheap.

In her second and third phases, she can petrify you (since she's a medusa and that's sort of what medusas do). The problem is you can't avoid this attack and other enemies will be firing off projectiles at the same time. You need to quickly break free of your stone prison by waggling the sticks back and forth, and if you get hit by something (a projectile or a piece of the environment) you take damage. And while it is totally reasonable to get through this without getting hit three times, it can be quite a bit harder to get through without getting hit once (I JUST WANTED MY FINAL S RANK YOU PAIN IN THE ASS MEDUSA/GORGON).

The second phase has what I'd call "reasonable asshole-ery" where you can reduce your risk by killing the other snakes popping up from the water. You can't completely guarantee you won't get hit, but as long as you're planning things out right you can bring the chance down tremendously. There are other fights like this (the Devil comes to mind with his running imps combined with some poorly planned primary attacks) where there is some RNG and you can get screwed over, but you can optimize your chances by playing well and having a good strategy. I'm okay with this level of dick-etry because I kind of signed up for it. I'm ok with the game occasionally pulling my shirt over my head and drinking my juice box as long as I can reasonably protect myself from this bullying.

The third phase is a different beast, because you can be playing almost perfectly, get petrified at a terrible time, and then wind up getting hit by one of the snake attacks, or a random poorly placed barrier, or just the edges of the corridor. I can't remember how many runs I finished with 2 hearts because of three, but I do remember I had to explain to my wife at 1:30 in the morning why I woke her up by calling a cartoon medusa a son of a bitch too loudly.

She's a fantastic boss, don't get me wrong. She's just a son of a bitch too, I don't care what my sleep deprived wife says.
---

Her petrification attack does have a couple of blind spots

Which are pretty easy to get to in phase 2 (well easy enough - I still think it is easier to just kill the snakes as they come up and reduce your risk of projectile damage).

Phase 3 is possible, but you can get screwed over by the corridor itself depending on the position of the attack (and where the random barricades are coming). I actually found the easiest way to consistently avoid damage here was to stay super close, quickly dodge the skull attacks, and then just tank and wiggle through the petrification. It works pretty consistently for me towards the end there so long as I didn't get unlucky with a random barricade showing up.
---

I wonder how you'd rank the frog brothers because I never really got their slot machine transformation and you seem to take concept cohesiveness at least substantially into your rankings.
---

Cala Maria could have been my favorite boss fight until her final phase. Petrifying as a premise was understandable and fine with the eels, but even when getting in closer that final portion of the fight was BS.

Are there any platformer stages you would take over any boss?
---

HaRRicH posted...

Cala Maria could have been my favorite boss fight until her final phase. Petrifying as a premise was understandable and fine with the eels, but even when getting in closer that final portion of the fight was BS.

Are there any platformer stages you would take over any boss?

I loved the first two phases, yep. The transition from first to second phase was so damn slick, and the first phase itself was so hectic and crazy, I just loved it. Totally agree on that final phase, and wish they didn't bring in the same mechanic because it works so much better in the second phase anyway.

I actually liked the platformer stages as a nice change of pace...but I'm not sure. I think I'd probably rank all of them above the bottom tier but I'm not sure any higher than that.They were fun, but they just don't have the same appeal to me as the boss fights.
---

Funny you should mention that Raka...

#9: Ribby and Croaks
Difficulty: 4/10
Design: 8/10
Fun Factor: 7/10

Ribby and Croaks is the fight where the game went from good to great for me, because it happens to be the first fight in the game that really shows off Cuphead at its best. This is still a lot easier than a lot of the fights left to come, but it shows off hints of the challenge to come. The biggest thing is the fight is just fun, and each of the three phases presents some unique attacks and has you pulling off completely different movements to get through them.

A lot of this comes from the third phase, which is really clever (even if it makes no damn sense). You actually need to spin the slot machine to start the attack, and you'll end up getting one of three different attacks depending on your luck. There is a nice variety between the attacks as well, each of which has some pretty fun dodging strategies to implement. The entire fight just has a lot of good movement to it, from allowing the fan form to blow you back to hoping between increasingly fast moving spiked platforms. The first phase is a little basic, but even that has some things you need to take advantage of if you're going for the A+ rank.

The design is great, and I love how you're technically fighting two foes at once, even though they both share the same health pool. It is a really interesting setup, particularly in the second phase, where you can theoretically attack either enemy depending on what your strategy is. It is a fairly unique fight in the game, in that it is the only one where you're facing off against two opponents at one time. There are plenty of fights with groups of people, but those usually are one after the other and the combination here not only just looks cool, but there is a function to it as well as each has specific attacks. I also really like the design of the two frogs, even by themselves. They have this long, spindly arms and legs which gives them a really fluid feeling to their movements, including their idle "bobbing up and down" animation.

This also has to be my favorite background in the entire game. I love all the flies in the background, either cheering on the fight or ignoring it and looking at each other across a table. When I complained about some backgrounds feeling static, this is specifically the level that makes me feel that way. When you see everything going on in the background, it just feels alive and a lot of the other levels in the game are kind of lacking that same atmosphere.

There are a couple of issues with the fight. Like Raka so RUDELY SPOILED for everyone (jeez, so rude), the transition to the third phase is just kind of weird. I overlook the whole "becoming a fan" thing because it sort of fits with the cartoony natures of the game and I've seen similarly things in older cartoons. It at least makes sense that he's moving his arms fast enough that he morphs into a fan. I have no idea where frog + frog = slot machine comes from though, unless this is some reference I'm missing.

That really isn't my main concern though, and the thing holding the fight back is it is just overall too easy. Sure, it is a first island fight so that is to be expected, but I can't really grade on a curve here in terms of which fights I found more enjoyable to play through. I do love the design of the third phase, but the first two can feel a bit barebones in terms of strategy after you have things figured out. The expert fight is much better in this regard and with both frogs attacking simultaneously in phase one it feels like a much more well balanced fight. Still, while it is a really good fight there just happen to be a lot of better ones since they have more going on.
---

Ribby and Croaks kind of made it that high to me specifically because of how much I like the background animations and location of the fight. The fight itself is plenty fun, but without the background I would probably drop it down a couple spots. Stupid reason, I know, because it has zero impact on the gameplay, but it just has this really cool atmosphere to it, like we're some sort of entertainment for the patrons of this bug restaurant/bar/speakeasy/whatever the hell kind of establishment this is.

AND I LIKED IT

I don't know why, but it was something that stuck with me a lot while I was playing the game. I'd be playing a level, a better level, and I'd find myself thinking "gosh this background is kind of plain - remember Ribby and Croaks? Why hasn't there been another like that?"
---

I tried to look up what lore could inspire the slot machine and found nothing on it, but something more interesting!

Everything in this level is a homage to the fighting game Street Fighter.
Their appearances are probably based on Ryu and Ken from the Street Fighter series, because of their attire: Ribby wears white pants, red boxing gloves and a belt, similar to Ryu wearing a white gi, red gloves and headband; while Croaks wears red pants, brown boxing gloves and a belt similar to Ken wearing a red gi and brown gloves.
In their intro before the match starts, Ribby and Croaks will respectively perform Ryu and Ken's taunts from Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Ribby's taunt may also be similar to that of Akuma from Super Street Fighter II Turbo.
Ribby, when on the same side with Croaks, gives an attack that combines Ryu's Hadoken and E. Honda's Hundred Hand Slap.
Croaks' animation when spitting firebugs looks rather similar to that of Dhalsim, a different Street Fighter character, when using the Yoga Flame.
Ribby's animation when rolling at the player looks similar to Blanka, when doing his Rolling Attack move.
Ribby, when throwing his ball-shaped projectile attack, does so with an animation that looks uncannily similar to another Street Fighter attack, in this case, Guile's Sonic Boom.
Croaks, when spinning his upper body like a fan, looks somewhat similar to Zangief's Double Lariat.
The symbols on the slot machine supposedly references three Street fighter characters:
The Bull references Balrog with his attacks Charging Buffalo and Bursting Buffalo. It could also reference M. Bison in terms of name seeing as how the bull, the buffalo, and the bison are all bovine.
The Tiger references Sagat with his attacks Tiger Shot, Tiger Uppercut, and Tiger Knee.
The Snake references Vega with his snake tattoo.
The background of a crowd of flies cheering is a reference to the background of Street Fighter which usually have a crowd in the background, also cheering when a character is defeated.

Also Ribby and Croack besides being a play on frog noises is a play on Rocky and Apollo Creed
---

I knew some of those references, but not all of them. Nice!
---

I definitely got the background being inspired by the old Street Fighter SNES game but yeah I missed some of those too.

Maybe there was a slot machine character in one of the Street Fighther games I havent played
---

good topic
---

#8: King Dice
Difficulty: 6/10
Design: 8/10
Fun Factor: 7/10

I'm Mr. King Dice
I'm the gamest in the land
I never play nice
I'm the Devil's right hand man

Ok, so I know his song isn't even a part of his fight, but how good is it? I love the general inspiration his deign gets from Cab Calloway, and you can definitely hear hints of Cab while the song is playing. I would just sit at each of the dice houses and wait for the song to be over before moving on, because I was worried if I talked to him it would stop the song. The music in general in the game is great, but this song is far and away the best.

His overall design is great as well, but what really makes him stand out his how unique the fight is. He is sort of a mini-boss medley, with a total of nine different bosses you can fight against. You have to roll a dice to move a certain number of spots, and each specific spot either correlates to a free space of a specific boss. You won't fight King Dice himself until the end, and you'll have to face off against three different mini bosses on your way to him at the very least.

They're clever about how the fights are organized though to keep you from just fighting the same over and over again. Specific spots will grant you one extra bit of health, which may be necessary considering how long this can wind up being. Each of the nine mini bosses are all casino themed in some way, and you'll face off against a cigar, an eight ball, a group of alcohol and a crane machine. Okay, so you usually don't see crane machines that much in a casino, but maybe they have a kid's section here. How nice of them!

It definitely doesn't feel like they're being lazy with the bosses here either, as each one of them has a distinct style or attack pattern you you're not just fighting the same boss with different paint jobs. There's also a fun level of strategy that comes into play later on. Do you go for the extra heard if it is on a more difficult boss? Or do you take the easy fight to ensure you get out with as much health as you come in on? The variety here is great too, and some fights you will need to pilot a plane and match pictures while others will have you quickly hopping over some poker chips you can parry over. This, much more than the Devil, feels like it should be the final boss. It has a bit of everything, and feels like a great culmination of everything that's in the game.

He is definitely more than a sum of his parts though, and while I really love the overall package I'm probably slightly less crazy about the individual bits and pieces. The fight against him is very basic, and each of his little minions really only have a single attack or two they use ad nauseam. Part of this is because they didn't want to make him impossible so the difficulty is turned down a lot on any one specific foe. It is definitely "smartest" to put him together this way so people aren't breaking stuff out of frustration, but because of this there really aren't any WOW phases of the fight.

Still, it is a great fight overall and King Dice might be my favorite character in the game just for his song alone.
---

I definitely agree with the background thing for Ribby and Croak, it was like almost peak-Cupworth experience because it makes you really feel like it's an old cartoon.

And regarding King Dice, his fight being a marathon might also be why he's not the final boss and the Devil is. As you said, they can't make him too difficult, especially with there being no checkpoint in this game, so the final battle against him is a bit...anti-climactic, and that's a shame. I would have loved a no-holds-barred fight against King Dice, since I'm sure he's ripe for interesting attacks too.

Suprak the Stud posted...

Okay, so you usually don't see crane machines that much in a casino, but maybe they have a kid's section here. How nice of them!

Ha, good catch xD
---