Board 8 > The Definitive Ranking Of All The Cuphead Bosses

(+) Yeah! (+)

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Still waiting for the rat/cat-combo to be #1 and to get that beehive out of the way ASAP.
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I was going to do the next one tonight but it is far too late! I'll try again tomorrow instead.
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Try again tonight?
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#7: Phantom Express
Difficulty: 7/10
Design: 8/10
Fun Factor: 7/10

This is probably the best example of a multi-enemy boss in the entire game. A lot of the bosses use one boss with many phases, but fights like this actually take you through different enemies. And it works so well thematically here. You have a ghost, a giant skeleton, the train itself, and uh...two circle things? Apparently these are supposed to be pistons on the train, but I absolutely did not see that until looking it up. I was confused why my fight against a haunted train got interrupted by the shape squad showing up, so I suppose if I was going to pick a weak link of this fight, it'd probably be them.

Overall though, I love the design of this fight. I like the SPOOPY HAUNTED theme, and I like how the game really uses the most out of the setup. Each phase of the fight is totally distinct from the next, and by populating the train with multiple enemies to fight, it really lets the game show off some of its creativity without getting too weird. There are phases in some of the lesser fights that don't always make the most sense because they're trying to think of a way for the boss to mutate into something else and they just can't, but that isn't a concern here because they can't just pick out a new type of spooky enemy and keep going. The design is absolutely perfect for one of those old cartoons featuring ghosts or ghouls or what have you, and outside the third phase of the fight all of the enemies here look perfect.

And the fight itself is a lot of fun too. The car moving mechanic is incredibly clever, so much so that I had no idea what was going on my first couple times through. Sure, pumpkins are floating overhead and dropping stuff, but with so much going on on the screen at one time you aren't always paying attention to details like that and my first couple runs I was in a mad panic to try and figure out why the hell my car kept randomly moving. Once you do though, the fight just sort of clicks because now you're not only trying to fight the current phase of the boss, but you need to juggle either shooting down the pumpkin or jumping up and parrying the attack before it moves your car. You absolutely want to control where the car is at, and letting your car move back and fourth is a sure fire way to take some damage, so the extra layer to the fight makes things a lot more interesting than the bosses themselves.

Each phase of the fight is really well designed too, and is wildly different from the phase that came before it. In one phase you'll be shooting down incoming eyeballs, while in the next you're moving your car around to try and get the most hits in on the skeleton head. The best phase of the fight is definitely the last one, where you need to parry part of the train to open up its hit box, and while firing off shots you need to avoid incoming fire, pumpkins trying to move your car, and flaming attacks that come in from the side. It is incredibly hectic, but wonderfully so, and it is one of the most chaotic parts of the entire game.

The only real negative I have here is that this is the easiest boss to cheese your way through once you know what you're doing. The first, second, and third phases all have fairly easy ways to avoid being hit entirely and it isn't until the fourth and final phase that you really need to be paying attention. Use the spread weapon during the first phase, move your car to the right and then stand in between the two cars while shooting diagonally to the left for the second, and move your car to one of the corners and stand on the very edge of the screen during the third. None of these tricks are that hard (I found them out myself without too much experimentation) and it really trivializes the first three phases of the fight. I can't think of another example in this game that has a boss you can cheese this easily, which is sort of a shame because the rest of the fight is really good.
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That winds up that entire tier, actually, which is the "amazing fights where I'm really focusing on minor imperfections" tier. The final tier is the top tier, which is all of the very best fights in the entire game. I don't really have even minor issues with these fights, and any complaints I have are so minor it doesn't really matter.

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

Focusing On Megan Fox's Thumbs Tiers
12. The Devil
11. Wally Warbles
10. Cala Maria
9. Ribby and Croaks
8. King Dice
7. Phantom Express
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Yeeeees.
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