Cuphead is one of those rare cases of a truly love born game. It turns out to be sad to say, after all, believing that each producer has a part of him invested in each game, being linked to emotionally, but at the same time, many modern videogames are made in assembly lines, little given to processes like the studio's title StudioMDHR Entertainment.

What started as an affair started by the brothers Chad and Jared Moldenhauer with a friend, Jake Clark, working from their homes, and initially only on weekends, became one of the sensations of 2017. Cuphead started his journey in 2010, seven years ago, having gained body and ambitions with the support of all those who were put his fingers (and eyes) on top, friends, community, and ultimately Microsoft itself, that the led to E3 in 2014.

If I had to define it, I would say it was an extreme "run and gun", many games are impressive by exuberance or aesthetic balance, but Cuphead goes up some steps in that matter, being like a homage, a return to the past from the early animation of Walt Disney in the 1930s, when the figures moved by drag, live on the screen but challenged any rule associated with flexibility.

This has a number of motifs, ranging from inspiration to the more surrealist work of cartoonists such as Ub Iwerks, Grim Natwick and Willard Bowsky, to the fact that backgrounds have been drawn separately from figures and animations, and they are absolutely amazed at everything have been drawn by hand. Frame by frame, it takes love. Only the colors were added a posteriori via digital techniques.
The fact that the backgrounds are static and only the interplay elements stand out gives us the feeling that the characters are about to leave the screen, and when they jump, it looks like we can catch them. During the time we spent in the ramifications of the world to choose the pictures is as if we were playing board during levels, it is almost impossible for someone from outside to decipher whether it is a video game or a VHS of the time of the parents.

We are on the island of Inkwell, when Cuphead and Brother Mugman, after a series of victories in the casino, decide to accept a "all or nothing" proposal made by the Devil in person. Of course they would be destined to lose, and so end up making their soul depend on the capture of a series of contracts of the inhabitants of the island, having until the end of the day to fulfill the demands of the devil.

In desperation in the new role of collectors, the two frightened brothers visit Elder Kettle (a coffee maker, of course), who provides them with a special potion to be able to fire their fingers. If you think a story out of the mind of someone genially disturbed, they are quite right, Cuphead is a feast of unpredictability, because at the artistic level, it is a cascade of madness and experimentalism, which follows very well the time when it is inspired, with immense familiar elements, but reordered in a totally crazy way, from the enemies to the abilities that we are unlocking by land or air.
We spend time between run-gun and isolated battles with bosses, huge bosses, in a sequence of running, jumping, shooting, dying (repeating). The pace of action is flawless, every death and recovery takes a few seconds, so the fun here is in memorizing and predicting consistent scenarios. It is not accidental to classify it as the Dark Souls of the side scrollers, the levels are designed to cost us hundreds of lives to overcome, but at the same time, the speed with which the restart occurs ensures that the action never stops, being inevitable we arrive at that hypnotic point where we take for ourselves to surpass, as if by magic, what initially seemed impossible.

VERDICT

Cuphead is like home cooking at Grandma's house after a week in a metropolis swamped with fast-food chains. It is one of the best proposals of the year, which deserves to be celebrated, supported, and mainly played by all. Not surprisingly, the StudioMDHR team has already confirmed a new project, reiterating its intention to maintain the modus operandi, drawing everything by hand and we wait with the same care. Until then, more content is confirmed for Cuphead and who knows, the cooperative online.

+ Aesthetics sublime
+ Rhythm
+ Pure madness
+ Difficult, not frustrating
-Something short
-Availability of online co-op