Episode 70: Cuphead

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey there, chum, thanks forstopping by. We got a group of
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like to say thank you too,Dave Jackson, Dustin Miller, Ryan Yingling,
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(00:22):
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down that street, Jack to wwwdot patreon dot com slash Pixel Project Radio.
It's certainly a good time and wehope you'll like what you see.

(01:04):
All right, now, it's timefor a real swell about. Let's hear
these boys talk about some cup head. Welcome back, everybody to Pixel Project

(01:32):
Radio, a video game and videogame discussion style podcast where we talk all
about our favorite games and some ofyours too. It's me, it's me.
I'm a real smart fella. I'malso a real fart smellow. It's
your host, Rick, It's me. How's it going today? We are
talking about a very fun game,a very intense game, and some might

(01:56):
say a very unfair game. ButI'm not gonna cast judgments too soon.
Before we get into all of that, though, I've got to introduce my
guest. You've heard him before onthis show. You've heard him talk all
about the Pizza Tastic Turtle Power,You've heard him talk all about crushing the
church in fire Emblem three Houses.Once again, we're welcoming Eric guests back

(02:16):
to the show from the Unlockables.Eric, Man, how's it going.
It's always good to have you onthe show. Rick, Thank you so
much. Man. It's it's anhonor to be on the show once again.
Every time it just gets better andbetter. It never ever loses its
luster. Yeah. I when yougave me the list of games that you
were going through and we can't justsett it on this one, I'm I'm

(02:38):
really excited to talk about it.You could even say that this could be
a real high class about Hey,there's the jokes. We're gonna get the
jokes flowing. That's true. That'strue because, as all of you know,
you've read the title. That's whyyou're here. We're talking about cup
Head. That's right. Cup Head, the very well known game that came

(02:59):
out in Oh let's see what didmy notes say here twenty seventeen? Is
that right? Yeah? I haveit at September twenty seventeen, specifically on
the Xbox, and then to theswitch and PlayStation a few years later.
That is right. But before weget into all of that, I just
wanted to ask you about your historywith this game. So when did you
first hear about cup Head? Didyou get it on day of release?

(03:23):
Or are you a relatively new convertto this boss rush sort of game.
No, so I think I kindof found out about it at the same
time everybody else did. I believeit was that the E three presentation in
about twenty fourteen that this game waskind of first shown off, and I
think myself, like a lot ofpeople that year, it immediately kind of

(03:45):
caught all of our attention just becauseof the unique art style. At the
game was presented in. I mean, nobody had ever really kind of seen
anything like this before, so immediatelyyou're kind of always looking when E three
comes around, or used to comearound Rest in Peace, probably when you're
always looking for something like unique thatkind of stands out from the usual kind
of triple A stuff that you seeand they present to you. And this

(04:06):
one definitely definitely stood out for sure. So I marked this as soon as
I knew it was going to comeout. I wanted to pick it up
on day one, and and Idid pick it up on day one,
and so I've kind of played itsince twenty seventeen, and I actually do
have a lot of fond memories.My best friends since Kindergarten also picked it
up, and back in the daywhen we were both kind of swinging the

(04:28):
bachelor life, we'd always go overto his house and we would we would
just play cup Head together for Iwould say probably a lot of sessions,
a lot of months. We did. We did a play through of the
game on regular we tried to getthrough the game on Expert cooplete together,
and just really a lot of greatmemories around this game. And then unfortunately
I haven't had the chance to goback and play the DLC yet, which
is something I've really wanted to dobecause I saw that was coming out.

(04:50):
But I have a lot of extensiveexperience with this game, and I played
it as recently as last weekend oftime of recording, just to prepare for
the show. Oh nice, veryvery cool. Much like yourself, I
was also aware of it leading upto its release. When this released,
I was actually working at game Stopat the time, so I heard all

(05:12):
about it. I knew all aboutit. I got a little mini vinyl
that was pretty cool. I don'tknow what's happened to it. Yeah,
it was a neat little trinket thatI took from the back rooms of Game
Stop. I don't I don't knowwhatever happened to it, but yeah,
I played this on PC. IfI don't think it was on release,
but it was pretty close to whenit first came out, and that's where

(05:36):
I play it to this day.I've got it on Switch. I actually
haven't tried it on Switch. Iended up screaming a little bit on a
little bit of the game on PCon one of those like once every six
month streams that I like to do, and so I was like well,
I already started it again on PC. I'll just do it on PC.

(05:56):
But it is great on the Switchfrom what I've heard, I'm sure it's
great on steam Deck as well.Did you play any of this on Steam
Deck? No? I did not, but i'd always ever since they kind
of ported it to Switch, andnow that I am the proud ownervous steam
Deck, I would like to tryit in that regards. It seems like
it would be an ideal game forthat for sure, And like I said,
it makes me a little bit nervousanytime anything kind of goes over from
the higher echelon of consoles to theswitch. But I'm glad to hear that

(06:21):
it holds up pretty well. Yeah. Yeah, everything that I've heard about
the switch port, it seems likeit works okay, and I can't imagine
it wouldn't. Once once we talkabout sort of how the game looks and
articulates, I think most folks wouldagree. Speaking of most folks, We've

(06:41):
got some community correspondence from our discordOur community forum channel, and I want
to read a couple of them rightnow. I'll read a couple now,
and then i'll read a couple lateron just as a reminder to folks,
if you want to participate in this, or if you just want to come
and hang out with a crew ofa lot of really cool people, you
can join our discord. Links tothat will be in the show notes,

(07:04):
in the episode description, or onour socials. We're going to talk all
about those towards the end of theepisode, so stay tuned for that,
because we're also going to talk aboutEric's show and his socials and all that,
so please do stay tuned. Butfor now, let's read a couple
of correspondences. In a rare twistof fate, Dave Jackson, our first

(07:29):
responder, is not the first responder. He's been usurped. His throne has
been claimed. A new champion risesfrom the ashes from the mist, looking
down upon his kingdom. Of course, we're talking about Ryan Yingling from Pissed
Off podcast Shout Out to list Off, the formerly defunct and now reborn greater

(07:55):
than ever podcast all about lists.It's a terrific show and you shouldn't listen
to it. Here's what he hasto say about Cuphead. Cuphead is a
certified masterpiece. Can it be punishing? Absolutely? But that in no way
the tracks from the game being amonumental love letter to nineteen thirties animation and
the music of that era. Andunderneath the beautifully hand animated and ragtime marvel

(08:18):
lies a highly competent schmump I hatethat word. With slip controls and precise
gameplay, Cuphead is, without adoubt, a must play for anyone who
considers themselves a true fan of animateddrinkwaar nine point one three five six out
of eleven interesting review score. Itell you what. Ever, since ever

(08:41):
since Ryan came back from his podcastinghiatus, he's been He's not pulling his
punches anymore. Nope, he's backfor vengeance. He's silly mode. He's
just feeling like, Oh he's feelinga little silly. It's a little goofy.
We love Goofy Ryan, Just alittle goofy move. And one more

(09:03):
I'll read before we get into somespecifics, is of course, from Dave
Jackson from Tales from the Backlog.If you've listened to our show, you're
gonna love Dave show, so checkit out. He says. The conversation
around Cuphead is usually either centered aroundits art or its difficulty. The art
and music kind of speak for themselves. So I just want to say that,
yes, Cuphead is difficult, butit's also very motivating and even friendly

(09:26):
in some ways. You don't haveto worry about lives or gameovers or boss
runs or checkpoints, and I thinkthe progress meter at the end of the
run is a great motivating tool tojust tell me I can do this Cuphead
rules. Thank you Dave, andthank you Ryan, and thank you in

(09:46):
advance to the other folks that we'regoing to be reading but not quite yet.
Eric, what do you think aboutwhat these fine gents have said?
Do you agree with that? Yeah, I tend to have a lot of
my reaction kind of my overall thoughtsabout this game are are pretty positive.
Like I kind of said in myintro, my experience with it. When
you look at this game, itdoes catch your eye because again, there's

(10:07):
there's nothing else really like it outthere. I mean, the Triple A
video game industry machine has kind ofbecome come homogenized. And while I'm a
sucker for a great game with cuttingedge graphics, I think that as we
get more and more advanced, wedo kind of lose that. Like Ryan
alluded to, the thirties era ofanimation was something that was really special,

(10:30):
really unique, and we all kindof, you know, the cartoons that
I feel like we kind of grewup with were inspired by that. But
you know, as as technology andtime advanced, things aren't quite the same
way anymore. So, Yeah,this is absolutely a love letter to that
style of animation. And I'm surewe'll get into it as we go and
talk about a little bit of thegameplay, but just kind of touch touch

(10:50):
on difficulty a little bit. Yeah. I think that myself because I didn't
know too much about this game otherthan the trailer is going and I didn't
really read any reviews. When Ifirst played it, the difficulty caught me
off guard. I was not preparedfor something that was to this level.
Disagree of punishing for someone who's notprepared for it, but I agree with
Dave points wholeheartedly. It's difficult ina way that is I think fair and

(11:13):
not mean, and not difficult justto be difficult. If you're looking at
the games, this game kind ofdraws inspiration from a lot of those games
back then were kind of designed difficulton purpose to kind of extend their last
stability because older games didn't have theconstant stream of online updates. So I
think difficulty in this sense serves adifferent purpose, and it serves a very

(11:35):
very good purpose for this game specifically. But I'm sure we'll touch on that
like a little more as we startto expand on some of the things that
were said. Oh absolutely. Ispent today reading a bunch of contemporary reviews
from when cup Ed was new,and I mean there was a controversy might
be a strong word, but therewas a lot of rabble rousing about this

(11:58):
difficulty. People were not happy withit. But this game does what a
lot of maybe not a lot,but this game does what some games do,
and it blends this duality of twoconflicting esthetics. Right. On one
hand, the game looks like apre Disney hand animated because it was hand
animated. We're gonna talk all aboutthat, this sort of pre Disney thirties

(12:24):
era cartoons. It's got hot jazz, swing jazz, dixieland all of that.
And then the other duality that providesdissonance against it is its intense difficulty.
And we've we've seen games do thatbefore, right, Like the first
I don't I swear I don't knowwhy this was the first thing that came
to my mind, But like Deador Alive, you know those games,

(12:46):
the fighting games where it's it's prettyladies in bikinis, but it's also a
fighting game. You know, it'sthat mash of aesthetics that makes it work,
that makes it interesting. Cuphead doesit to an incredibly polished degree,
and you know, I kind ofagree with Dave. You know, it's
it's punishing, but it's also veryrewarding. Yeah, like he said,

(13:09):
they really do kind of It's Icould understand there being some controversy around it
because, I mean, if you'rea parent looking to buy your kids video
games, obviously, right this gamelooks like a very like fun, colorful,
like safe type of game that weplayed when we grew up, that
you could buy for your kids.And then I imagine it would be pretty
disappointing there and you pick up agame for you know, a little Jimmy

(13:31):
and then all of a sudden,you know, he's just getting crushed by
these bosses over and over. Iwould be disappointed too, But that's an
interesting time in which you're referring to, because when this game came out in
twenty seventeen, I kind of feltlike the conversation around difficulty was like a
little more accepting. So I thinkthat that's interesting that there was this kind
of like uproar about it, andmaybe that was just due to like the

(13:52):
trailers maybe not conveying there or maybenot being conveyed very clearly up front,
which it was so what I've read, it wasn't because, like I said,
it caught me off guard. Butagain, because of the mechanics the
game puts in place, this isn'treally an issue because, like they've said,
it really does kind of keep pushingyou to get better, and the
bosses have like multiple stages, multipleevolutions that they go through to kind of

(14:16):
mark your progress, and then likeDave said at the end, that you
do get this kind of progress barto see the progress that you've made,
and it does give you it's notreally like a slap in the face.
It's showing you, hey, you'regetting better, you're getting further, like
oh, you were really really closethis time. It's it's almost like an
encouragement, like a pat on thatback to be like, hey, keep
going, you can do it.Yeah, absolutely, And you know those

(14:37):
pats on the back in this gameare few and far between, but they
are there. Yes, let's getinto it a little bit. So if

(15:03):
you're new to the show, Ifyou're a new listener, first of all,
welcome, We're glad that you're here. If you're a returning listener,
welcome back. Sit down anywhere.The water's fine. Can I get you
a drink? You have you taughtHouse of the Family. You're good.
Are you enjoying my derivative Mark marenimpression that I like doing from time to
time because he's here, He's here. Okay, I'm done. What is

(15:24):
a boss rush slash, run andgun shooter known for the duality of its
retro thirties inspired presentation and vicious difficulty. Protagonist brothers cup Head and mug Man
spend an afternoon gambling and manage tolose their souls to the devil. He
offers his grace if they carry outhis bidding and collect the souls of other
monsters who haven't paid their debts.Pretty okay description, Yeah, I would

(15:48):
agree. I mean, you're fightingthe devil, so I mean everybody can
understand that. Let's talk a littlebit about how it was made. This
game was the first by Studio MDHRthat is the developer and the publisher.
They are a Canadian based studio.It is made up of and this game

(16:10):
was created by Chad and Jared Moldenhower. They are brothers. So this is
this is a family affair, andit's about to get even more of a
family affair when you hear about whoproduced it, Ryan Moldenhower and married Ja
Moldenhower apologies for that pronunciation. Artby Chad Tyler and Marriage and Moldenhower,

(16:33):
as well as Jake Clark written byEvan Skolnick and composed by Christopher Madigan.
So, as we talked about inour summations of this, and as Eric
pointed out a couple of times,the creators Chad and Jared were really inspired
by what's known as the Golden Ageof animation, this is a little tangent.

(16:56):
I don't like that term Golden Age. Yeah, it seems a little
I mean, I definitely think thiswas like a heightened air of animation for
sure. And the couple of thesources that you check kind of like date.
These is all kind of like differenttimes, right, Like some people
are saying, like the Golden Ageof animation is like from the nineteen twenties
to like the nineteen sixties or nineteenseventies, like at the height of like

(17:18):
the Looney Tunes cartoons. But andagain, I'm not an expert in animation
anymore than like the Wikipedia armchair expertthat I've become in the last week.
Right, Hey, I've got apodcast I know about being a Wikipedia armchair
expert. It's kind of our callingcar. We kind of have to do
it right to make it sound likewe know what we're talking about. But

(17:38):
yeah, just to call it theGolden Age is kind of weird. It
definitely was the age when animation kindof exploded, but around this time kind
of so was everything. Television wastaking off, movies was taking off,
you know, the Roaring twenties andthe depression that followed saw the invention of
new technologies and new entertainments. Soyeah, Golden Age is a little bit
weird, but it certainly was aI'm of new and exciting technologies. Well,

(18:03):
it's not the placement of the GoldenAge being in the thirties that bothers
me. It's it's this concept ofa golden age. We hear this a
lot in musical theater too, youknow, the Golden age musical theater with
the music man and anything goes andyou know, et cetera, et cetera.
It implies that what comes after isnot as good, when in reality,

(18:26):
we've never been in a better timefor animation, we've never been in
a better time for music, We'venever been in a better time for musical
theater, you know. So this, I know what they're saying with this
idea of a golden age, Butwords matter and they can have implications.
So that's just a little soapbox ofmine that I got maybe more passionate about
than I should in my graduate schoolstudies. But hey, that's okay.

(18:51):
So again, they were inspired bythat, particularly this rubber hose style.
I did some looking into this today. Do you do you know about this?
I read up on an a littlebit. Yeah, and that's mostly
referring to like the way cartoons weredrawn back in the day. A lot
of these characters that you saw hadthese kind of rubber hose style limbs,
and that's the description of the waythat they would move and react on the

(19:11):
screen. So yeah, that's that'spretty much what I learned in my quick
brief study of animation. No,that's exactly it, though, Like when
you hear it described like rubber hose, and even hearing it, you know,
further describe like, oh, theyhave this wobbliest esthetic when they move,
you might be thinking like, Ican kind of see it, But

(19:32):
when you see it on the screen, and when somebody like lifts their arm
to take a drink of water andtheir arm bends like a noodle or like
a hose, you're like, oh, I get it. I can't,
for the life of me think ofany cartoons that use this, but it's
something like I know it when Isee it, you know, to paraphrase
that court hearing. And a lotof other games have used this style too,

(19:56):
like Bendy and the inc Machine wasa really popular game that came out
not that much longer after Cuphead thatused this epic Mickey I think uses some
of it too. Yeah, Ithink that's probably a harkening back, because
when I think of this style specifically, I definitely think of the early Mickey
cartoons the Steamboat Willie, where Mickey'searly design is very much that kind of

(20:17):
he's got rubbery arms and legs andhe kind of like bounces around and flips
all over the place. So yeah, it's kind of like this concept where
you're like, oh, that's alittle bit weird when you call it that,
but as soon as you see it, there's a direct cooration you're like,
oh, that makes perfect sense asto why they call it that.
It's interesting that you brought up SteamboatWillie and Walt Disney, because the rubber
hose style of animation started to fallout of favor once the thirties came around,

(20:42):
and in particular, once this stylecalled full animation became really popular,
and that was of course popularized byWalt Disney because he wanted his animations to
be like really realistic, like amovie. So this kind of fell out
of favor pretty quickly. Another littletidbit that I think you will appreciate that
I found when looking this stuff upis that apparently the rubber host style was

(21:06):
also a big inspiration behind the tuneworld monsters in Yugio, which were my
favorites when I played Ugio as akid. Oh. Interesting, I wasn't
thinking of that specific example, butthat makes a lot of sense. I
thought you were actually going to tieit back to you know, the game.
I'm most well known for Kingdom Heartsbecause in Kingdom Hearts twos there is
a timeless river level that is takesplace in the asthetic world of Steamboat Willie.

(21:30):
So really cool to see Sore andall his friends get their kind of
rubber host treatment there as well.Yeah, goly if Kingdom Hearts, if
only there were a comprehensive podcast talkingabout Kingdom Hearts, somebody should do a
good one of those. Oh stopit, you know, maybe let's put
her head together, heads together.We'll think of one and we'll maybe tell
them about it at the end ofthe episode. How does that sound for

(21:52):
sure? Yeah, I think that'sa good idea. This episode is all
tangents all the time. It's great. It is great. I like this
kind of podcast every now and then. So the brothers, the Brothers Moldenhower,
they tried creating a game back intwo thousand and they failed because they
didn't really have the tools, thecapitol, what have you. And they

(22:14):
tried again with Cupheads, specifically afterthe success of Super Meat Boy. That's
not a game that I've played,but I like everything that I know about
it. It seems like a gamethat I would really enjoy going through.
And what happened was they you know, they did it. It was announced
at E three, like you hadmentioned a little bit ago, Eric,
and it got pushed back a littlebit, but once it came out,

(22:38):
it really started a lot of conversations. Reception wise, though universal praise,
I couldn't find anything from an actualnews source that was lower than a seven
point eight out of ten. Itseems like you're just kind of hating at
that point. I mean, Idefinitely think the game definitely deserves uni personal

(23:00):
praise because just when you learn alittle bit about the history of like the
whole Moldenhower family was like involved inthis project so much so that that Chad
and Jared re mortgage their house tomake this game happen. And of course,
you know Microsoft did come in andget and give them a little bit
of help and you know, providesome financial support, but they really literally

(23:22):
had everything on the line, likefor this game, for pretty much the
entire Moldenhower family. And I thinkthat really kind of tend shines through because
when you're willing to put that muchon the line for something you really believe
in, it really does feel likea work of love, and there's so
much love and detail put into everycorner and craft of this game, and
to see I can't imagine like whatthat must be like to have this concept

(23:48):
in your head for something that's thisunique and this incredible based on going about
this probably the most annoying way possiblethat you could to create this game and
to have it come out to youknow, Universal Claim and have so much
success with it that there's extra DLCand now there's even a Netflix show must
be you know that that's great forthem in their and their whole family,
and it created a whole you know, studio and livelihood that they they can

(24:11):
have. So it's not just agreat game, but it's I think it's
a really feel good story for forthe Moultenhower families specifically. Yeah, I
think I was reading something today.It was one of the creators. I
don't know if it was if itwas Chat or Jared, but one of
them was like a bricklayer, likea like a concrete like working with concrete,

(24:32):
and they're like, yeah, youknow, we didn't really know if
this was going to succeed, soI kind of figured if it didn't,
yeah, I'll just go back tolane concrete. Well it's like, that's
that's such a cool story. Ilove hearing about stuff like this, and
and of course, you know,the the implication here, the bias here
is that we only hear the successstories, right, we don't hear the
stories of people that did fail andthen went back to lane concrete. But

(24:53):
it's still cool to hear all thesame, you know. Yeah, what
a what a career transition too,from literally like laying concrete construction to making
video games like complete, complete oppositeends of the spectrum. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I mean I'm sure thatyou know, bricklaying and working with
your hands like that is really satisfying. But right, I don't know I

(25:15):
would take video game designer, Ithink, yeah, I think, well,
I mean, if I got towork in a passion project, probably
I would. I don't know ifI'd want to be a part of the
soulless COG triple a video game machinethat God blessed those people for all the
hard work that they do. Butyeah, to work on something like this
would be a once in a lifetimetime for sure. And like like you
said, all of their inspirations thatthey specifically drew a lot of inspiration from

(25:41):
the other not as well known animationstudio at the time, because obviously the
House of Mouse Disney, Walt Disneyjust dominates all because they came out of
that that era. Arguably the winner. Fleischer Studios was kind of the guiding
north star of the project. Netstudio is more famous for you know,
your Betty Boop, your Popeye.Those were the probably the two big ones
that came out of their studio forsure. Unfortunately, you know, the

(26:03):
brothers there, Max and Dave hada pretty public falling out. They got
acquired by Paramount in nineteen forty,so Walt Disney kind of ended up the
the de facto kind of defining forceof animation. I was left and you
hit the nail on the head too. There. They kind of pioneered this
new realistic style of animation that theykind of transitioned out of. And the

(26:23):
first example that you can see aboutthat is the nineteen thirty seven hit snow
White in the Seven Dwarves. That'skind of where Disney was like, hey,
this animation is great, but likethis is the potential of what it
could really be. And that kindof changed things, Like you said forever
going forward to like this more likeyou still had the principles of animation that
they mostly adhered to, but theDisney had just changed the game with snow

(26:45):
White, for sure. Yeah.Yeah. For as many problems and misgivings
as folks have with Disney today,and rightfully so, it's their influence and
importance in the medium is undeniable.Snow White looked incredible for the time.
It still looks damn good today.I saw it when I was a kid,

(27:06):
and I thought it to come outlike maybe in the eighties. I
had no idea it was a moviefrom nineteen thirty seven. Yeah, it's
nuts. It's nuts. And relatedto that, you sent me a really
cool video of one of the animatorsof Cuphead doing a talk like a presentations,
a sort of masterclass, walking throughthe process of creating one of the
bosses. Do you remember the animator'sname? By chance? I want to

(27:30):
say it what I think you mentioned. I think it was Clark. I
want to say it was him becauseI just remember his story though. Yeah,
he came out of the one ofthe schools of animation up in Vancouver
that I can't remember up in Canada, slap makes sense, And he came
onto this prior he had spent sometime kind of bouncing around. I forget
the shows that he worked on,but he worked on a couple of high
profile shows, but and Nickelodeon.Yeah, oh yeah, and his specialty

(27:56):
really was in kind of like thisheat. He had a specialty in like
this two style of animations. Soyeah, that was really cool to kind
of see it. And now we'rekind of transition into how they did this.
You know, when we say thatthe whole game was hand animated,
like, the whole game was handanimated. Every frame of motion that you
see in this game was drawn byhand, the most annoying possible way that

(28:19):
you could think to animate something.This game was done. So when people
were like, oh, this gamewas announced in twenty fourteen, but took
three more years to come out whenthey had already be working on it for
probably like three or four years,well, yeah, when you have to
draw literally everything from scratch, ofcourse it's going to take a long time.
And then everyone's like, oh,it took five years for a DALC
to come out. Yes, becauseyou have to draw everything by hand.

(28:41):
It's every motion that you see acharacter make at least my again my armchair
understanding of animation has to be handdrawn and then was scanned in and they
colored it in the computer and theyput it into the engine and tried to
get it to all work together.So yeah, Clark kind of walked us
through that process of and even thenyou're not just drawing like one character where

(29:02):
it's like, oh, okay,I have this idea for the character,
this is it. They went throughprobably hundreds of different iterations for each single
boss that they put in that game, So it cannot be understated how much
a pain in the ass this iswhat game probably was to make. Yeah,
and speaking of the revisions, inthe video that you sent me of
Clark explaining the process, you know, you could see them doing the sketches

(29:26):
and revisions and just playing with thestyle using different inspirations like the final inspiration
of Betty Boop and then they alsotried an early version of Betty Boop and
Wonder Woman was in there, someother video game content was in there that
they looked at, and it's superinteresting. It's cool to see the artist's
process like that. And I dowant to just highlight what you said again,

(29:48):
Eric, because it bears repeating.This was hand animated. They drew
this frame by frame, and thatis particularly a astounding one because what what
a monumental effort that that has tobe. And two, that's not really
how animation is done by and largetoday. So like when they wanted to

(30:11):
pay homage to these old studios,they weren't just talking the talk. They
walked the walk. They put allof their chips down and they said,
we're gonna go, you know,full hog on this, and I'm mixing
so many metaphors, but the resultis, I mean stupendous. We're on
visuals anyway, So let's talk aboutsome of these bosses. Did you have

(30:49):
a particular favorite, just visually speaking, not mechanically speaking. Oh, I
mean, I mean visually I thoughtthey were all you know, you'd figure
that to put so many in agame like this, eventually you'd kind of
they'd start to homogenize. But therewas never a point where I ran into
any one of the singular bosses andwas like, oh, this is like
kind of similar to one that camebefore. They're all incredibly striking and incredibly

(31:14):
unique, even so much so thateach boss that you fight has probably three
four five different stages and transformations thatit goes through. So not only are
you animating what the base boss isgoing to look like, but then you
have to kind of theme it outand be like, Okay, this is
the theme of the boss. Let'snow it's going to transform into this,
and now it's going to transform intothat, or the fight's gonna change this
way or change that way. Theone that really sticks out my mind to

(31:37):
that one is Hildeberg on the FirstIsland. So she starts off as kind
of like this, you know,flying Blaine, like kind of blimp lady,
and your fighting here, and shetransforms into a bunch of different stuff.
She transforms into like an oxen withhorns that like will die at.
Even transforms into two girls like spiralingaround one another that the shots just come
out of. And then when youget her to her final stage, she
transforms to like an entire moon andtakes up the whole stage. So you're

(32:00):
going from a character that is essentiallylike a blimp er Zeppelin or whatever and
ending up with a character that islike a moon that's half the size of
the screen. So I liked her. Ribby and Croaks was really cool.
On the first island. I lovethe boxing Frogs is such a just kind
of cool and works really well atthat rubber host style of animation. And

(32:22):
that fight in particular two has alot of homages to Street Fighter three in
it, I believe so much so, where as like the punches he's thrown
are kind of like mini Haducans,and when he turns into the slot machine
if he lands on the devil,that's like a reference like m Bison.
So so just really really cool stuff. So that was a good one.

(32:42):
Jimmy the Great was another one thatI really loved on the second island.
Grim match Stick, which is thedragon. That one is really we're talking
about difficulty. That one's really hard, but I love Grim match Stick a
lot. I love that whole Thatmight be my favorite fight in the game,
just because you're jumping from cloudtop tocloud toop fighting this dragon up there,
and and in the meantime they havethis tower that's spinning in the background

(33:05):
that's piercing the clouds. And thecool thing about the backgrounds too is they're
all watercolor hand painted as well.And that tower that they made for that
fight specifically was an actual three dtower that they just photographed like hundreds of
times from every angle. So,I mean there are ones that I hate
based on difficulty, but in termsof like style and the way that they
look, I mean I'd be hardpressed name a couple that are like I

(33:29):
think would stand above the rest.I think they're all fantastic. Yeah,
I completely agree with you. It'sit's tough, And you know, that
was maybe not a great question byme because we could go off and talk
about almost literally every boss because theyall look just so damn good, right.
I particularly also like it's a it'snot a hostile character. The shopkeeper,

(33:51):
he's this big fat pig with aneyepatch and he kind of leans over
the counter and he's he's got thisvoice that's like welcome, and I'll probably
put it in because I can't doit. And yeah, it's it's really
neat the Cuphead and Mugman themselves,which and I didn't specify this, but
you can play as either, oryou could play with a friend as as

(34:14):
you did Eric, and they're bothdesigned. Their designs look relatively similar.
Mug Man's got fuller eyes, likebigger eyes, whereas Cuphead is more like
angular eyes. You see that alot in you know, the protagonist will
have the angled eyes and Cuphead isred and Mughead is Wait what did I

(34:36):
say? Cuphead is red and mugMan Mughead mug Mugman is blue in terms
of the shorts that they wear.That is to say, yes, Mughead's
the less successful brother for sure.Yeah, mug Mughead's the third brother that
stayed home and was like, I'mthirty two, I'm over this ship.
He didn't gamble and lose his soul, so he listened to the elder Kettle

(34:58):
for sure. But some yeah,if you, if you would allow me
to because did you get a chanceto play this coop at all chance?
That's one thing that I've never doneis play this co op. Okay,
Um, yeah I have. I'dsay probably a majority of my time spent
playing this was was in co ops. So the co op is super cool.
Obviously, the difficulties kicked up andas because you have a second character

(35:20):
pouring damage into the bosses. Um, it's super fun to play with friends.
That elation that you get of conqueringa difficult challenge like this with a
with a buddy is super cool.When we were at my friend's house playing
this. I'm pretty sure it's stillto this day. There were words uttered
that the walls. Remember now thatmy other friend lives there, I ask
if they can hear the walls whisperthe terrible things that we said just playing

(35:42):
this game. But I think thatin a way that it's difficult just because
the difficulty factor is leveled up byhaving another person. Having an additional thing
to keep track of on screen doesget a little bit confusing. When we
were playing together, I found myselfmultiple times, even though Cup had Mugman
are distinct colors, I did findmyself oftentimes like confusing which one I was,

(36:06):
just because it's not an understatement tosay like there is so much happening
on screen that you have to keeptrack of it once so and they look
similar enough to the point where ifI'm not looking at my care, if
I'm just keeping track of a characterout of my periphery and just trying to
see what the boss is doing,you can one hundred percent confuse yourself for
for the other character. But Istill think that the benefits of having one

(36:28):
of the rare games these days thatyou're able to kind of play local co
op now and it's not just anonline co op thing. That feeling was
kind of like the last great feelingof you know, having your buddies over
and playing games on the couch andstuff. Cuphead was kind of like the
real last feeling that I've ever hadwith that, and nothing's really kind of
recaptured that. Since we kind ofhad this co op conversation regarding TMNT Shutter's

(36:52):
Revenge, didn't we Yes, alittle bit, yes, And I never
got a chance to play that coop. Yeah, Oh that's a blast,
man, And I agree with you, dude. I love these couch
co op games. It's it's abygone well it's not completely, but it's
almost a bygone era because technology isjust advancing at such a rapid rate.
And you know a lot of peoplehave had things to say like that,

(37:15):
like a good old Ted Kazinski.But for better or for worse, I'm
I'm sorry, my I'm my brainis all over the place today. I'm
making jokes and tangents left and right. They're not all sticking. It's fine.
But yeah, this, this couchstyle co op is super cool.
It's I miss it so much.A lot of it is nostalgia, but
I mean a lot of these coop experiences and playing in the room with

(37:37):
somebody else, it's just not somethingthat you can wholesale replace, you know.
It's it's it's it's a very specialthing to do and to experience.
And I love games like this andlike Shutter's Revenge that are uh, you
know, bringing it back a littlebit. Yeah, I definitely don't think
it would be the same type ofexperience without it. For sure. I'm

(37:58):
glad that they made the effort toinclude that. And it does give you
just a little bit more of marginfor error. So like if you run
out of health, um, oneof the you can use the Perry mechanic
to like revive your buddy to getan extra life. But then it's like
the trade off of okay, ishe in a safe spot that I can
revive him and not like get myselfkilled. So it just it kind of
adds another layer of complexity to analready complex game. And like I said,

(38:22):
over overcoming that challenge with your buddiesthat that's just like you said,
it's it's especially having gone through thepandemic and you know, being locked away
from people for so literally you werenot allowed to sit on the couch and
play games with people like we wereforced We're supposed to stay home. And
it's just something that Yeah, Ijust I hope it's still I know it'll
be there in diminished returns late becauseobviously it's the Internet age and that's the

(38:45):
way games are going. But Ihope there's still games like Cuphead that that
afford us that ability to to beable to sit on the couch and play
with people, because there's that humanelement that you just you can't replace.
And I think too, the difficultylends a self actually as a as a
positive to this idea of couch coop because you are bonding with with a

(39:06):
friend in this unique and intensely tryingexperience, and you can revel in your
failure together and you can uh toquote, you say words and phrases that
the walls will remember, which Ilove that phrase, by the way.
That's beautiful. Um. So it'syou know, it's it's a bonding experience,
right, it's as much as anythingelse. It's it's really cool.

(39:30):
Um. Since we're kind of trailinginto mechanically how this game works, we
we've kind of danced around a littlebit. Let's get into that. Let's
talk about how this game plays inthe hands. Ah, you thought the

(40:01):
music break meant that we were goingright in psych about a couple of surprise.
We've got a couple more community correspondencesto read. This one from Aaron
from Superpod Saga aka scab Zilla akashit Poster or Extreme in every discord that
I'm in absolute mad lad. Hesays this about Cuphead. What I really

(40:22):
enjoyed about Cuphead is that even thoughit's very difficult, it's not at all
unfair. With each death, youslowly progress more and more, and exactly
like Dave said. You remember Dave'sreview, That meter really makes it seem
like you can do anything. Ialso appreciate how easy it is to restart
when you die. It's like deadrestart new run, and I appreciate that

(40:44):
so much. I fucking hate beingbogged down by menu after menu after menu.
Yeah. I think there are elementsof genuine unfairness in this, but
we're going to save the difficulty conversationfor the very end. I think.
But that idea, it's it's notdissimilar to roguelikes, I guess in that

(41:06):
fashion because you die, you starta new run. Well it's not really
a new run because you don't reallylose all that much. But you die,
you try again, you die,you try again. You're not You're
not gonna have to redo like fromlevel one. Yeah. I think if
this game had a type of thinglike you said, I'm sure we'll expand
on it a little more towards theend, or when we're talking about gameplay,
If it had something to the pointwhere it's like, oh, you

(41:29):
died, and now all of asudden you get back to the boss,
you had to like do like atwo to three minute like level or platforming
section. I think that would reallysuck. But the fact that this game
understands what it is and gets youback into the action right away, you
don't really have time to dwell onthe fact that you're like, oh,
that was really hard and that sucked. You're back in the action pretty much
as soon as you die. Soand I think the length and pacing of

(41:51):
the boss is to definitely lend agreat deal of that feel to it.
And we do have one more pieceof correspondence. I'll save it for a
little bit, sorry Keaton, butit's coming. But let's talk about getting
into that action and how that articulates. So this game is largely just a
series of boss battles. It's aboss rush in that way. But there

(42:13):
are run and gun levels interspersed,and we can maybe talk about those after
this conversation. But the game playsthe exact same no matter which stage,
and lucky for you, when thegame starts, you're greeted with a tutorial
level pretty much right away. Sohere are the things that you can do.
If you done your cup and fillit to the brim as Cuphead or

(42:36):
Mugman. You can run obviously,you can jump. You can't double jump
normally, but if you press Aagain when you're jumping or X whatever your
year isn't you get a perry.You can parry certain items in this game
for various points and goodies. Youcan shoot. That's your main weapon.

(43:00):
There are not actual weapons in thisgame. You shoot out of your finger,
which I think is a very cutetouch. It would be bizarre to
see Cuphead pull out like a glock. He's not messing around this time.
It's Cuphead too. Grittier and rebooted. Yeah, yeah, can we get
something in a grittier Cuphead. What'sPage or Pascal doing right now? Can

(43:23):
we get him on this? We'regonna have from the software make the next
cup Head game. Oh god,damn it. It doesn't need to be
any more difficult. But you canshoot. You can shoot and aim if
you press one of the triggers,you can aim while you're shooting or while
you're running. Both both works.You've got a special meter as well,

(43:45):
so you've got a special shot.It's usually just a you know, a
stronger version of one of your otherattacks, but you can upgrade those,
just as you can upgrade your mainattack, by the way, and you
also have a dash mechanic. Nowthis dash mechanic. I was playing this
on stream, and one of thefirst upgrades that you can get, it's

(44:07):
called a charm. You can equiptwo of those. I believe one of
the charms that everybody gets right awaybecause it's one of the best charms you
can get, is a smoke dash. And what that does is it turns
your dash. It makes you invulnerableand invisible during the duration. It gives
you iframes. In other words,the normal dash doesn't have any iframes.

(44:34):
This is something that Dave said andI agree wholeheartedly this, Uh, the
smoke dash should have just been partof the game, like it shouldn't.
You shouldn't be punished for wanting twoother charms. This dash should have just
been the smoke dash from the start. I think that's interesting because I agree
with you in point, because yes, the smoke dash. I was excited

(44:55):
to talk about this because I thinkthere's a lot of different ways you can
approach the charms, and the differentguns that you get give you a lot
of options to approach bosses in differentways, which I think is very very
cool. It doesn't page and he'llhold you into one style of play.
Uh. Yeah, it's it's awide consensus that the smoke dash is actually
like the most powerful thing you canhave, because yeah, essentially, instead

(45:15):
of just having a dash that travelsin a horizontal line across the stage with
a burst of speed, you're basicallydisappearing in a puff of smoke and then
reappearing a short ways a way later, so you're physically not there for a
moment. So it's a nice littlething that that gives you out of the
way of damage in a pinch.My only argument to the point there were
a couple of times where I unequippedthe smoke Dash because, like you said,

(45:40):
you do not see where you arefor a moment, and sometimes if
you're not judging the dash right,then you're trying to like smoke dash to
a platform. I like missed theplatform sometimes, So I think that was
the incentive of like not making thatthe default dash, because yeah, there
were sometimes where I was like,I need to give up the vulnerability that
the dash provides me because it screwedme over too many times. So that

(46:02):
was kind of my thinking on it. But out of all these charms you
can get if you're a first timeplayer, like the Debt, the Smoke
Dash will help you out immensely.Yeah, and not just the running gun
levels with the smoke Dash being alittle bit tricky. One of the first
bosses that you fight on the firstisland is a flower that's been means to

(46:23):
oblivion. I love the memes ofthe flower, yes, but you know
it'll have like platforms that you haveto use because eventually it will make the
entire floor a damage zone right withspikes and vines. And I fell quite
a few times because my smoke DashI anticipated being a little bit to the

(46:44):
left, but I ended up goinga little bit to the right, you
know, and one of the thingsto its credit, while I still wish
Smoke Dash would have just been orat the very least, while I wish
the Dash would have had invincibility ingeneral, if you are on a stage,
you're like, oh, man,you know, I know these attacks
inside and out. I don't needthe Smoke Dash. You can take it

(47:05):
off just for one boss. Youknow, you can customize your charms,
weapons and specials to each individual bossand level. Um you're not punished for
doing that. So that's really that'sa really nifty way of approaching this.
Um. I I my first playthrough, I generally just kept Smoke Dash.

(47:27):
But my second one this most recenttime, and I didn't beat it
this most recent time, by theway, But this recent time I would
juggle everything like every battle, like, what do I need for this one?
Oh? I don't need the smokeDash. Oh this is uh you
know, this is this guy.I I could really use that low uh
what's the word this short range buthigh damage projected the spread shot. Yeah,

(47:51):
that's my that's my favorite one toequip. Yeah. I found myself
too kind of similar as you,and I think that when you do an
additional play through, like you knowyou have enough, like you get coins
to the running gun stages that allowyou to visit pork Ryan's shop and buy
the upgrades. So if this isa multiple like you're like seventh or eighth
or however many playthroughs like you knowto get the smoke Dash right away,

(48:14):
a new player isn't going to knowthat. So to have such things so
powerful and not like Ptelegraphy, likehey, like this is something that can
really help you out, that doeskind of suck. But yeah, no,
I agree with you, and Ivery clearly remember my first playthroughs.
I was very much stuck wire.I was like, I like the original
p Shooter and I like the Chaserbecause that I can just shoot and the

(48:34):
bolts will chase it. That willsink heat, sink to the enemy,
and I don't have to work.I can just focus on platform and why
bolts just chase the enemy. Butas I did went through an additional playthrough
like by my like a solo playthrough, and then playing on like the
expert difficulty where experimentation is really neededto kind of succeed, you kind of
start to see, oh, like, some of these bosses have like a
specific thing that you can use againstthem, like using Grim match Sticks for

(48:59):
example. I definitely like keeping thesmoke dash on for that for sure.
But my default blaster that I useis I really like the charge shot for
Grim match Stick because I can chargeup my blast and then focus on platforming
and then shoot when I feel safe. And that you might think, oh,
well, you're not getting the samelike spread of damage with just a
single charge shot. But the chargeshot does a lot of damage. It's

(49:20):
balanced enough to the point where you'restill out putting the same amount of damage
even though you feel like you're shootingless. One thing about you know,
these charge shots that do a lotof damage, the various different kinds of
shots that you can equip that mightdo more or less damage. That's all
well and good. One thing thatthis game doesn't have is it doesn't have
a health meter for the bosses.And I was thinking about this. I'm

(49:43):
undecided on whether or not I thinkthat would be a boon for most people
or even for myself, because onone hand, having a health meter will
show you exactly like how much youknow, time left you have with this
boss or how much time you haveleft with this phase. On the other
hand, it would be really demoralizingto see a gigantic health meter just get

(50:07):
plinked away whenever you have the weakershots and think to yourself, oh my
god, this is going to takeso long. You know what I mean,
I don't know what about you?What do you think? Yeah?
I could see the argument for bothsides, and I remember seeing earlier builds
of the game where I think likethey had some kind of health bar thing
present. But to me, thepoint of Cuphead it really is like,

(50:31):
yes, you're you're playing the videogame. You're trying to overcome these these
challenging bosses. But I think StudioMDHR really wanted you to see and appreciate
the visuals, and I think ahealth bar and screen would just kind of
distract from that because you know,like I said, you're playing in video
games, so that, yes,you want to see the health you want
to you want to overcome the challenge. But part of the magic of Cuphead

(50:52):
two is taking in all these thesevisuals, and even my most recent play
through, I gone back, Iwent back and I notice things that I
didn't before I was kind of like, oh, that's like a cute little
thing they added here. So Ithink that the progress bar at the end
is motivating enough because to me,if I saw the health bar getting slower
and slower and I'm like, I'mgetting closer, I'm getting closer. I'm

(51:13):
getting closer, that stresses me outout get anxiety, and I start to
play worse because I'm like, I'mgetting too stressed out of how close I
am. So I think the waythat Cuphead marks your boss progress with not
only the multiple animal transformations that thebosses go through, but then when you
do fail the progress bar at theend, I think that to me it

(51:35):
makes the HP bar not not sucha big deal. If that makes sense.
It does make sense. And forthe record, I am leaning towards
you know, I think it's betterthat they don't have one. But I
want to touch on something you broughtup before, this notion of visual clutter
and having an HP bar or aHP bar if you're one of our friends

(51:57):
across the pond, it would addto what's already on screen, and you
had mentioned playing with your friends sometimesyou could get disoriented and forget which one
you are I think you'll agree withme, But I'm going to say it's
not because things aren't clearly defined.It's because the screen becomes a battle zone

(52:19):
and there's just a lot going on. You're never going to like wonder like,
oh, is that little thing runningan enemy or is it, like
you know, just something in thebackground. You'll never wonder that. But
there's just so much on the screenthat it can become almost cluttered. It
never totally gets cluttered. Okay,it maybe sometimes it does get cluttered,

(52:43):
but it's by and large it's nota huge issue. But I can imagine
adding another friend like you said thatyou did, and having a health bar
for the boss. That would justthere would be too much visual stimuli and
it would just be completely overwhelming formost people myself included. Yeah, absolutely
not not every I would say not. Some bosses are a little less like

(53:07):
intensive than others. But there aresomewhere. I think of Wally Warbles when
he does the feather attack and thereare just hundreds of feathers on the screen
at the same time, or theboss that I absolutely hated the most with
an undying vengeance, Doctor Carl's Robot. Excuse my French fuck that boss.
That was the boss I hated themost. Uh those and especially we didn't

(53:30):
mention this either too. But whenwhen you're playing, there are very few
of the boss stages that where youget an airplane and they're kind of flying
like traditional Schmup style levels. Theflying levels in particular get very very chaotic.
I seem to remember those having themost like visual stimuli on the screen
at once. And yeah, likeyou said, you're not You're never wondering

(53:52):
about any of the things scurring around. You just know everything I touch on
this stage can potentially kill me.I need to avoid it at all costs.
Yeah, let's let's let's talk alittle bit about the flying u I
universally dislike these for the most part. You're in a plane during these,
so you can not only move onthe Y axis, but the X axis

(54:15):
as well. I said that backwards, but you know what I mean.
You can move up, down,and all around. You obviously don't need
to jump, so you're a buttonor X button will just serve to perry,
so that's fine. You don't havea dash instead, when you hold
the dash button, you turn intoa miniature little plane, which which is
very very cute to see and youmove really quick, but you're shooting is

(54:37):
significantly less ranged. Besides that,it's more of the same. It's still
you know, taking down the boss, clinking down their HP while avoiding all
of the obstacles. I don't havea good reason why I don't like the
flying levels. I just maybe it'sjust personal taste. I just I didn't

(54:59):
like them. There are I have, like a i'd say probably about put
about fifty fifty like two of them, like Wally Warbles I really like,
and Jimmy the Great, the Genieone. I really like those those flying
levels in particular um Calumary is prettycool too, the Robot one, Like,
I hate that Robot one so much. That one sucks. It sucks

(55:20):
so bad I can I cannot expressmy hatred enough for that level. That
level specifically, it's not a badlevel. It's not a bad boss like
it's it's still great. It's justit's hard. But I think it has
to do with you have so manyother options as to the way to approach
the other bosses when you're when it'snot an airplane, uh, you're able
to switch out charms, guns,you know. I just think there's so

(55:42):
much more variety there, whereas theairplane levels, like you're locked into like
you said, why an ax access. You can you can change and get
small, but your charms don't matter. You can't you can't use the smoke
dash, you can't change the wayyour gun is. It's just you're shooting
from your your airplane and you likea little like lob you switch between bolts
like a little like bomb. Youcan lob in some of the later stages.

(56:05):
But the variety is definitely lacking there, and all the bosses are pretty
much just similar. Whereas you're you'reflying the bosses on the right side,
you're on the left side, andyou're just kind of going up and down
and around. So definitely less variety. I understand them wanting to do that
to like give you like more visuallydistinct bosses and kind of break up the
pacing of the bosses a little bit, but they're just they are way less

(56:29):
unique and way less approachable I thinkthan the standard boss fights. Yeah,
really well said, But I willsay I do prefer the airplane levels to
the run and gun levels. Let'stalk about those a little bit. So
we talked all about the Boss rushes, and again we're not We didn't say

(56:51):
this, but you probably intuited listeners. We're not going to talk about every
boss because I cannot imagine a moreplotting podcast to listen to than Here's this
one. Now, here's this one. Now, here's this one, here's
this one. You're tired yet,You're done yet? Are we there yet?
I got a pee um, sojust you know, if we didn't
talk about yours, sorry your yourfavorite. Sorry, it's just the way

(57:14):
the world turns. But let's talkabout these running gun levels, man,
because I don't like these at all. It's the same controls as the Boss
rush. I mean, you've gotall the same bag of tricks, but
you are running to get to theend of a level. I feel like
I'm talking a lot. What doyou think, Eric, Like, what
what's your read on these running gunlevels? I don't see. I felt

(57:35):
like I was. I was talkinga lot, going off on my anti
robot hate rand. But no,man, listen, if I didn't want
you to talk a lot, Iwouldn't have invited you. God shut him
up already. Then Yeah, thekeenom Hearts episode is gonna be fun.
I won't shut up. But anyways, Yeah, the running gun levels,
I think, are you unanimously hated? I haven't talked to a single person's

(57:57):
played this game that say that thegun levels are their favorite part. Again,
I understand what they are trying todo. It breaks up the monotony
a little bit. I understand.The thing that sucks about the most is
that they're in some instances they're they'reharder than the bosses, and it's just
it's just chaos. And it wouldbe fine if you could like clear the

(58:20):
enemies as you go, but theenemies infinitely like respond, and so you're
constantly under a barrage of like NonStop. Those are the only parts of the
game to me that feel like theyare like quote unquote Nintendo hard, and
it's just it's bullshit in there forno reason. Um. And the thing
that's worse about those two is likeyou kind of are forced into doing them
because the coins that you use inpork Rine's shop are hidden in the running

(58:43):
gun stages. So if you're notgood at the running gun stages, you're
not gonna be able to get coinsto buy upgrades. And I think that's
kind of kind of sucky to locksomething that's that important behind something that to
me, that's the running gun levelsare. I mean, vision they look
great and I love them, likeeverything about them, but mechanically gameplay wise,

(59:04):
the Runnun levels are are by farthe weakest parts of the game.
I don't you know. And bythe way, nice nice foreshadow with that
phrase Nintendo difficult. That's something Ihave in my notes to talk about later.
Um, it's quality quality reporting hereon Pixel Project, on Lockable's radio.
We know all of the trigger words. Yeah yeah, we've got that

(59:29):
SEO on lock right, So Idon't I think it's fine that they hid
the coins, the acquisition of thecoins as part of the running gun levels,
right, I mean it makes thempragmatic. I mean you have to
do them to proceed, don't getme wrong, but I mean they have
a purpose. I genuinely I thinkthe reason that they frustrate me so much

(59:52):
is because they are, in myopinion, more difficult than almost every boss
they make. They make old schoolMegaMan look tame. That's saying something,
that's saying a lot. On theone pro that I can give, and
again this pass play through, Idid not finish the game. The one

(01:00:14):
pro that I will give the runninggun levels over the boss rushes is that
some boss rushes have some bosses havemoves that incorporate randomness. They don't all
buy and large. They do allhave set patterns and you could tell what
attacks are coming. Some of themwill spawn randomized things that can hurt you.

(01:00:42):
That is frustrating because then it's nolonger a check of skills. It
becomes luck infused, and that's frustratingin a game that prides itself on difficulty.
The running gun levels they don't reallyhave as much of that randomness.
I mean, the enemies are goingto spawn somewhat randomly, but they spawn
so frequently that it almost doesn't matter. You know. It's that I don't

(01:01:02):
remember the law, the social sciencelaw that, like, you know,
true randomness is a little less randomthan like ninety nine point nine nine six
percent random That's like they talk aboutthat in algorithms for like shuffle playlists.
I don't know, but um,it almost doesn't matter. That that made

(01:01:22):
me. That that makes the runninggun levels a little more bearable for me.
It's because I generally always know what'scoming, even if it is really
tough. The one stage where Ithink about that and agree with you on
the randomness is Um. The isthe boss. I think it's on the
Second Island, Baroness von bond Bond. She has the the like the Kate

(01:01:42):
Castle or whatever, and tremakingly Ilike that boss quite a bit. I
like it designs. Yeah, Ido too, um, But the randomness
in there kind of I think,uh exemplies your point really well. And
the whole gimmick of that stage islike she's behind her like Kate Castle walls
and she sends out like different littlemini mini to for you to fight before
you actually get to fight her,so like one is like an old time

(01:02:04):
gumball machine. One is like acandy corn a waffle, and these are
all randomized. They come out andyou never know which ones you're gonna get,
and I think you have a defeatthree of them to progress to the
next stage of the fight. Onceyou defeat one of them, they're also
start to come out like little likejust minions that like run across the screen
out of her castle while the bigguys are running around. And that to
me, right there is the pointwhere the randomness always screwed me over because

(01:02:27):
there comes a point where like you'retrying to dodge the big guy that came
out of the castle, and thenthe little thing that's like scurring across the
screen that sometimes you can't see becauseit's small, and then you're kind of
locked into this like, well,no matter where I go or what I
do, this is out of myhands, I'm going to get hit.
And yeah, those are the pointswhere it's like, there are there are
a few points in this game whereyeah, there's like literally nothing you can
do and you're going to take thathit and does kind of suck for a

(01:02:51):
game that is mostly pretty mechanically soundedand gives you the ability to kind of
like flex the skills that you learnas you play the game and you get
better and better at the game.But yeah, there are there are those
moments of randomness where it's just likeeverything kind of lines up perfectly, and
the big boss is doing something andsomething smaller on the stage is doing something
and there's there's nothing you can doabout it. Yeah, yeah, it's

(01:03:12):
it's tough. It's it's tough.But there's another boss and I want to
say, I can't remember who itis. I think it's a sand level
like a like there's sand, butit spawns some randomized sort of attacks that
are a little frustrating. I don'tthink it's Hilda what's her face of the
moon. I don't think it's Jimmythe Great, the big Genie guy.

(01:03:32):
Maybe it is Jimmy the Great.It might be um very frustrating, but
it is what it is. Therunning gun levels. You just gotta grit
your teeth and get through them andget those coins for pork Gryn's emporium.
He's got to have his coins.It's very important. Do you think,
uh, do you think other inhabitantsof Inkwell Aisle shop there? Or do

(01:03:54):
you do you think it's just Cupheadand mug Man buying weapons for buying.
I have to imagine that he hasother things, because yeah, I'm a
minimap. There are other inhabitants ofthe Inqua Aisles, which is a nice,
really nice touch. But I knowhe's got stuff from the background of
a shop. I didn't really evernotice, but yeah, he seems to
specifically how convened, have things thatcup Head and mug Man need on their

(01:04:17):
journey. So yeah, I can'timagine that would just be are you are
you saying that you should promote opencarry on the inqual aisles, right,
because that what you're saying. Oh, I'm a big proponent for open carry,
you know me. I think itshould be. I think it should
be in Disney. They're pushing anagenda. Eric, I don't know.
Have you heard about this Listen,I heard the George Soros. No,

(01:04:38):
I'm just kidding. We're not gonnathat's not this. I was gonna say.
I'm on the devil side on thisone. I think he was completely
taken advantage of. Oh, thishas been the economics of cup Head and
the cup Head universe, right,if you want to donate to our cause.
Part two is Cuphead going woke?Yeah, the woke agenda, the

(01:05:00):
woke mob. Yeah, that's thenext DLC. Speaking of DLC, let's
just touch on that a little bit. You said that you haven't played it,
right, I have not. No, I've wanted to. It came
out. I think it was lastyear it came out. I believe it
was twenty twenty two. I wasjust in the middle of playing other things

(01:05:21):
and I just I didn't get aroundto it. I want to because I
think from what I've seen of it, looks just as great as all this
other stuff. Oh yeah, noworries. I haven't played it either.
Oh okay, you are right.It was released in June of twenty twenty
two June thirtieth. It was revealedat E three and twenty eighteen for release

(01:05:44):
in twenty nineteen, but you know, they pushed it back to twenty twenty
because you know, this stuff isdifficult, and then COVID happened, so
they pushed it back even further becauseof that. But this DLC it is
appropriately titled Delicious Last Course. Ilike that. I like that it features
a new playable character in the formof Miss Chalice, as well as some

(01:06:04):
new levels and some new bosses.My understanding is that Miss Challice her gimmick
makes her a little easier to playthan Cuphead and mug Man. Yeah,
I understand. She's kind of likeI wouldn't say easy mode, but an
augmented kind of difficulty that is basedin my understanding. And yeah, miss
Challice being and I don't know howthis works out like in story, but

(01:06:26):
you actually do run into her inthe original base game too. You have
these mausoleums that you go to thatyou kind of have to protect like her
urn or her chalice or whatever,and she gives you like additional super moves.
So yeah, they kind of expandedon her, making her kind of
the crux of the story so thatyou go to the next island do whatever
she's doing over there. So yeah, you do run into her, but
I don't know much beyond that,or I've heard that she's kind of like

(01:06:50):
eases a difficulty a little bit,but I don't have any firsthand experience with
that. In her stage is outsideof the DLC or Perry challenges, they're
testing your ability to perry consistently.I like those a lot because I'm quite
good at the Perry's. As Isay, did you does any mccannant that
you utilized a lot? Like whenwhen stuff was on screen to perry,

(01:07:10):
were you like going out of yourway to try and parry it? I
tried to because when you perry stuff, if you're playing in two player mode,
parrying can bring your partner back,which is obviously very good. In
one player mode, it's going tofill your super meter quicker. Is that
correct? Yeah? I do believethat is correct. Yeah, And that's

(01:07:31):
an invaluable thing to have if you'refighting against a boss that's particularly tough,
so I was parrying as much asI could feasibly. It wasn't like,
you know, focus number one,but if I was anywhere near it,
I was trying to parry, rightI could. Even my multiple play throughs

(01:07:51):
now, I still have a hardtime of breaking my brain to like go
towards the projectile that can potentially hurtme and try to try to parry it.
I find myself always almost defaulting tomy base gamer instincts and just dodging.
So even multiple playthroughs in like pairinghasn't really been something that I've focused
on. And one of the charms, too, does give you a cool

(01:08:13):
thing where it's like if you jumpinto any pariable object, that'll automatically parry
it. The one stage I forgetwho was it the Phantom Express, where
you're the gimmick is you're on likethe cart and you can parry the handles
to like move it along the stage. That one gave me a lot of
trouble because I was not as practicedat the perry by the time you got
to that one, and so you'reyou're taught to parry pretty early on,

(01:08:36):
though in the run and gun stages, parrying is generally generally just for bonus
points and to get like hard toreach coins, because what happens is when
you parry, you get kind ofa bounce, so it's it's a functional
second jump in that way. Butlike in one of the first bosses,

(01:08:56):
the two street Fighter frogs that youhad mentioned before, at one point they
turn into a slot machine because whynot, and you have to parry the
handle of the slot machine to progressthe battle. So they're testing you real
early on this stuff to make surethat you get it, which is nice.
I do think that the pace ofthis, that is to say,
the pace of like the progression isreally good. I mean they don't expect

(01:09:19):
you to be good at everything rightaway. Yeah, they give you the
tools, like you said, Ithink that's really simple. Tutorial does a
great job of being like, hey, here are your basic commands, here
are your basic verbs, and thisis you know, everything you can pretty
much do in the game. Andthen yeah, they do a good job
of like structuring it in a waythat they test you on these things intermittently

(01:09:40):
just so make sure you remember you'relearning at least getting practice and how to
do them so you always have thatthing in your tool belt that you can
whip out if you need it.Yeah, it's a great tutorial. I
mean the only issue is the difficultyramps up by a factor of like fifteen
after absolutely tutorial. But it isa very fine to as well explained helps

(01:10:00):
you out. It's great. Iagree. One thing that's also good in
the tutorial and in the inkwell aisleand the running gun stages and everywhere,
that's going to be the soundtrack andsound designs. And I think it's far,
far far past the time that weneed to talk about that, so
let's get into it. What's up? No, nothing, I was just

(01:10:44):
dancing be imaginary soundtracks. I'm imaginingit being inserted in the episode already.
So this soundtrack is terrific. Imean there's there's just no two ways about
it. I mean I would haveto I'd have to agree with you a
hundred and this again, everything goestowards the goal of making this feel like

(01:11:08):
it was from the nineteen thirties,and it's from that era of animation,
nineteen thirties, and including the music. Based on my understanding, and I
watched a little bit more videos ofthe way that they recorded this in a
live studio in Canada with real instruments, and you know, all the music
is like there's not one track outof place where I would be like,

(01:11:29):
oh, this doesn't really feel likea cup Head track. All the music,
the themes of the music, likeI think, matched the game absolutely
perfectly. You couldn't get anything anythingbetter. And I really like too that
in different tracks, at least theway me listening to it my untrained ear,
different instruments are given time to shinein different tracks, whether it's like
piano or taxphone or trumpets or anythinglike that. Every instrument really kind of

(01:11:49):
gets a chance to kind of shinein. One thing a video said too,
and I didn't get a chance toconfirm this is if you're fighting the
boss and like you lose multiple times. Each time you faced the boss,
a different instrument in the track kindof like gets the volume bumped up a
little bit and it's kind of featured, so it's a little bit different each
time. Oh, I didn't knowthat. I didn't notice that either,

(01:12:10):
but I'd like to go back andcheck it out. See, we didn't
notice it because we're just so good. We just don't die No, I
didn't you know I'd beat the gamein like twenty minutes with a DDR pad,
exactly right. I'd be impressive.So, as we said at the

(01:12:36):
beginning, this was composed by ChristopherMadigan and it is a full jazz band.
So what that means is you've gotfive sackses, two alto's, two
tenor as a berry. You've gotfour trombones, four or five trumpets.
I don't actually know. I thinkyou can have four or five trombones too,

(01:12:58):
and a rhythm section that consists ofguitar upright, bass, piano,
and drums. I think according toMadigan's Twitter bio, I think he was
the percussionist and drummer for the tracks, but I might be right. And
like you said, Eric, thiswas all recorded live with live musicians.

(01:13:19):
Big hell yeah from me. Imean my background is in music and having
live musicians recorded this soundtrack, it'sphenomenal. And there's there's a really great
YouTube video the from the studio,from the development studio that shows them recording
one of the tracks. It's reallygreat. It's really cool to see professional

(01:13:41):
studio musicians doing this. The stylesvary, which is very cool. It
didn't mean that pun. So you'regoing to hear a bunch of different styles
of jazz music. For example,Inkwell Ile one takes an influence from early
New Orleans style jazz, so thinkof Lewis Armstrong and Picks Biederbeck. Botanic

(01:14:04):
panic makes use of a tuba asa dominant bass voice instead of the upright
bass, which is very popular inthose twenties style of big bands, while
you while still using a more modernvocabulary. Floral fury incorporates a lot of
Latin jazz aesthetics and its rhythm,in its melodicism and in its harmony and

(01:14:26):
fun house Frazzle is a ragtime centeredon the aesthetic of ragtime, like Art
Tatum and etc. There's just ahost of variety of different kinds of subgenres
of jazz in here, and it'sit's all performed and written incredibly well.

(01:14:48):
I love I love watching you cookwhen you're in your element. It's it's
the kids saying, you know,let let rick Cookum. I wouldn't even
known anything about that. I'm justover here like, yeah, I like
music. It could sound good.Well, you are a former saxophone player
yourself. From what I understand former. Yeah, it's it's been it's been

(01:15:09):
too long. I should I shouldmaybe pick up and play again. But
you know how life is sometimes Ohyeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, absolutely, no, I get it. No, I
think the music is there's so manysoundtracks that I was just like, oh
yeah, like this soundtrack is anonymouswith the team. It just makes perfect
sense. This soundtrack makes absolute,absolute, perfect sense for this game.

(01:15:30):
And if it was any different,And like you said, I think the
live band is really adds to thestyle of the theme of it. You
know. I'm sure you know somevideo game soundtracks you use live scored orchestras
and stuff like that. But youknow a lot of music too, is
you know, made through computer instruments, and I just I don't think you
get the same you know, qualityor feel when you do when you go

(01:15:50):
that route. And I understand thebig industry triple A machine that you gotta
do what you gotta do. Butyeah, there's just something about having that
live band that really, just,like it said, any game that already
feels alive because of the animation styleand the gameplay, the music just adds
to that feeling of it being evenmore alive because it's literally live. There

(01:16:11):
are plenty of games that that havedone this in the past and continue to
do it with the live tracks.One of the benefits of a live band
for this is and anybody that's evertried to work with MIDI recordings and MIDI
patches for jazz, we'll know whatI'm talking about is the inflections are not
something that MIDI can always emulate andaccurately. You know, you've got the

(01:16:33):
inflections. In terms of the articulation, right, do we want to clean
articulation or do we want a bitof a scoop into it, we want
a bit of a fall off ofit? Do we want it to be
bitten off? You know that's notsomething that you can program precisely, and
which is good for us with thewith the rise of AI taking over our

(01:16:54):
lives, and that's really cool.But there's also all of the solos in
here improvised. I was going tosay, when you when you're playing in
a jazz band and you're improvising,there are for a recording. I should
say specifically, there are a coupleof different ways that you can do it.
I've I've done it before when I'verecorded where you play like five choruses

(01:17:16):
and they piece together like all fiveinto one, so sort of like your
best bits, or they might justyou know, take the best out of
the five. I'm not sure howthey did this here, um, but
you know that's something obviously that MIDIcannot do. They cannot improvise, and
they did that here and it's greatbecause they're all I mean, they're on

(01:17:38):
fire. The pianist, the saxophonists, the trumpets there, it's terrific.
It's it's so good. Um.And one thing that's not strictly jazz is
the intro music that you heard atthe front of the episode at little Barbershop
quartet M well coming coming Man theby Chess a game Devil's game and pay

(01:18:05):
the Price, Pay the Price.I un ironically really like barbershop quartets.
I spent there was a summer whereI got like really into it and I
was watching like barbershop competitions of likequartets just singing. That's incredible. They'd

(01:18:30):
even have that. That's so cool. But yeah, I think they have
it. Like you said, it'sit's such a it's such a just a
nice touch every everything about it.It goes towards serving the theme of the
game. And like you said,even at Barbershop Quartet. Yeah, that's
like every time I'm at the podsmen you, I'll listen to the whole
thing. I'll sit there and listento the whole thing because it's it's so
great. Yeah, I can't reallyimagine this. This isn't a game that

(01:18:50):
I would recommend anybody put on amute and listen to a podcast while playing.
It's just it's such a cohesive experience. It's just it perfectly compliments the
art style. It's great. It'sten out of ten. I highly recommend
listening to it. Well, ifyou insist, let's listen to a little
bit. Okay, before we getinto our last little bit of the discussion,

(01:19:38):
one more piece of community correspondence fromPoppy the Keaton, regular corresponder and
great friend of the show. Here'swhat he has to say. Best part
of Cuphead is the variety variety ofenemies, variety of enemy forms, variety
of different weapons, and variety ofdifferent play styles. Seriously, try getting
the Pacifist ratings in the running andlevels. It's really rewarding. When I

(01:20:02):
when I streamed a little bit ofthis. Uh Keaton came into my stream
and he was talking about doing apacifist run of the running gun levels where
you just get to the end withoutkilling any of the enemies. Dude,
I don't I don't know how todo it. That sounds I would say,
that sounds awful. It sounds sohard. It's so hard. There
are so many enemies, and youknow you've got to smoke dash right past

(01:20:23):
him and jump. Oh my goodness, I can't imagine. It's really tough.
I hold down the shoot button,it through it and I don't let
go. It's home at the endfor those running gun levels like not in
no way, Yeah, it is. Really that would be an extra bit
of added difficulty, which segues hreally into this next bit. We've got

(01:20:45):
to talk about the difficulty with thisgame. It's become part and parcel with
this game's identity is its difficulty.And this, believe it or not,
this was intentional. You you veryvery adeptly and perfectly foreshadowed with this phrase,
Nintendo hard. I was doing somereading today and I found an interview

(01:21:11):
on a website that was riddled withtypos, so I did have to alter
the text a little bit to makeit readable, and one of the Moldenhowerd
brothers, Tyler, said this aboutthe game. He says, quote,
we never aimed to make it superhard. It was just that we kind
of wanted to keep the action intense, and that was sort of the way
it came out. Once you unlearnmodern gaming habits and kind of get back

(01:21:34):
into the game, you'll have agood time. He also goes on to
say that Nintendo fans who were aroundback in the day would appreciate the game
because quote, they know what NintendoHard is unquote. So let's talk about
it a little bit. I mean, just as a as a philosophy,

(01:21:58):
as somebody that plays video games,as somebody that talks about video games.
What's your relationship with difficulty? Howdo you approach it? How do you
feel about it? Yeah, thisis a man I've never really thought about
it until now, and it's kindof for me personally. It's a little
bit all over the place. Iwill say now that I found myself as
a as a man going into mythirties with you know, more and more

(01:22:20):
life responsibilities every day, I findmyself more often than not choosing to play
in like an easier motor or anormal motor, something that doesn't quite test
me to the way that I usedto like to be tested when I was
a younger man. As if I'mlike sitting here talking like I'm eighty,
But I do like to default somethingthat's easier, because at the end of

(01:22:43):
the day, after getting you know, after waking up early and getting beat
down at work all day and cominghome and having to fulfill your responsibilities at
home, and you do get thattime to sit down. I just don't
want to beat my headye and somethingfor the hour a couple hours, I
have a night to like play videogames, so I will more often than
not just take the path of leastresistance, and because I want to feel

(01:23:04):
like whether it's getting my aggression outthat there or whatever it is, I
just prefer that when it comes todifficulty. There are a couple of notable
exceptions. One. I am anoted Monster Hunter fanatic, and Monster Hunter
is anything but easy. But forsome reason, I find myself devouring that
challenge for for whatever reason. Andthen the only other time where I kind

(01:23:27):
of embraced challenge as well was wasDestiny. And destiny when you do those
raids that are very very complex puzzlesand challenges. That's something that I really
really relished. When I went intoCuphead and I first found out how difficult
it was, I found that Ididn't I didn't mind. I was ready
to accept the challenge, and likeI said, I'm not a person that
normally goes out looking for for challengeit. It's been part of the reason

(01:23:50):
why I really haven't wanted to touchanything from from from software just because I
don't want to. I just don'twant to do that. I don't have
the desire to do that. ButI think, like you said, we
kind of grew up with that,and back in the day, games kind
of had to be a little harderjust so that they had last ability.
Because you're paying sixty seventy dollars fora game that you know, you blow

(01:24:11):
through it in four hours and thenyou know, well it's it's you.
They had to justify the person's dollaramount that they were giving them, So
a lot of games were just hardon purpose or had artificially inflated difficulties on
purpose. I appreciate that cup Heetis difficult, but I don't feel like
the difficult is artificially enhanced on purpose. I think the difficulties serves the way

(01:24:32):
that the entire game is and Ithink that the difficulty is offset by the
concessions that the game makes. Forexample, like I don't remember any time
where I faced a boss that itwas longer than two minutes, Like most
of my boss scores were like maybelike a minute, thirty minute, forty
five. So the boss fights areincredibly incredibly quick when you nail down all
the mechanics, and even if youdo fail and you do die, like

(01:24:55):
I said at the top of theepisode, you're back into the action within
like seconds, like literally not morethan one or two seconds go by when
you're back trying that boss again.So I think the concessions that Cuphead makes
to offset that difficulty make the difficultymore approachable, And I think that's what
I found myself tolerating it and actuallyaccepting it in the end, because you're
able to get ten, fifteen,twenty, twenty five thirty tries at the

(01:25:18):
boss within twenty thirty minutes because thesessions are that short. So that's kind
of where I come down on thedifficulty for this. I think the difficulties
serves this game serves this game great, And there was never even the robot
level, which I professed to hatewith an undying passion. There was never
a point where I was like,this is too hard. I hate this.

(01:25:40):
Yeah, man, I mostly agreewith you. You know, when
they say, or when he said, we never aim to make it super
hard, that makes me raise myeyebrows a little bit. I don't believe
that. I think they definitely knewwhat they were doing. And you know,
I'm not sure that. I thinkthere are tons of concessions with the

(01:26:01):
game, but maybe because no,I it's the right word. I know
what you're saying. I think whatit is is that I think it's it
is super difficult, but it ismanageable. It's not it's not unfairly difficult.
You know, when I think ofunfairly difficult games, um, you

(01:26:23):
know, I think of things likeunfair. I don't that that one game
getting over it with Bennett Foddy.I think it's called I think that's a
bad game just in general. Ithink it's not good, but that that's
something that's unfairly difficult, right,Um, this is manageable, Like we've
talked about so so many times upto now you get tested on your skills

(01:26:45):
as you go through. It's gota good progression in that way, and
it's not leaving too much up toRNNG. There is a bit of that,
but by and large not enough tolike really skew the difficulty. Oh,
I remember what I was gonna say, the notion of the boss battles
being really quick. This was reallywelcome for me coming off of Hades,

(01:27:10):
which is another tough game. Butbut but runs of that can take thirty
to forty minutes just one run foryou to not even get to the end
and then die. This is somuch quicker. It's like boom, boom
boom. You could get so muchdone in a half hour, even if
you know, even if it's justone boss, you could fight them like
upwards of ten twelve times. AndI appreciate that quite a bit. Yeah,

(01:27:33):
I definitely think there is a scaleof difficulty where you know, difficulty
doesn't have to be something that isimposing. I think difficulty can be something
that is that is welcoming. Andlike you said that Hades is a great
example of that. Whereas, yeah, that game can be difficult, and
it's a little bit different because likeyou said your runs of that game are
sometimes like twenty thirty forty minutes andthen to lose it at the end.

(01:27:56):
There it does. It does kindof suckum, But there's other reasons.
That game does great things with storyand they kind of keep pulling you along.
The games in the same category thatI think of are the first of
all, the aforementioned Super Meat Boy, because that game kind of does the
same thing where that game is abrutal, ish, hellish platforming challenge,
but they get you back to theaction like right away, where it's like

(01:28:17):
you can take hundreds of tries ata platforming section within thirty minutes. Another
game that I think really does thatwell and that people praise and love is
Celeste too. Celeste has some brutal, brutal platforming sections, and every time
you die in that game, you'rejust it responds to you like right away
and you keep trying. So Ithink that ability to give you the multiple
tries over and over. The thingthat would suck about the Nintendo heart of

(01:28:41):
the older games is that a lotof times if you died or something,
or you ran out of lives,it was okay, guess what You're not
starting the boss over, You're startingthe whole game over. Yeah, you
get to play the game more.Isn't that great? When no, it
sucks, you just kind of wantedto see the end of the game.
So I think there is that spectrumof difficulty, whereas like, difficulty can
serve your game very very well ifit's done in the correct way. And

(01:29:02):
I think Cupheads a pretty good exampleof a way to do that the right
way. And one thing too aboutthe Nintendo games is that their difficulty was
in part due to game design andlevel design being in its infancy, whereas
now the medium has grown so muchso quickly that you know, we don't

(01:29:24):
get those weird ass old school designs. You know, we don't get things
like Mega Man where things will spawnoff screen and you just have to know
that they're there. It's not atest of skill, it's a test of
memorization. You don't get things likeis it a Laddin or is it the
Lion King? That's the notoriously differentdifficult one, the Lion King specifically for

(01:29:44):
a Superintendo. Is that game isthat you're talking about difficulty? That game
is notoriously difficult. Yeah, that'swhen when I hear Nintendo hard though,
that's where my brain goes. Yeah. Absolutely. But you know that,
combined with they're not being a difficultysetting, is important to note because it

(01:30:08):
gives the implication, well not evenan implication. It's essentially a fact that
the developers, the designers wanted youto experience the game in this way.
You know, we talked about Hades. They give you the concession of god
Mode, which doesn't condescend to you. It just says, hey, every
time you die, you're going toget a little stronger. I love god
Mode. I think it's terrific.And I side with you Eric, based

(01:30:30):
on what you said earlier. Ilike difficulty settings. You know. I
take no joy in quote getting goodat video games. You know, I
don't feel like less of a manfor playing something on easy. You know.
I play video games to have fun, right to have enriching experiences.

(01:30:50):
And what is not enriching to meis tapa, tapa, tappa. I'm
really good at pressing buttons in thecorrect order. Look at how fast my
thumbs are. That's not satisfying tome. And I'm not I know I
sound condescending, I know, andI'm not. I'm not nagging anybody that
enjoys that. I'm just saying that. I think a lot of people don't

(01:31:13):
end the difficulty get good community thatwas unfortunately born out of the from soft
community. I think it's ridiculous,like you're doing that in twenty twenty three,
Grow the hell up? Yea.But Cuphead. All this to say,
Cuphead does not do that. Youget one fixed difficulty setting. And
it sounds like based on what Isaid that I'm that I would say like,

(01:31:34):
oh, I don't like that,which isn't true. And I think
it's because and I know, maybeI'm a hypocrite. Maybe that's true.
I mean, I contain multitudes tomisappropriate the musings of somebody else. But
the game lays out its progression sowell that you know the difficulty is there.

(01:31:56):
It's tough, it's really tough,but it never, as Keaton said,
and I think a couple others said, feels unfair. And that's what
it comes down to. I don'tcare if there's a difficulty slider. I
don't care if you've got a godmode, I don't care if there's none
of that. I do care ifyou condescend to me metal gear solid,
but I don't care about any ofthat as long as it feels fair.

(01:32:17):
If it's fair but tough, cool, and they do offer you even there
are little concessions of the game whereyou can pick the simple difficulty for the
bosses to kind of like try themout and learn the patterns. They're not
as like, oh my god,there's egg on my face. There is
that. I completely forgot about that. But what the difference is is that
the game does not allow you toconsider the boss beaten unless you beat it

(01:32:40):
on the regular difficulty, So youpretty much have to play the game through
the way the developers wanted you to, and that regular difficulty is kind of
the tuned experience they want to.There is a simple difficulty, but if
you beat the boss, it doesn'tgive you credit for it. And like
I said, after you beat thegame the first time, there is an
expert difficulty if you're if you're asicko person and I have played that expert

(01:33:02):
expert difficulty, and if you likethat wall, you know, bash your
head against the wall, just smashinglyhard difficult, that is the mode for
you. By far. I thinkthere's even an easter egg, whereas like
if you beat expert and you gets ranks on all the bosses and all
the stages and stuff. You canplay the game in black and white,
so there are there are little thingsthat are hidden in the game for if

(01:33:24):
you want to have that extra thatget good difficulty challenge. It's just not
required as part of the main experience. The main experience is tough, but
it doesn't make extreme head bashing difficultymandatory. Yeah. I think the reason
I forgot about that simple difficulty isbecause, like you said, it doesn't
really count it. It doesn't reallyget that way, which like why I

(01:33:47):
know, I know why they probablyincluded it as like a practice kind of
thing because the bosses will have likeone less phase and everything. But yeah,
still tough because then you know,you go into the regular one you've
practiced on this difficulty, you're stillgoing to encounter a final stage or phase
that you didn't before. So Idon't know, I don't know. Um,

(01:34:08):
like I said, I know,maybe maybe there is a hint of
hypocrisy with us talking about this,like we like easy mode but also cuphead
is good. But even if that'strue, I you know, I don't
think it takes away from I thinkthe scaling of this was blown way way
out of proportion. Back in twentyseventeen, there were there were I just

(01:34:29):
today alone, I read articles fromGame Spot, Forbes, Polygon, Kotaku,
and I watched multiple YouTube videos likefrom twenty seventeen talking about the difficulty
it was really And that's not evento mention that I'm sure Twitter was ablaze.
I just I don't think I thinkthat was all blown way out of

(01:34:49):
proportion. I don't think it's asbig of a deal as a lot of
people that were upset makes made itout to be. And I'd agree with
you too, because I think thediscourse around that is interesting, especially twenty
seventeen. Like I said, youhave games like you know, you have
games like Super Meat Boy and gamesthat had established before that. Hey,
games can be difficult. I believeHollow Knight was already out in twenty seventeen.

(01:35:10):
That game is pretty difficult, andthen not even like you said,
we've danced around it and we don'thave to compare everything to Dark Souls,
but you know, we have hada string of games at this point where
like difficulty is kind of the centerpremise, and I know there's a lot
more to the souls games that makethat like it's just not about the difficulty,
but I mean that is the conversationaround it. So yeah, for
people to come out and be like, oh, well, like it's hard,
and like that's not something that isin games, it's like that's been

(01:35:31):
in games. That's been a thingnow for you know, a while,
that the difficulty is accepted, thatgames can be difficult as long as they're
they're fair and they give you thetools to overcome. Before we wrap up
this discussion, one last thing Ilike that Tyler Moldenhauer said. He mentioned
about unlearning modern gaming habits, andyou and I touched on that a little

(01:35:56):
bit, like with the Perry discussion. You know, our intuition as lowercase
ge gamers is to dodge. Butno, no, no, you actually
are rewarded for running into certain enemiesand pairing them. You can't just you
know, take cover and then shoot, take cover and then shoot. Um.

(01:36:17):
It changes. It forces you toplay the game on its terms,
and I think that's really cool.You know, I think it's fresh.
I don't think it's as um.I don't think it's mold breaking, you
know, I don't think It's nothingnew tons of games do this, but
I still think it's valuable and Ithink it's cool. I think they I
think they did a really good job, you know, one from from one

(01:36:41):
anonymous weirdo on the internet to allthe bolden Howers, I think they did
a great job. Yeah, AndI think that just to kind of rally
off your point there for a second, to um yeah, on learning modern
gaming conventions like it. You know, like I said, my gut instinct
is to is to flee, especiallywhen there's just a wall of projectiles heading
towards me. My reaction is toflee, dodge, avoid at all costs.

(01:37:04):
But like you said, the gamegives you opportunities and teaches you that
sometimes the optimal solution is to perryand be a little bit more aggressive.
Sometimes the optimal solution is to playmore aggressively, is to run towards that
wall projectiles to try and get thelast bit of damage you need to finish
off that boss. So yeah,it does give you these incredible moments where
it's like, Okay, my naturalinstincts aren't working and I see that the

(01:37:28):
game wants me to either experiment oryeah, try to break me out of
my comfort zone and make me playin a way that you know, I
haven't been playing. And that's exactlywhat he's talking about. In this game.
There are several instances in this gamewhere that all those options are viable,
where dodging is viable, where beingaggressive is viable, where a variety
of options are viable. You havethose tools, and you have those options.

(01:37:51):
You just have to learn them.And like you said, the game
makes you play on its terms.And when you play on the game's terms,
you can get pretty good and youcan over come the challenge. Yeah,
ducking is viable, is viable.Yeah, dodging is viable. You're
diving, ducking, what does it? Duck? Dip, dive, duck

(01:38:11):
and dodge, dodge traffic. Youcan dodge a ball. If you can
dodge Jimmy, you can dodge thedice game, right man. Well,
I think we've tapped the well onCuffhead. I mean, it's a terrific
game, at least tapped it foryou know, this format. It's it's
a terrific game. It's visually andauditorially stunning. We didn't even talk about

(01:38:32):
the sound design of like the nonmusic stuff. Spoiler alert. It's all
very good. Uh, it's it'sjust terrific. I can't imagine somebody that's
like really into games that hasn't playedthis yet. But you know, if
you haven't give it a try.This this episode didn't really spoil anything.
There's too much to spoil. I'msure you can imagine who wins in the

(01:38:55):
end. It's not it's not toughto to parse that out. Yeah,
classic good versus devil story. Weall know how that turns out. One
thing that our listeners might not know. You know, they might know about
cup Head, they might not knowabout the Unlockables. And that's what I
want to talk about. Right.I'm just firing on all cylinders with these
segues today, and I've got tocall out each and everyone. But let's

(01:39:18):
talk about Unlockables. Eric. Youare the host of the Unlockables. You
are formerly of the Side Questioning podcast, which is on indefinite hiatus, but
which is how I learned of you. But you've got a current project called
the Unlockables, and I wanted togive you a space to tell our listeners
what that is and where they couldfind you. Well, I'll tell you

(01:39:41):
what you won't find on The Unlockablesis such masterful transitions. I'm learning from
the master transitions, so I'm hopingI can take a bit of that and
incorporate it into my show for sure. But The Unlockables is a show that
I build as the story of videogames to people who play them and the
memories made along the way. Andyou know, really what I try to
do with that show is just kindof invite creators, people that have podcasts,

(01:40:01):
people that play video games on theshow and just kind of talk about
what it is they do on theInternet and their experience and memories with video
games. And Rick here has comeon. I interviewed him about Pixel Project
Radio, and he has also comeon for my absolutely insane twelve Games of
Christmas thing that I did around Christmastime. And lately I've been diving into
more a little about sharing more aboutthe games that I love and that I

(01:40:25):
grew up with. Like you said, I have a long running at this
point the series on Kingdom Hearts calledThe Guiding Keys the Story of Kingdom Hearts,
where I try to profile Tetsuyatamura likea serial killer and get inside his
mind and figure out what he wastelling us in the story of Kingdom Hearts.
So that's been an incredibly rewarding experienceto go back and play games that

(01:40:45):
means so much to me. Andyeah, that's kind of what I've been
doing. And I'll put out episodeson whatever I feel like talking about because
it's my show and I do italone and I'm not beholden to anybody,
which feels great. So yeah,you can find me at the Unockables podcasts
anywhere that podcasts are found, anypodcatcher. If you want to interact with
me online, you can go tolink tr dot, e Ford slash Unlockables

(01:41:09):
and there is all my social medialinks where you can get in touch with
me, Instagram, all the stuff. You can join the one of many
of our discord servers that we haveamongst all of us podcasting friends and just
hang out with us and have ahave a grand old time and laugh about
games and share memes and you know, unpopular opinions and all that great stuff.
So um, yeah, that's that'sa little bit about me. If

(01:41:31):
it sounds interesting, just you know, tweet at me, listen to the
show, say hi, and letme know what you like or didn't like
about it, and you can findthat link tree link in the episode description.
I will make sure to put itin there, so look for that
and you can find all of Eric'sstuff. It's it's a really interesting and
unique blend of interviews of other podcastersand as you said, coverage on games

(01:41:55):
that you enjoy, not beholden toany sort of current release schedule or things
like that. But one thing thatI wanted to ask you, that I
like to ask all of the gueststhat come on, is do you have
a recommendation for an episode for newlisteners to start with? Oh, it's
something that encapsulates the essence of theUnlockables. Yeah, I guess if you

(01:42:19):
really wanted to jump into the madnessright away, I would recommend probably the
first episode of Guiding Keys, whereI talk about Kingdom Hearts want or start
Tom. That's been kind of likemy focus my miniseries as of late,
so that that you'll get to knowme real well, as I'm basically at
this point the kind of high priestof TETs Tetsuia ne Mora, So that's

(01:42:40):
a good one to jump into.The interview I did with Rick early on.
He was one of the first guestsI've ever had on the project.
When I came to him and Iwas like, Rickham, starting a new
project, I want you to beon it. He graciously agreed to appear.
And that's a fantastic talk. Sothat's that's a go into and really
any of the earlier interviews with anyof our our our podcasting buddies, there
are some really great ones there,really awesome talks. And one of the

(01:43:02):
cool things about the show that Inever expected is people share such great and
such touching memories about their memories aroundvideo games, and I never expected that
at all, and it just kindof reinforces my belief that games are more
than just, you know, athing to be consumed. They are they
are memories, they are comfort andthat's really what I try to try it
for my show. So yeah,any one of those interview ones, the

(01:43:25):
Kingdom Hearts episode if you want,like just a bunch of rapid fire ones
in a row. The Twelve Gamesof Christmas was just twelve episodes with people
on talking about the game from lastyear, so that's a good starting place
too. Yeah, and any ofthose is really great. Yeah. Yeah,
the Twelve Days of Christmas, whichwere twelve consecutive episodes just all in

(01:43:45):
a row madness are really great.The one that we did was on Treder's
Revenge TMST. It was a blast. It turned out really well. And
your newest episode, oh this mightnot be the actual newest, but the
newest that I've listened to was theAdvanced Wars one about the recent reboot camp,
Oh yeah, in which you youdo a bit more of a of

(01:44:08):
a journalistic style and it's it's reallynice. It was a really really cool
and polished end product. I likedit a lot. That one was specifically
inspired. I gotta say I wasinspired by you because you did such that
fantastic like scripted episode on Final Fantasyten too, and just hearing that one
of my if I can just gosha little bit, I mean, the

(01:44:30):
Presence of the Master one of themy favorite podcasting episodes of all times.
So I was like, that's reallycool. I'd like to try my hand
at that. And uh, there'sno easy feat to to write something that
you can sustain for like, youknow, thirty forty fifty minutes. So
I figured starting shorter would be agood place to start. And I only
have Nicosi. I took inspiration fromyou for that one for sure. Well,

(01:44:51):
first of all, Starry to makeyou on complattery show, and no
flattery gets you everywhere, So there'sthat, but no, thank you very
much. I take a lot ofpride in that in that episode in particular,
it's very good. Thank you.I really appreciate that, And you
should take pride in everything that you'vedone, because it's seeing seeing it evolve
from side quest the side questing podcasts, which I mean, it's got a

(01:45:15):
lot of the same DNA, butit was a different show, seeing it
evolve into unlockable, seeing Unlockables evolvefrom the early days of like you know,
sometimes you would interview sometimes it feltI'm not saying it was off the
cuff, but sometimes it felt offthe cuff, like you addressed the war
in Ukraine at one point, whichwas a m It felt more like a

(01:45:35):
just a talk with a good friendrather than like I'm just listening to a
podcast that kind of thing. Tosee it evolve into what it's become,
this intense retrospective on a particular gamethat's got notoriously confusing more and you know,
into these more these episodes that aresmaller and tighter and more polished,

(01:45:58):
like what you call it, audiowise and editing wise. It's been really
cool to see and I Unlockables isone of the few shows that I listen
to all the time. I don'tlisten to any show like consistently day and
date because I'm human, but Unlockablesis consistently in my rotation. So I
think all of you should check itout. And We've got some other plugs

(01:46:23):
to do. I've got to plugmy own stuff here, much like Eric.
We've got a Twitter, we've gota discord, We've got an Instagram.
You can find eric stuff in thelink tree. You can find our
stuff right below Eric's stuff in theepisode description. There's a clunky explanation,
but you know what I mean.Open up to click seemore see episode notes.

(01:46:44):
You'll see it all. You'll seeEric's link tree, you'll see our
stuff. Both of our discords arepopping. We're both active on Twitter,
We're both active on Instagram. Youcan come and hang out with all of
us there. Eric, do youhave a Patreon, Oh well yeah,
I do Patreon dot com forwards partI'm part of the Patreon. I forgot
that I'm part of the Patreon.Yeah, right, no, that's okay.

(01:47:09):
I just I always forget to shillit because, like I said,
it's a newer thing. So umyeah, if you like which here and
you're under no obligation to to youknow, support to the show, I
put it out there because I lovedoing what I do and all the great
stuff, my best work I stillput on the main feed and I make
for free available for everyone. Butif if you want to hear a little

(01:47:29):
bit more of like just mad ramblingsabout just kind of random stuff, I
use the Patreon for that. Ihave some monologues, I have some shorter
game reviews about the stuff that Iplay, more traditional game reviews. My
craziest idea is I'm doing an entirePokemon anime rewatch series, which is probably
a thousand plus episodes at this point, so uh yeah, that should be

(01:47:49):
fun. And then I just havelike other random, just kind of VIP
episodes that wouldn't really fit the normalformat of the show, but I just
put them out there if you guysare interested in hearing more of me.
So um yeah, yeah, Iforgot because I don't like the Patreon app.
I don't use it very much.Yeah, but I'm I'm a patron
to Eric show as he is tomine, so I think that you should

(01:48:12):
consider doing both. Um. I'vesaid in the past that it's just cool
to support artists doing their thing,which I still believe is true. Somebody
recently said, you know, theylook at it and I swear to god,
this is a real quote. I'mnot just making this up. They
said in a discord. They're like, yeah, I just kind of think
of it as like once a month, I'm you're buying them a coffee.
Again, I did not make thatup. Somebody else said it, but

(01:48:34):
that's that's a yeah, right rightright, That's how I think of it.
Um. So you can find allof those links for Eric socials,
for our socials, for the patreonsin the description, and no new review.
If you want to give us areview and want it read on air,
you can do that on Apple podcastsor podcast Addict. Those are the

(01:48:58):
ones that will let you right.But we like Spotify reviews too, we
just can't read them because there's nothingto read and they're anonymous. So all
that being said, I think it'stime to wrap cup head up and say
goodbye. It's been a swell aboutEric thank you for joining me on this
really cool game. No problem,Rick, it was my pleasure. Thank
you for having me on once again. And I has always inevitably look forward

(01:49:23):
to the next collaboration between us.It's always a great time here here my
friend. All right, everyone,you know me. I'm not mug man,
I'm not cup head. I'm nota mug cup God. I gotta
work on my outros. Rick hasto work on his outros. That's me.
And until next time, I'm signingoff. We'll see you next time.

(01:49:45):
Take care of everybody.

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Episode 70: Cuphead

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