I’m pretty sure I’m the only one here playing this co-op but I think it’s balanced well, depending on your partner.
HP scales so you’ve got to both be hitting bosses and enemies for longer to move on (seriously, those tree trunk enemies on Treetop Trouble are super tanky co-op). This means that if one of you dies, you’ve got more work to do on your own. You can revive each other if you’re quick enough but it’s sometimes impossible to reach your partner’s ghost in time without killing yourself. You can also die if you fall off the screen at the bottom whereas solo the screen simply scrolls down.
My girlfriend is doing amazingly well but she’s not as dexterous as me so when things get busy (with two of you on screen shooting, it’s a lot busier by default) she can sometimes struggle. That said, she’s carried us over the finish line a few times now which has been glorious.
We’ve just got to world 2 and reached the final stages of Baroness von Bon Bon on Regular. I was convinced that Mario + Rabbids’ world 3 boss wouldn’t be bettered this year but I think Cuphead has it in the bag quite comfortably at this point. So creative and exciting.
I made some decent progress on the second Run N Gun level on the first island. I got to the point where I got four of the gold coins. But then the rest of the play session I was never able to reach that point again.
My main point of difficulty is that you only get one shot at getting the first gold coin. You have to hit parry at just the right time, and if you miss it, there seems to be no way to get it except to restart the level.
In that masoleum level where you do nothing but Parry enemies, I had such an easy time getting the timing right. But ever since then, Parry has become so hard for me. If you press it too early, it doesn’t activate. If you press it right as you’re making contact with the enemy, it’s too late. You have to press it before you make contact, but not so much before that it doesn’t activate. It’s just really tough for me. My instinct is to press it right as I’m making contact with the enemy, which means I’m pressing it too late.
Is that Treetop Trouble by any chance? If so, try jumping a bit higher up the slope and dashing to the left to grab the coin. We often missed that pink rolling bug to get the coin but were able to collect the coin this way. It’s trickier to do with smoke bomb!
My girlfriend and I got to Inkwell Isle III last night. This is a tough game but we’re slowly getting there! Sometimes you’ve just got to switch your gear around to give you the edge against certain obstacles/enemies/bosses. I’m yet to deviate too far from Smoke Bomb though, that may change on the current boss…
I also made it to the third island last night! The dragon was rough.
Cuphead actually reminds me a LOT of progression raiding in World of Warcraft. You’ve got explicitly-phased bosses who switch tactics, and there’s also the same kind of rhythm, where your first few attempts are more about figuring out the mechanics and your subsequent attempts are more about executing well.
I’m a baddie, so I rely maybe a little too heavily on the homing shot upgrade. It allows me to focus more on good movement, though.
Yeah, we were having a tough time with the dragon too!
My girlfriend actually left me to it for a while solo and after a lot of struggling I decided to switch weapons. The Lobber made a world of difference and I managed to do it in a few more attempts. When my girlfriend returned I recommended that she change her weapon to the Chaser (she didn’t have the Lobber) so she could focus more on staying alive and ensure her shots landed while dodging. That seemed to work and we eventually got through.
I’m definitely going to be thinking more about switching my gear around though in future. The bee boss looks to be another nightmare!
Interesting to hear about co-op! I hope you know how lucky you are, honestly I had to give up probably a year ago at going co-op with my gf, it’s kind of like playing with AI, the kind you wish wasn’t there… She’s not well coordinated and wasn’t raised with them, I tried to put her on for 2 years but I’ve legitimately seen no progress in that time ha.
Also, for those of you that found this game refreshingly difficult don’t know if it’s been said but maybe take a stab at Contra III: Alien Wars ;)
My girlfriend is brilliant at certain games like Kumobius’ Duet (a Super Hexagon-like), and can hold her own on racers like Mario Kart and SpeedRunners. She does get in a pickle sometimes with more frantic games that require multiple simultaneous button presses, and specific visual cues/tells can give her trouble (Cuphead is particularly testing for both of these reasons). That said, she often gets there in the end. We managed to 100% both Rayman Origins and Legends together but they’re worlds apart from Cuphead difficulty-wise. I think after this we’ll be looking at a few adventure games or something to give our fingers and nerves a rest!
@ArmandoPenblade my girlfriend and I spoke about this recently because we know a lot of people whose partners just cannot stand them gaming, yet insist that they join them on the sofa to watch TV or whatever – often TV that said gamer doesn’t care one iota about. I’ve always said to them, next time you’re asked to do that, run off some game options and see if they fancy joining you some time. Same principle, but the difference is one will never get honoured! It exposes an unfortunate imbalance. I think there’s a game out there for everyone, it’s just a shame most folk dismiss the entire medium for… whatever reason.
She enjoyed games a lot in the N64 era when she was a kid/teen, but like virtually all hobbies from more than a few years ago, it regards it as a childish waste of time.
There’s not much in the way of “inequal distribution of interest in each other’s hobbies” or what have you, mind you. She doesn’t really have hobbies/interests anymore, mostly due to the crippling depression (man, I’m turning this into a fun thread), but is also a hardcore introvert who’s said more than once she generally prefers to enjoy the few things she does still like alone and doesn’t expect me to join in. To the point of actively asking me not to, occasionally.
So the bigger issue is that she generally thinks of most of my hobbies as immature wastes of time. . . and that’s at least half right ;-)
I finally beat my first 2nd island boss - Baroness Bon Bon. I hadn’t played the game in probably a month because I was stuck. I probably tried around a dozen times today to finally make it. I treid the unlocked Run and Gun and failed miserably so I figured beating one Cuphead level in a today was probably OK.
Wait till you get to the robot! It frustrated the hell out of me, but I couldn’t get mad at it because it’s fuckin’ brilliant boss design. Details behind spoilers in case people like figuring this stuff out on their own:
So the fight is three phases, but the first phase is really the only one that matters. Phase 2 and 3 are difficult, but it’s the normal kind of Cuphead difficulty you’re used to seeing up to now, and there’s nothing really to figure out. But Phase 1…
So the robot has three weak points – head, chest, stomach. Each of those points has an associated mechanic – The head shoots lasers every few seconds, the chest throws out a parry-able robot that shoots vertical lasers up and down, and the stomach shoots out little destructable planes that zigzag from the bottom of the screen to the top.
But when you destroy one of the weak points, it doesn’t remove the associated mechanic – it just changes it into a new, harder one. So destroy the head, and you don’t have to deal with the laser anymore, but the robot starts spewing out waves of bullets. Similar for the chest and stomach.
I LOVE this. It’s interesting decisionmaking paired with really difficult execution. Do you destroy the head first because the laser is the most annoying thing? You can do that, but then you have to deal with the bullet waves for a longer amount of time. Do you destroy the stomach because the planes are the most annoying? Sure, but then you have to deal with bombs that constantly home in on you for longer. It’s so cool to me because every person is going to approach it differently based on their internal calculus of “mechanic I want to remove first” vs “mechanic I’m okay dealing with for longer.”
I’m going to remember the robot long after the other bosses have faded from memory.
We took a stab at Rayman legends, about mid way through was her cap of difficulty, I can only imagine how bad it would be if multiplayer games still embrace the “life snatching” mechanic to jump back in as oppose to reviving!
In regards to Penblade’s situation, I feel you, I guess I’ve been lucky enough to have a string of partners at least willing to try (although there’s no way I could be serious about someone who wouldn’t) but me and my partner watch an awful lot of Divorce Court (don’t ask… or do) and so many guys get dawged out on that show for player video games for more than 2 hours haha and I’m like really? I don’t even get 2 matches of League of Legends in in 2 hours sometimes.
I fired this up for the first time in ages. Played for a couple hours today and made zero progress. My current nemesis is the clown / roller coaster level on Island 2. I can get to the last phase and die. Like those above I wish it was just a bit easier. I guess I could try playing on the easier mode.
