This past week saw the release of the long-awaited and highly-anticipated game Cuphead, a classic run-and-gun action game, developed and published by StudioMDHR Entertainment, focused on a “boss rush” style of battle system (i.e., not a lot of “levels with a boss at the end”; with few exceptions, like the “run-and-gun” test levels to hone your skills, you start almost every level by immediately fighting the boss).  What that concept may be interesting, the next eye-grabbing aspect of Cuphead is it’s visual style, being heavily inspired by 1930’s cartoons, with the visuals and audio being painstakingly created with the same techniques of the era, including traditional hand drawn cel animation, watercolor backgrounds, and original jazz recordings.  With Cuphead’s structure and audio/visual style being huge draws to the game, the third element that adds to this game’s charm is its difficulty, which is able to find that fine balance of being challenging without being frustrating. And yeah, Cuphead WILL INDEED test your hand/eye coordination, timing, and muscle-memory.

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