LCD Games of the 80s VII: The Grand Finale
July 18, 2022 12 Comments
INDIE GAMER CHICK’S LCD GUIDE
PART I
PART II
PART III: Game & Watch on DSiWare
PART IV: There’s no L in A-R-C-A-D-E
PART V: BEEP MEEP NEEP BONG DONG BEEENNNNN
PART VI: LC You, Wouldn’t Want to D You
PART VII: The Grand Finale
PART VIII: LCDs Take Manhattan
PART IX: RetroFab-ulous!
PART X: Game & Watch – The Definitive Review (EVERY Game & Watch Release!)
Here we go. This will really be the final part for a while, since I’ve run out of material to source from. But, I’ve gone all out here with the most games I’ve ever done for one of these. If your favorite childhood LCDs are still missing.. sorry. Actually, I probably would have done them if someone had emulated them. The issue with that is, someone has to donate a unit to someone willing to program the emulation for this. It’s actually likely they won’t ever get the original back either, because if you want to truly get the emulation and the backgrounds perfect, it might require the physical game itself to be destroyed in the process.
I wanted to do games like Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Super Mario Bros. for Game & Watch, but nobody has done them yet. Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch fetches hundreds of dollars. If I owned any rare LCD, I would donate it for this. The fact is, one day, these will stop working. But, if you donate your rare game now, yea, you lose out on a valuable keepsake. BUT, you’ve also preserved that game FOREVER, for everyone who will ever want to play it. Even shitheads like me who are likely to dump on it in features like this.
I almost added Game & Watch Gallery 4 to this, but I ended up with too many games on here to begin with.
See, no matter what I think of the quality of these games, I’m very happy they’ve been preserved. I love video games, and it’s not cool to believe only the games that I like should be immortalized. LCD games are a not-insignificant part of our heritage, and it’s a shame more haven’t been adapted. I’ve played LCD games where I feel there’s educational value for game designers. Look at the Tiger Electronics version of Gauntlet and its outside-the-box thinking on how to adapt it. Look at the genuinely dazzling Bandai port of Frisky Tom. But, even bad titles like Bandai’s Burgertime serve to show why some ideas don’t work. These could easily give inspiration to a new generation of indie developers. So, if you’re sitting on a mountain of Tiger LCDs, don’t just hoard them. Give them to the world
Special thanks to the Handheld Game Museum for their cataloging of these. Check this site out, seriously. My jaw dropped when I saw just how many games Tiger Electronics did.
Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart, to EVERYONE who contributed these games. I’ll try to be nice to them. Okay, that’s a lie, but I’ll be fair, I promise.
LIFEBOAT!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1983)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Certainly one of the better spinning plate Game & Watch releases, a duel screen affair where you have to rub your head and pat your belly at the same time. No wait, actually you have to watch both screens and catch people jumping off a boat and help them reach the land on either side of the screen. Game & Watch did tons of these style of games, but Lifeboat is genuinely the only one that I couldn’t put down. Seriously, this should have been done a lot sooner than it was. I wanted to lead-off with the very first Game & Watch I’ve ever said is really good without having to qualify that statement with “for an LCD game.” Nah, Lifeboat is genuinely the best Game & Watch, at least of the ones I’ve played.
TOWERING RESCUE!!
Gakken (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
One of the simpler LCDs I’ve played. You just go back and forth and grab people stranded on a building and fly them to safety. You don’t even drop the ladder for them. It happens automatically. You only get one life, so that’s different, and it ended when I pushed left too much and I crashed into a building. It was the first time I saw the idea of “don’t just mash the button, or else” implemented, and it certainly did it better than Nintendo’s take on the same idea. While I wouldn’t want Towering Rescue today, I imagine it was a decent enough time waster in 1981.
SNOOPY!!
Nintendo Table Top (1983)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Snoopy is the OTHER game I played that penalizes you for moving too far. It’s a spinning-plate game where you have to smash colored music notes generated by Schroeder’s piano. I wanted to like this, because it’s so colorful and.. I mean.. LOOK AT IT! I very much regret that I didn’t grow-up in an era where “handheld” games looked like miniature arcade machines. Well, except for the fact that they mostly suck. Maybe I dodged a bullet, actually. Snoopy is a TERRIBLE game. It’s very sluggish, and positioning yourself to get to the notes is such a chore. It’s basically a revamp of Nintendo’s previous Game & Watch release Vermin, only you need to hit a button to activate the mallet. If you move too far over, you fall to your death. One of Nintendo’s very worst LCDs.
SNOOPY’S TENNIS!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1982)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Probably the most famous Game & Watch that hasn’t been adapted to any Game & Watch Gallery, Snoopy’s Tennis is, surprise, not actually a Tennis game. It’s a spinning plate title where Charlie Brown lobs tennis balls to one of three channels and you have to hit them off the screen above him. You have to time it right, because if you miss, you have to wait an extra frame of animation before you can swing or move again, which is a nice touch. Occasionally Lucy Van Pelt, the biggest bitch in all of fiction, will block the lane with either a high or low racket that bats the balls back at you. On Game A, it takes FOREVER for the action to get intense, so go straight to Game B, though even that is kinda slow. I get the impression this was targeted specifically towards younger kids, and as a result, it’s pretty slow to get going and overall quite boring. On the plus side, it has the funniest death animation in Game & Watch: Snoopy just goes to sleep. It’s the first time anything related to The Peanuts actually made me laugh.
TURTLE BRIDGE!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1982)
Gameplay Type: Cross the Road
While spinning plate type of games are the most common LCD game type, cross-the-road games are the surest bet for quality gaming. Well, relatively speaking. It’s not a sure bet by any means. Take Turtle Bridge, a slog of a game where you have to deliver a package from one side of the river to the other by hopping across the backs of turtles. There’s two catches. #1: fish draw closer to the turtles, who will eventually submerge to grab a bite to eat, and if you’re on them, or jump to them, you die. #2: the asshole who you’re supposed to deliver the package to has his mind wander and he disappears from time to time, leaving you stranded on the bridge and watching for fish while the person finishes taking his dump or whatever he’s doing. It sounds intense, but it’s just a boring, annoying slog of a game. Turtle Bridge has fans, but I’m not one of them.
BASEBALL!! and ENGINE ROOM!! and DEFENDO!!
Vtech Explorer Time & Fun (198?)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Vtech Time & Fun is basically generic off-brand Game & Watch that was sold through Sears. They’re one of the most prolific makers of LCDs, some of which directly rip-off Nintendo’s gameplay, only suckily. These games though? Their Explorer line, though, is just desperate. I started cracking-up so hard because it has a compass and a teeny tiny little LCD flashlight built into it. That’s the most pathetic grasping at straws for a competitive edge I’ve ever seen in my life. “Gentlemen, how can we compete with Nintendo?” “I know.. hear me out.. you know how boring camping is? Well..” And it was a whole series of games! While they did a deluxe Baseball model that probably plays closer to the actual sport’s rules, their Explorer Baseball is really just a spinning plate game. Move your batter left and right and hit the balls. There’s no action button, and nothing else to do with baseball. It’s NOT baseball. You just have to intercept the balls, and rarely one will curve. You know, for challenge. It’s far and away the most basic LCD I’ve done in this now seven-part series, but they did the same exact game two more times, more or less. Engine Room has you shoveling coal as it reaches you, while Defendo has you thumping soldiers rushing your tent. I guess they had to skimp on the gameplay and pass the expense on to a tiny toy compass and a flashlight about as bright as a lobotomized Kardashian.
ROLLER COASTER!!
Vtech (198?)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Another in the Explorer series, but the only one that actually had different gameplay. This is a juggler-variation of a spinning plate that’s closest cousin is Nintendo’s Game & Watch legend Fire, which gets closed a lot. Roller Coasters go across a broken track and you have to stand over three channels and juggle them to safety. It’s a toothless bore, but at least it’s more interesting than the other games in the Explorer series. I had planned to ignore it, but then I found a Vtech game that more directly rips off Fire, only it completely botches it..
CONDOR!!
Vtech (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
See the three birds in this picture? The one on the left is about to cost me a life because the very next frame is it hitting the ground. It’s just awful design because it looks like it has one more frame to go before it hits the ground. Vtech’s direct rip-offs of Game & Watch games scream “we don’t understand what we’re doing at all!”
See?
Another straight-up rip-off of a Game & Watch design, in this case a mirrored version of Fire. You’re a caveman, and baby birds fall out of a nest above you, which you then CLUB TO DEATH WITH A HAMMER and then juggle their carcasses to the other side of the screen. Holy crap!! I can’t believe I can say this about an LCD game but Jesus Christ that’s so insanely violent!! Plus, they completely fucked-up Fire. Birds that are higher up on one channel will hit the ground faster than birds lower on another. Like Banana did with Manhole, they took one of the better Nintendo games and made it a lot worse. And more grotesque.
PIRATE!! and MONKEY!!
Vtech (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
These are the exact same game with different sprites, and easily the most basic of the higher-end Game & Watch rip-offs. They’re the most basic spinning plate style games, where you have three channels to block people climbing up things. For Monkey, it’s coconut trees. For Pirate, it’s your ship. I’m going to assume they just recycled the programs from this for some of those Explorer games from above, and other games still to come. I wouldn’t want to play these, but at least they’re faster paced than other three-channel plate spinners and feature fun themes with awesome sprites, especially Pirate. See, I can be generous. But, let’s keep it real.. even their games that play fine are nothing compared to Nintendo’s.
PARACHUTE!!
Nintendo Game & Watch (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
It’s not simply the “name brand” aspect. Sorry all wannabes, but Nintendo just plain made better games. Here’s THEIR three-channel plate spinner. Parachute!! is the exact same gameplay as Vtech’s Pirate and Monkey, but it just plays faster, has better graphics, a more fun theme, and even little details like an LCD shark that occasionally pokes its fin and head up. The shark doesn’t even factor into gameplay, but it’s that extra touch towards making the experience as fun and playful as possible. As dirt simple a concept as this is, not to mention insanely easy from a gameplay perspective, it’s one of the best Game & Watch games and probably the best plate spinner ever made. It’s like popping LCD bubble-wrap.
PANCAKE!!
Vtech (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Another that looks like a Game & Watch. Remember, in 1981, before the NES, it was a lot easier for a parent who had a kid asking for a Game & Watch for Christmas to instead get one of these. It feels skeezy to me. It’s another Fire/Chef clone, and of all the direct rip-offs of Game & Watch releases, Pancake plays the best. It’s still boring though.
BANANA!! and SLEEP WALKER!!
Vtech Time & Fun (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Vtech was pretty shameless about ripping off many of Nintendo’s Game & Watch designs. The iconic Manhole by Nintendo is pilfered here not once, but twice, only with much worse gameplay as the timing of when you have to make cover a path is all wrong. Given how Nintendo is famously litigious, I genuinely can’t believe they didn’t sue Vtech for some of their designs. Then again, this takes a famously decent Game & Watch and makes it nearly unplayable. Maybe they considered it free quality advertising?
ESCAPE!!
Vtech (1981)
Gameplay Type: Cross the Road
It looks a lot like a real Game & Watch, and I think the actual gameplay is original. Then again, I haven’t played every Game & Watch so maybe I’m wrong. It’s sort of like Turtle Bridge, except without the crossing-back part. The idea is you’re sneaking prisoners out of a jail. The gate opens and closes, and there’s two lanes of guards that have five total openings. As long as the guards are on the bricks, you’re safe to move. If they pass through one of the five archways, they can see you. It’s not a bad concept, honestly. It’s one of Vtech’s stronger games, but I still didn’t really enjoy it. It would have been better with clearer-marked safety zones. Yea, I’ll go ahead and call this the best Vtech Game & Swatch.
BOMB FIGHT!!
Vtech Mini-Time & Fun (1982)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
It’s extremely hard for any of these games to actually get me to zonk out on, so imagine my surprise when this turned out to cost me over fifteen minutes. It’s not even better than other spinning plate games, really. Some dude chucks bombs at an elephant and you move the trunk and squirt them back at him. That’ sit. It’s easy. It’s so stupid, yet I just totally zoned out playing it, and next thing I know the Secret Base video on the Utah Jazz I was watching had finished and I was still playing. Maybe it’s because it’s so cramped and that adds to the intensity. Actually, no, here’s why: because it’s the only LCD juggler I’ve played where you can get ahead of the bounce. The water spray works at any distance. It doesn’t feel like you have to wait until the object is right on top of you to deflect it. Never seen that before, and it makes the game more exciting than artificial close calls. Wow. Even Vtech made a decent LCD. It proves my theory: EVERYONE who made many of these (and Vtech had over a hundred) had at least one winner.
RUSSIAN GAME & WATCH CLONES!!
Angstrem (1980s)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
A real 1984 Mickey Mouse Game & Watch, later reskinned as Egg.
Even though I’m not at all a fan of the Game & Watch anti-classic Egg, aka Mickey Mouse, I had to include this in my series of LCDs of the 80s. In Soviet Russia, the USSR authorized Game & Watch clones to be manufactured. 18 were made, and legends of the franchise titles like Octopus (released there as Mysteries of the Ocean) and Chef (released there as Merry Chef) were cloned pixel-for-pixel. Then, there’s Mickey Mouse, which not only got a pixel-for-pixel clone, but the exact same game code was reused ELEVEN MORE TIMES! Here’s the three examples I’ve been able to play.
Why make two-thirds of your entire LCD game lineup the same game? There’s two reasons for that. The first is these we made on a fraction of the budget and the factory making them could only produce one type of circuit board. The way LCD games work, you can have the exact same game code but shape the actual lights differently, and that’s what they did. The second reason, and the most interesting: in Russia, they actually sold kits that allowed you to change the theme of your Game & Watch. It would still be the same game of Egg, of course, but the appearance would be different. That’s neat. While I personally don’t like Egg at all.. and I also don’t endorse cloning (in this case, it’s the appropriate use of the term).. part of me is happy kids from he other side of the Iron Curtain had their own Game & Watch series. For some reason, that puts a smile on my face. Gaming is truly universal.
MICKEY MOUSE!! and DONKEY KONG CIRCUS!!
Nintendo Game & Watch Panorama Series (1984)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate/Juggler
In the very first LCD Games of the 80s feature I did here at IGC, I gave a snarky one-line review to these games, but they deserve better. I consider all juggler-type games to be part of the broader spinning-plate theme, and this is a prime example of it. As Mickey or Donkey Kong, depending on which version you play (though after checking a couple times, I’ve determined they’re the exact same difficulty either way), you move back and forth and juggle pineapples or batons that drop through five different channels. Drop one and you lose a life. Here’s the twist: there four actual spots you can stand on and your hands are stuck over two different channels as fireballs (or burning batons) fall onto the playfield, and if you touch the fire, you also lose a life. It’s awful because (1) there’s no sense of momentum. They could have easily added above and below motion lines to show you which direction the objects are going. (2) The timing of when the fire will hit your hands is so touchy and often synced perfectly with a falling object you have to juggle. I hated these. I really hated them.
PENGUIN LAND!!
by Bandai (1983)
Gameplay Type: Versus Action
This could have been one of the greats, but I didn’t get a chance to play it two player. It’s a battle type game. Bombs fall onto the playfield and the penguin has to catch them and throw them back at the walrus and wait for ice cubes to spawn on the left side of the screen. Stack three ice cubes to reach the top of the screen and score points. It’s a lot of fun, actually. A different concept. But I couldn’t get the anyone to play it with me. Oh, and despite being based on the Doki Doki Penguin Land series, this isn’t a puzzle game. That’s so weird.
WILD MAN JUMP!! and MONKEY JUMP!!
Vtech (1981 and 1982)
Gameplay Type: Cross the Road
Vtech actually could rip-off with the best of them, but to their credit, their Donkey Kong is a closer LCD Donkey Kong than the crap that Coleco came up with. It LOOKS so much like Donkey Kong that I’m stunned this wasn’t a major lawsuit from Nintendo, who DID in fact sue over Tiger’s King Kong game (and Tiger’s King Kong game sort of jump-started the whole Nintendo/Universal fiasco, with Tiger Electronics being the first company to actually ask Universal “hey wait, do you even own King Kong to begin with?”). Ironically, this is a LOT closer to Donkey Kong than King Kong ever was. Both these games play functionally the same, though I feel the colored game is a lot more unresponsive. I managed to reach the top of both games only when I stopped trying to grab the items and just legged it to the top. They look like Donkey Kong but there’s nothing fun about them.
DONKEY ANGLER!!
Gakken (1982?)
Gameplay Type: Spinning Plate
I got so excited when I heard the name. I pictured Donkey Kong in a tacky fishing jackets. One of those fuzzy fishing lures that I’ve never actually seen (and I’ve “gone fishing” with my Dad a dozen times, though if you never get a bite, does it really count as fishing, or did we really just drive off to stare at body of water while contemplating if it’s worth impaling yourself “accidentally” with a hook if it’ll get you home to your TV and video games faster?). But actually this is just a three channel spinning plate game. The thing that really strikes me about this is just how much it looks like a Game & Watch. Even the sprites look exactly like Nintendo’s Mr. Game & Watch-type sprites. It’s so close it gets uncomfortable. Anyway, boring game but at least a little faster-paced than your typical plate spinner.
GRAB MAN!!
Unknown Developer (1980s? 90s?)
Gameplay Type: Maze Chase
This is literally the same game as the Toby Pac-Man, with the same “must be facing the dots rules” that I showed in LCD Games of the 80s IV. UPDATE: I actually got the game working once I realized I had to actually hold the movement buttons down. Also, I might be DUMB for not figuring that out since I literally have done 100 of these games and should have known that. Anyway, it’s weird that, of all the games to copy, the weird Pac-Man where you can’t eat dots if you’re facing the wrong direction was the one.
LAS VEGAS!!
Bandai (1981)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
I probably shouldn’t have even included this one, but the theme boggled my mind so much that I had to. You hear the name “LAS VEGAS” and you naturally assume “card games, maybe dice, maybe roulette.” Nope. It’s a minimalist spinning plate game. Three careless slot jockeys are playing and when they hit a jackpot, you’re a degenerate grabbing the coins that slip pass them, I guess? There’s only three channels and the game tells you what they’re getting. It’s so weird and stupid. Why? Why would you even make this game? It’s boring and it feels like it should be a different name. Slot Jockey! There you go!
TOM & JERRY POPPER!!
Gakken (1983)
Gameplay Type: Spinning-Plate
Another spinning plate game, though this one is a bit more challenging by virtue of how the sprites are done. They’re supposed to be balloons that Jerry is launching at you, and they sorta bob around and shrink like they’re fading into the background. It’s hard to clock. Here’s what’s REALLY weird: it’s a three channel plate spinner, but there’s a huge gap between the second and third panels. You don’t step on that gap, mind you. You jump from the 2nd channel to the 3rd like normal. It makes it feels like this “we gotta fit this all in to a small screen” haphazard design. Tom & Jerry’s not fun, but it’s notably weird.
MOTOR CROSS!!
Unknown Manufacturer (19??)
Gameplay Type: Racer
Remember the “TWO WEEKS” scene from Total Recall? Well, “GET READY FOR A SURPRISE!”
This feels like a cruel joke, because it’s shaped just like a Game Boy. It feels like something designed to dupe witless parents too stupid to realize they didn’t just find the bargain of the century while trying to find little Timmy a Game Boy for Christmas. I get that this phenomena exists in all forms of entertainment, from Asylum Mock Busters to Mega Super Rangers to alarmingly red Game Boy knock-offs. But the really batshit thing? Motor Cross is, no joke, the first racing LCD I’ve played that doesn’t suck. I can’t believe it at all! It makes me feel unclean to heap any praise on this obvious attempt at confusing unaware consumers, but Motor Cross’ gameplay is rock solid, genuinely exciting, kind of addictive, and yes, even fun.
Motor Cross actually does feel like a race, with an accelerator, breaking, laps, and fuel consumption. Huh. Even wilder is just how many objects on screen you might have to weave around. Sometimes, the entire course fills with bikes, and successfully navigating through it feels incredible. Finally, Motor Cross does what I didn’t think was possible in an LCD game: creates a sense of speed. There’s three speed you can use, and I shit you not, they work to make it feel like you’re on a bike traveling at a high velocity. I don’t think it quite beats Frisky Tom, but it’s one of the best LCD games I’ve ever played. Goddamnit, I have no choice but to declare Motor Cross the greatest LCD racing game until a more ethical option comes along.
ISIDORO & SONJA – CACCIA AL LADRO!!
aka HEATHCLIFF & SONJA – HUNT THE THIEF
Vtech (1982)
Gameplay Type: Spinning Plate
Apparently “Heathcliff or Garfield” was a debate before I was born. I didn’t even know Heathcliff existed by time I was a Saturday Morning Cartoon watcher, but they still reran Garfield & Friends on TV. Game, set, match. Garfield wins. Fatality! But, hey, at least Heathcliff has a pair of games that are marginally better than the Konami Garfield LCD. This is the weaker of the two. You have to throw bombs up at someone raiding fish out of garbage cans. Occasionally a dog gets in the way, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to move it. I thought throwing a bomb at the dog would get it to move, but it doesn’t. It seems to move randomly, and that means you can’t defend that can. The fish remaining are presented by sprites. Vtech seemed to specialize in action-defense (oxymoron, I know) but this was not good.
ISIDORO & SONJA – IL FUOCO!!
aka HEATHCLIFF & SONJA – FIRE
Vtech (1982)
Gameplay Type: Spinning Plate
Remember the “spray the bombs with the elephant trunk?” game from above? Same concept turned upside down. As Heathcliff, you spray drops of fire with a hose. Like Bomb Fight, you don’t have to wait to stop the drops of fire. You can destroy the fire at any spot of progress instead of waiting for it to be on top of you like a typical Game & Watch game. It changes it from feeling like a spinning plate game into a genuine defensive-oriented game. It’s not as fun as the bomb game though. It feels less claustrophobic and thus isn’t as exciting. I’m leaning towards not liking this, but let it be said: Heathcliff’s best LCD absolutely curb stomps Garfield’s.
CRAZY CHEWY!!
Vtech (1982)
Gameplay Type: Maze Chase
Once I remembered this is a Pac-Man clone and held down the movement buttons instead of pressing them like a normal LCD game, I found Crazy Chewy to be, far and away, the best Pac-Man LCD clone ever made. It’s not very hard, and the power-pellets last a generous amount of time. But, it’s actually not a bad little knock-off, and I’m only not awarding it my seal of approval because I just personally ain’t a Pac-Man fan. Generic and soulless and I imagine many a kid said “that’s NOT Pac-Man!” on Christmas mornings, but if you were a mega-sized Pacmaniac during this era, you had a pretty solid clone of it here.
CHICKY WOGGY!!
Vtech (Tini-Arcade 1981/Arcade Time & Fun 1982)
Gameplay Type: Maze Chase
Chicky Woggy is basically reverse-Pac-Man. Instead of eating the dots, you lay them down. You start with one wolf chasing you, and eating one of the two worms are like power-pellets that let you eat the wolves, but they only last a second or two. Like, on just the second level, I ate a worm, moved up only two spaces and the wolf killed me. Even considering that, I was able to clear multiple levels. Like other Vtech games, this got two releases: one as a premium color-picture tabletop similar to Nintendo’s Panorama or Coleco’s tabletops, and one as a simple LCD with a dial. Looking at the dial, ugh, can you imagine trying to play an LCD with that thing? Anyway, I’m giving it a pass for the same reason I did Chewy: I’m not a huge Pac-Man fan to begin with, but if you were a little kid in the early 80s who was gaga for the Pac, I imagine owning these would have passed the time in a car ride a lot better.
GALAXY II!!
Epoch (1981)
Gameplay Type: Gallery Shooter
I had this hunch that a Space Invaders-like LCD would be excellent. I’m grateful for Galaxy II, which proved I was 100% right. Actually, this is really like a better version of Coleco’s take on Galaxian. Even the sprites look very similar. But, this is a much better game that’s a lot of fun. A gallery shooter where the aliens dive down at you. I wish the controls were a little more responsive, and I wish it was just a channel or two wider, but otherwise, this is a solid shooter. A kid who opened this on Christmas morning in 1981 was a very lucky kid, especially compared to most of the larger fluorescent tube games. They usually suck, but Galaxy II is the best gallery shooter in LCD gaming that I’ve played and behind only Frisky Tom and Frogger on my top games list.
Whoa. Hold on. Okay, so I was partially right. It is sort of oriented like a shooter, but it’s not a gallery shooter. It’s not really a hockey game either, but it’s actually a not awful concept for an LCD hockey-themed game. There’s no defense involved. You’re just trying to score as many goals in the time limit as possible. You have to take the puck, wait for a clearing and wait for the meter behind the goalie to flash a star, at which point if you fire, you’ll get a goal. It’s actually a clever way to make the extremely limited LCD hardware feel kinda like the NES game, and it works! Yea, this is only good for an LCD game, but I could see myself losing track of time playing this. Absolutely. Clever idea. I’m impressed. At this point, I’m convinced every LCD manufacturer had at least one “who’d of thunk it?” quality game.
Basically the same concept as Blades of Steel, only now you’re playing a 1-on-2 basketball game. You have to just break free of your defenders and time the meter above the basket. Here, the timing is a lot different than it is in Blade of Steel. You want to shoot when the meter is white so the ball’s arc drops in as the meter is lit for a goal. I liked Blades of Steel a lot more, but this is also a perfectly acceptable little waste of time. Gosh, I wonder if the NFL Football game will be along the same lines.
Do you know what frustrates me most about Tiger’s lazy, shitty, effortless shovelware? They actually were capable of making decent games. Take Space Harrier II, which will now be given the distinct honor of being the first ever LCD game I wouldn’t rather be dead than be stuck with. And mind you, I don’t even like Space Harrier, but this LCD gallery shooter actually works. It feels vaguely like the arcade game and retains the fun. It even has boss fights! How about that? It’s not very exciting and the timing is a bit jank, but this isn’t awful by any stretch, and for kids from households who couldn’t afford a Game Boy, they wouldn’t have to be embarrassed playing this one. It’s fine. Hallelujah!
Beasts of Maravilla Island was developed by Banana Bird Studios
What Comes After is not IGC Approved
This isn’t going to come as an incredible shock to you, but Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course is worth $7.99. For that money, you get six new bosses, a King Dice style single-phase mini-boss, and five single-phase mini-bosses where your guns don’t work at all and you can only win via parrying. You also get new guns that are the most powerful in the game, new charms that actually made me move off the smoke dash for the final boss, a new character that comes with totally different skills than Cuphead or Mugman, and a secret item that, once you finish messing around with it, basically activates God Mode. It’s a lot of content for eight bucks. As much fun as I had.. and I had blast.. I’m still somehow a bit disappointed. For DLC that took almost five years to make, I guess I was hoping more. Maybe a couple new Run ‘n Gun stages. At least one, right? Nope. No new Run ‘n Gun stages. Maybe more than one new shmup stage? Nope, just one. The best.. and worst.. thing I can say about The Last Delicious Course (doesn’t that sound better than Delicious Last Course?) is that I wish Studio MDHR had spent the last five years just making a sequel, because the content we actually got is spectacular.
I suspect they feel the same way and probably have buyer’s remorse that they announced DLC like four years ago. Maybe I’m wrong, but I get that vibe out of Cuphead D.L.C. All the heart from before is there. The bosses are creative (though the whole “you’ve never seen transformations like this” left me expecting much more grand set-pieces than what we got). Yet, after a certain point, I got the “we’re holding back a little” vibe out of it. But, at least you get a lot of value. Turning this $19.99 release into a $27.98 release basically gives you the easy mode-without-penalty everyone has wanted for five years now.
After beating the DLC, I started a new file where I used only Ms. Chalice for everything I was allowed to use her on (only Cuphead/Mugman can do the Mausoleums). I figured I’d need about 200 lives to beat the entire game with her. I actually did it with only 98 lives. Why’s that? Well, Ms. Chalice gets one extra hit point. That’s huge. It can be even more than that with her Super Art II, which is a shield that doesn’t go away until you take a hit (well, unless the game glitches out, and this DLC is glitchy as all hell). She has a shorter standard jump, BUT, she also has a double jump. The double jump by itself nerfs multiple levels and bosses. In fact, multiple coins and challenges in the Run ‘n Gun stages are completely annihilated by just that double jump.
The Delicious Last Course is glitchy as all hell. With the new charms and abilities that grant you extra life, I had planned on at long-last getting A+ scores on every boss. I worked hard to charge up the Cursed Relic into the Divine Relic and was all set to kick ass. Well, so much for that shit. My first match using the Divine Relic, the game said I scored a 0 in life, and like the careless manure farmer, I completely lost my shit. I replayed the level, did more or less as good, finished with three life again, and that time, it gave me credit for it. Huh? And that’s just one of many weird issues. During the very final boss of the DLC content, I used Ms. Chalice’s Super Art II for the extra shield. BUT, between phases, the shield stopped working. ONLY the animation for the shield was still there, as if it was working. But, it wasn’t. You can’t use Chalice’s Super Art II a second time until the first one breaks, yet, here it is.
The thing that royally frosts my ass about these glitches is Studio MDHR had five fucking years to get it right. FIVE! That’s over twice as long as the Dreamcast had in North America! That’s more than the entire lifespan of the Wii U. Think of all the games developed for those consoles, and remember this is just DLC.. a third of one game.. and yet I triggered these glitches on literally my very first attempt playing. So, these glitches, that myself and other players were constantly bumping into, somehow didn’t get noticed over a five year development cycle? Are you fucking shitting me? It’s so shameful. AND NO, I’m not advocating for crunch or angry that it took so long to come out. I’m angry that, even with all time, easy-to-trigger glitches were left in. Next time, Studio MDHR, hire people that suck and don’t tell them how to play the game. Just watch them play, and take notes.
What I figure must have happened was their play testers were just too good at Cuphead and didn’t take damage. The classic indie “I forgot that other people are going to play this and they will not have spent the last five years devoting their entire life to this and thus are likely to not play it as well” situation that I’ve seen over and over again for the last eleven years. Yea, games get glitchy, and yea, games get patches. But, these were not like some weird, obscure thing. They were right there, SO EASY to trigger, and yet in five years they never got found. It’s inexcusable.
Assuming a Cuphead sequel ever hits, and they’ll probably need another decade at the rate they develop games, there’s a good chance I won’t be able to play it anymore. I have early onset Parkinson’s Disease, and on the table for me over the next decade, assuming I still have enough control over my fingers, is the loss of my reflexes. This could very well be my personal Cuphead finale. It’s been a long, strange, rambling journey. It was the announcement of this very DLC that made me realize that I never actually hated Cuphead. That I actually kind of loved it. Once I got over my anger at its snotty “git gud” attitude and the the fact that its studio is filled with douchebags who have no consideration for game accessibility, I realized that, when I beat Cuphead for the first time, it was one of the best times of my gaming life. And finally, the DLC is here.
The Delicious Last Course is fun. I don’t think the bosses are as mind-blowing or over-the-top as a lot of people were promising. Lots of reviewers talk about the six new bosses (eleven with the chess pieces) like they’re a cut above the previous bosses, but they’re not. They’re just new bosses. They’re on par with the previous ones, and the best thing I can say about them is none of them stand out as bad, though I found one to be underwhelming, and there was a phase or two here and there that was kind of boring. I didn’t love the shmup battle. I didn’t love the ice guy. But, I didn’t hate them, either. $8 for this set might be one of the best values any DLC set has ever had. I just wish the effort had gone to a full-blown sequel instead. Now, onto the definitive review..
The King of Games is what replaces the Run ‘n Gun Stages and especially the Mausoleums in Delicious Last Course. It’s a series of five boss battles where guns and charms don’t work (except Ms. Chalice’s charm) and you must parry to win. You can start the DLC here, if you wish (and you should since the coins are tied to these battles). The encounters happen between the full bosses.. maybe. Sometimes it lets you do more than one battle, or lets you even choose which battle you want to do, before kicking you off and disappearing for a while. This is also the only section of the DLC where content was cut from the game. There was to be a sixth battle featuring the King himself, and the code for this battle still exists within the game. While Studio MDHR annoys me with their shitty attitude towards accessibility and the fact that they released such a glitchy product even with five years to work on it, the one thing they have my full faith in is, if something gets cut, it got cut for a reason. I’m going to assume the King’s battle must have sucked, because the other five battles are pretty dang fun, even if some are super easy to beat.
The battle against the pawns is the only part of the chess fights that doesn’t feel like a boss, which is fitting, I guess. They leap down at you, and you have to avoid making contact while hitting a parry on their head. Even the pieces you defeat will return to the top to continue jumping down, and if you miss one, you have to wait for the other seven to cycle through their leaps before you get another crack at it. All of the chess battles feel like they were made with Ms. Chalice’s parry dash specifically in mind. In fact, this is the only one of those battles I actually beat using Cuphead, and that was only because I was bound and determined to ONLY use him at first with the DLC, but I gave that shit up. When you play as Cuphead/Mugman, hitting a parry also means throwing yourself into the sky and exposing yourself to the pawns, but Chalice can hit her parries low to the ground. Studio MDHR should have gone to Hasbro and offered to have them sponsor Ms. Chalice, because she absolutely Nerfs™ these battles.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: While I mourn the loss of the Run ‘n Gun stages, I’ll be damned if the chess stages aren’t a fun idea and keep what should be a stale formula fresh. It really helps that this opening battle is surprisingly intense. The rate and angles that the pawns jump down at you made me have a few close calls, and I even had a “died on the last one” a couple times. Granted, once I realized the chess battles were made for the chick, I’m like 6 for 0 with Ms. Chalice in this battle, but still, a nice opening sequence. This is probably the weakest of the chess battles in terms of play value and it’s still pretty dang good. A lot more fun than any of the Mausoleum stages. Like, it’s not even close. Great idea this was.
By far.. BY FAR.. the chess piece that gave me the most trouble, the Knight is easily the deepest of the chess battles. First thing’s first: just use Chalice. The Knight battle feels like Nintendo’s Punch-Out!! franchise as a platformer, where counter-attacking is key, but most of those attacks are too high of a risk if you have to do the parry with an angled jump. The knight has three attacks that he telegraphs, and one that comes with no warning if you stand too far away for too long. Keep a medium distance. If he pokes his head out of his helmet, he’s going to do a big sweeping motion. If he kneels down low, he’s going to dart across the playfield. If he does an upper-cut, it’s a fake out. You can also score a hit when he taunts you, but it’s high risk. On the plus side, if you take damage, you have enough time to score two or three free hits before you stop blinking. You have to parry the pink plume to get him. Awesome battle!
Food For Thought: This is the last instance of “I wish this had been a full battle” I’ll have to deal with in a long time, but I’ll give credit to Studio MDHR: when they had a good single-phase concept, they ran with it. Most of the King Dice mini-bosses and all DLC the mini-bosses are really fun. Yea, I wish they’d been expanded into bigger rights (well, I could do without with the other Chess fights) but I’m happy we got what we got. Never pad anything out just because someone like me is going to bitch about it. Seriously. I know I’m sending mixed messages here, but excellent less is always better than uninspired more.
The Bishop is a one-of-a-kind battle in Cuphead. While you do still have to directly attack him, the major mechanic of this fight is extinguishing the candles he lights. You just have to touch them instead of parrying them (surprised they didn’t work that out), and blowing them all out renders the Bishop vulnerable again. It’s a great idea, and it works. Maybe all this Cupheading has just made me awesome because I aced it on my first attempt. It wasn’t the only one I beat on my first attempt (I also totally lucked into beating the queen as well), but it’s not totally toothless as I died in my rematch with it the second time around. It’s a fight that’s tailor made for close encounters, and once I got over the shock of glorious victory, I have to admit, it’s quite fun.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I don’t think Studio MDHR is lacking for good ideas. Each of the chess matches is memorable, and the creepy-ass Bishop is particularly memorable. You don’t expect to see religious iconography in games like this, but you really don’t expect it to be a boss, in a church setting, with crosses and everything around. I admire the guts of it. Just think: Nintendo would have demanded this be altered not even ten years ago. We’ve come far.
While the Knight is probably the most well-rounded of all the chess matches, the Rook battle is my personal favorite. I love EVERYTHING about this fight. I love the character design. I love the heads. I love that he’s just ignoring you and sharpening his axe. I love the macabre vibe of it all. It’s also a satisfying battle. This is by far the most old school of all forty Cuphead bosses. Like someone took a spinning-plate/juggling-type LCD game (such as Nintendo’s Game & Watch Fire) and turned it into a boss fight. And it works wonderfully. This is as close to perfect as any mini-boss gets. Awesome death animation too.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I’m not a game developer, but I’d think that there’s a lot of inspiration to be had from the Rook. It takes very old-school gameplay and makes it fresh and exciting in 2022. What makes it feel so epic is the sheer scope of it. Of course, it’s a bit of smoke and mirrors and not really that different from how old 8 bit games used to dress up the bosses to make them look larger. Unlike a lot of the larger-than-life Cuphead bosses, you can see the seams here. What you’re really fighting is just a wall that launches projectiles, and if you bounce the projectiles back at the wall, it counts as a hit. The Rook is just an animation happening in the background. But, it all comes together to make a fight that feels so much larger than it really is.
Studio MDHR kind of sucks at mini-boss finales. Okay, that’s not totally fair. It’s not like the Queen here, or King Dice from the original build, are crappy to fight. They’re just underwhelming. Here, you have three cannons that sway back and forth, and you have to parry the fuses to shoot a cannon at the queen. She occasionally sends stacks of lions at you, but the real challenge is she has one of the hardest “make it rain” attack patterns in the game. Once you beat her, that’s it for the chess pieces. Beating the Bishop on my first try made me feel excellent. Here? I felt like I had lucked out. Like King Dice before her, I said “that’s it?” Well, there’s a boss rush for an achievement, but otherwise.. that’s it.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Yea, they were out of ideas. Wait, wouldn’t it have made more sense for you to shoot cannonballs at the Rook, which is a castle? And wouldn’t it be more fitting as a tribute to the Queen of Hearts to have her send heads at you (“OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!”) that you have to bounce back at her? Now I’m wondering if I’m onto something. Granted, she wasn’t meant to be the final boss. You know, I pulled this out of my ass because these “Food for Thought” sections I pigeon-holed myself into doing can be tough to write after thirty-three bosses (and I’m writing this on my 33rd birthday. Meta!) but now I think I might be on to something. I’m pretty sure I’m not on something. Unless somebody put something in my water. Let’s not rule this out. Next!!
What does this do? Well, you can buy an item called the “Broken Relic” from the DLC shop for one coin. Winning this fight.. and it’s no slouch, even for a mini-boss.. changes the Broken Relic into the “Cursed Relic” which is going to be a pain in the ass for you if you want to use it. If you equip it, you only get one hit point to beat bosses with, and it randomizes your guns. Every time you let go of the fire button, use an EX shot, or dash, your gun changes. It’s crazy hard at first, but, it slowly gains more power as you beat more bosses.
Once you’ve beaten enough bosses (there’s a whole scoring system. 
IGC Dislikes: That I actually did this boss last, and also the achievement is a reference to Castlevania II, which means 
This is one of those “rub your belly and pat your head” bosses. I knew a guy who could do that while whistling, the freak. The idea here is, you will ALWAYS face the Demon, and if you turn around, the Demon and Angel will swap places. The Demon’s attacks will always hurt you. The Angel’s attacks will always pass harmlessly through you. It doesn’t sound very complicated, but holy crap, is this a balancing act. There’s also a platform that moves across the bottom that’s suspended by a lightning bolt that causes damage. Being an idiot, I didn’t notice the lightning bolt and thought the bottom caused damage depending on how you were facing. Once you get used to this, it’s fairly simple. I didn’t get used to it and only won by equipping the heart ring and parrying extra hearts and barely squeaking out wins. Awesome fight though. Fun fact: the Angel & Demon are, along with Goopy from Inkwell I, the only bosses that don’t attack you with minions.
Glumstone is basically the icon of Cuphead’s DLC. He was part of a graphic novel released in 2020, and is even featured in 
PHASE ONE – VAPE MOUNTAINS (HEALTHIER ALTERNATIVE TO THE SMOKEY MOUNTAINS): Glumstone’s opening stage takes place on a series of platforms that move up and down, sometimes into the path of geese. You also have to watch out for gnomes that spit fireballs at you or climb up the platforms. The base is covered in spikes too, so stick to the platforms. Occasionally, he’ll also grab a bear and just bring it across the playfield, like the shark in Brineybeard’s fight, only it’s slower and a lot easier to dodge. Glumstone’s primary attack is opening his mouth and blowing clouds at you. If you’re not in close range, only Chalice will be able to reach all of them, as neither Cuphead nor Mugman can jump high enough to reach all of them. It’s a fun phase but easy compared to what’s coming next.
PHASE TWO – HANDBALL: See, even giants play with themselves using hand puppets. Wait, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean they play with their balls. NO, STOP! I mean they toss their balls back and forth. I mean with puppets. I mean, with their hands. Oh Christ, this is coming out all wrong. What I’m trying to say is the giant bats its ball back and forth while you watch for bulges underneath you. I mean little men coming at you while a bigger guy keeps tossing to himself. It’s a phase and it’s really hard. I mean to beat.
PHASE THREE – IT’S NOT A TUMOR!!: I guess it’s supposed to be an ulcer but it looks more like cancer to me. Maybe if you just wait Glumstone out long enough he’ll die of natural causes. It’s a nice idea, since there’s like a million cartoons that do this gag, but it’s kind of underwhelming as a finale because it goes from feeling epic in scale to kind of small. But, the Pitfall! tribute is nice, and the difficulty balance is spot on. It’s clear why Glumstone got the lion’s share of pre-release hype. It’s the best of the bosses, besides Chef Saltbaker himself. In short: fun boss. Kind of a meh ending.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Glumstone was one of those “on the drawing board a long time” bosses that makes Cuphead work so well. The magic of the art style is there’s dozens of cartoons that use a gigantic character, and Glumstone looks like all of them while somehow also looking like none of them. The ability to borrow liberally from this era and come very close without directly copying any character make for a wonderful resource and it’s awesome someone did such a good job of paying homage to it all.
Featuring not just one but two deleted concepts from the original build, the Moonshine Mob was the first boss I fought when I started up the DLC. Yet, it feels like a fight that could have been part of the base game, right up until a delightful (and for some, infuriating) twist at the end of the third phase. Bootlegger Boogie is the ideal DLC experience: it feels like it could have been there all along, yet it twists your expectations ever so slightly.
PHASE ONE – SPIDER MOBSTER: This is one of the deleted ideas.. kind of. Originally there was a shmup level where you fought the “
♥Coppers using bug spray will occasionally walk out and shoot at you, some of which can be parried, though the angles to score one are quite tough.
PHASE TWO – LIGHT BUG: The Light Bug is one of the earliest concepts for a stand-alone boss that didn’t happen. The attack pattern is, more or less, the same as it was as a prototype. The Light Bug dances back and forth on the second plane while six beams of “sound waves” circle around you. There’s a warning of when one set of three is going to change into an attack. Green is safe, yellow means “shit’s about to go down, yo” and red is dangerous. The attacks only happen briefly and once you get the hang of it, avoiding the attack is easy (and if you do it right, the Light Bug herself won’t be close to you when you switch between levels).
This is where the crackshot becomes very valuable, as you don’t need to take aim and can focus on avoiding the beams. For the musically inclined, you can also use the music as a cue for when the attack will happen. There’s also cops and moonshine barrels running back and forth this whole time, and some of the barrels can be parried. I think I only scored one parry off a barrel the entire time. But, another fun phase!
PHASE THREE – ANTEATER: Probably the most visually striking of all the DLC bosses, the Anteater’s arrival feels so damn epic. It’s a shame the actual battle becomes quite tedious. You get a chance to score some early damage on the real final boss at the start of the battle, but then the Anteater makes his move. He’s only vulnerable from his tongue. Ms. Chalice’s parry dash is almost worthless here, as the Anteater will take turns doing three to five trusts with his mouth on one side of the level, eventually sticking his tongue out across the screen. The tongue can be parried, and if you have the whetstone equipped, this battle goes a lot faster. In theory, you can time it with Ms. Chalice, but I never could.
Eventually, he’ll retract his tongue and unleash a brawl between a cop and a hoodlum that bounces around the screen like the caterpillar from earlier, only it takes A LOT more bullets to kill. He’ll then switch to the other side and repeat the same attack. After two hours, give or take, he’ll finally die. This would be a fun phase, only it takes FOREVER to finally score the knockout. Only, it’s NOT the knockout.
PHASE FOUR – SUDDENLY SNAIL: A banner drops down and the Snail declares KNOCKOUT sounding like Edward G. Robinson. The Anteater collapses and the final phase begins with the Snail shooting relatively quickly at you, though many of his shots can be parried. This is the fastest phase in all of Cuphead, and when the Snail dies after just a few shots, the real announcer clears his throat before declaring KNOCKOUT in a nice touch.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: I think this is pretty much it for the deleted content that got reworked into the game. It’s nice that they found a place for the “
Oh, I get it.. they’re dogs in a dog fight. As in airplanes. They’re not owned by Michael Vick. Right before I finally started to type this section of the review, I was informed there’s a secret phase. I spent the next four hours trying to get it, gave up, and had a tantrum. Then, a friend’s kid told me “use the Lobber” and I got it on my first try. Grumble. After all that effort, the DLC’s lone secret phase wasn’t remotely worth the effort. What a waste of time. Stick to the main path, where an otherwise generic theme becomes an unforgettable encounter.
PHASE ONE – UNLEASH THE DOGS OF WAR: Hughes Canteen, the NPC that taught you about the airplane in Inkwell I, is your pilot. You stand on a plane that will go left and right depending on how close to each edge you stand. It’s actually very intuitive. There’s an alternate control scheme just for this level, but stick to the default because it works wonderfully. Using this setup, a bulldog pilot will fire slow-moving heat-seeking fire hydrants at you while other dogs rain tennis balls down on you. Occasionally, the bulldog will bail to either shoot you with giant yarn balls or throw boomerang bones at you, some of which can be parried. A nice little phase, though keeping up with the tennis balls is a pain in the butt, and sometimes the timing of them and the yarn attack conspire to screw you.
PHASE TWO – YANKEE YIPPERS: Four dogs circle around you and throw letters at you, many of which can be parried. If you take your time before picking them off, you can easily charge your cards up during this phase. The dogs don’t take many hits at all, and the crackshot is especially useful here. This whole phase is over and done with in a matter of moments and you move on to the ultra-memorable finale. That is, unless you want to open the secret phase and ruin the best part of this entire boss.
PHASE THREE – SHINOOK PILOT SALUKI: One of the best phases of Delicious Last Course, the battle against the Persian Greyhound (clearly the snootiest of all dogs) is truly a spectacle. It starts with mad scentists type of lasers that reminds me of something that would be used to fight Mighty Mouse. After a couple shots of that, the screen will rotate 90 degrees, and the controls along with it, and the Saluki will drop dog dishes on you that you have to jump over. The screen will go upside down after that. Once you get the hang of it, it’s actually a fairly simple battle, and it can even end by shooting the lasers and not the dog itself. It’s not much of a boss, but the gravity effects stand out and turn the mundane into something special. Of course, you can shirk all that and do the pathetic secret phase.
DOG FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Like the Rook battle, The Howling Aces take bland, basic attacks and make them exciting by adding unique ways of tackling them. The airplane following your movement works, and I’m a sucker for gravity effects in games. If not for those things, this would be a very boring boss, as the secret phase proves. I’m not in love with the theme, and honestly, I kind of wish what they had done was merged the shump and platform sections. That’s the one thing Cuphead hasn’t done yet with its own formula. It’s probably impossible due to how it loads, but it’s all that’s left.
Of the six DLC bosses, Mortimer feels the most like he belonged in the original game. He’s also probably the most middle-of-the-road of the five non-shmup bosses. It’s not a bad fight by any means, and it has some wonderful sight gags, but this is also the battle that I found to be the dullest. Get ready for some temperature based puns that would make the writers of Batman & Robin blush with shame.
PHASE ONE – CHRIST, WHAT AN ICEHOLE: Mortimer has three ways of attacking. Apparently he’s a flasher, as his most common method of attack is opening his cloak to unleash tiny little ice monsters that spike themselves into the ground before coming to life and giving chase. It’s really tough to judge their trajectory while in flight, but once they land they’re easy enough to take out. He’ll usually then just slam a giant whale into the ground. If it hits the ice monsters, it’ll knock them out of the game in an adorably hilarious gag. Finally, he’ll shoot cards at you, which can sometimes be parried. Dull phase, really.
PHASE TWO – SNOW MORE MR. ICE GUY: One of the hardest middle phases in the entire game, the Snow Monster is fast, aggressive, and specializes in crowding you in. He has a wide range of attacks, and between those he might turn into a snowball and roll or leap back and forth across the screen. If the obstacles from his previous attack are still active, it’ll be difficult to dodge. He’ll also slam the ground and cause ice blades to poke up from the ground.
By far his most common attack is turning into a fridge and shooting ice cubes at you. When the cubes land, they break into smaller cubes. If the starting cube is large, it’ll have two break sequences. They’re easy enough dodge, but it’s when he quickly transitions to the rolling attack that this phase becomes a pain in the butt. He’ll also close the fridge attack by launching evil popcicles at you, some of which can be parried. When you do enough damage, a series of platforms appears that takes you to the finale. The Snow Monster took me longer to complete than almost any second phase and probably should have been the last phase.
PHASE THREE – OKAY, SNOWFLAKE: After climbing up the platforms, you reach a rotating set of five platforms for the final form of Mortimer. The giant snowflake finale has an attack that never once hit me. He shoots out.. like.. a ghost that circles around the outside. I don’t even know if it can damage you or if it’s just a few seconds of getting free attacks. His other attacks are more dangerous. He’ll launch buckets at you, some of which can be parried. After they hit the wall, the buckets turn into three moons that you have to dodge. He’ll also shoot ice cream cones from four directions at once, or launch his eyeball at you. The eyeball has beams that you must also avoid. A decent finale to an otherwise ho-hum battle.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Mortimer is the only of the four traditional bosses that feels like he could only belong in Inkwell III. The other three would fit in more as Inkwell II battles, with Moonshine Mob being on the fringe only because of the Anteater section’s sponge. There’s something about this particular fight that feels climatic or end gamish. Then again, a lot of people insist to me that I’m crazy for thinking Brineybeard belongs in Inkwell I so take that with a grain of salt.
I’m so disappointed that there’s only one shmup section in the DLC. I want an all-shmup Cuphead sequel more than I want to live into my 80s. While Esther isn’t among the best of the shmup encounters in the game, she’s still a ton of fun to do battle with. Fun fact: this was the boss that I needed the most lives and time to defeat in the DLC, and by a wide margin.
PHASE ONE – REAL C.O.W. GIRL OF SHMUP MESA: In the first phase, you have to switch between and upper and lower area. Esther’s primary method of defeating you is by having one of the most visually busy sections of the game. She fires oil out of guns that crosses halfway across the screen before doubling back and coming back at you as snakes (wait, I get it.. snake oil! See, I thought it was ink). Her only other direct attack is to lasso a cactus that will block the entire channel she’s on.
The real challenge comes from vultures that drop dynamite into the playfield. The dynamite explodes into five separate explosions of three, then two (four and then three on Expert). AND while all that’s happening, a horse will fly across the screen and spit cactus balls at you, some of which can be parried. You can shoot the horses down, but you give up parry chances. There’s just a ton of stuff to keep track of here and it becomes overwhelming.
PHASE TWO – HEY NOW, THAT’S NOT THE CODE OF THE WEST: In a sort of opposite of one of Djimmi’s attacks, Esther pulls out a vacuum and beings sucking loot up, and you along with it. After dodging all the debris, she’ll then bend over and launch safes onto the playfield. When the safes hit the ground, they explode into the loot she previously collected, some of which can now be parried. It’s a basic dodging type of stage that goes quickly, and once you defeat it, this wholesome boss suddenly takes a turn at the corner of Dark and Macabre.
PHASE THREE – 😶 : The cow gets sucked into the pressure cooker and turned into hot dogs.
PHASE FOUR – A REAL SAUSAGE FEST: The final shmup phase of Cuphead has you now fighting an entire can of hot dogs (do hotdogs come in tins like that?) with two giant arms extending from it. The arms scissor back and forth, but there’s safe spots where no dog is that you can pass safely through. While this is going on, the can shoots waves of chili peppers at you, one of which can always be parried. Resist the temptation to chase one down if it’s not in front of you and focus on dodging the arms. It’s pretty spongy but a wonderful ending to my surprise favorite type of Cuphead levels.
In what is the least shocking twist ever, Chef Saltbaker was a bad guy all along, and the battle against him is so mean spirited and evil that the smile never left my face. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the most memorable last bosses in gaming history. Well, except that it gets easier as it goes along. Seriously, the first phase is a frantic dodge-a-thon, but while the visuals remain striking throughout, the actual battle gets kind cinchy.
PHASE ONE – CASUAL CRUELTY: All the items are you’ve gathered from defeating the five primary DLC bosses? Yea, the Chef murders them in cold blood with a smile on his face. It’s violent and gruesome and FUCKING AWESOME! Like all professional chefs, this guy is just 100% pure evil. He has four attacks: shooting limes that hover over you, sugar cubes that bounce at you (some of which can be parried), cookies that bounce at you, and strawberries that rain down upon you. None of them are hard to dodge on their own, but the attacks can and do stack. And, while this happens, there’s a fire that jumps from the floor to the ceiling and is super easy to lose track of. One of the most intense and brutal phases in the game.
PHASE TWO – SALTED NUKES: Yea, this is the most visually awesome sequence in the entire game. It’s so awesome. Here, you shoot four pepper shakers that crash into Chef Saltbaker and progressively crack him. The pepper shakers shoot projectiles, some of which can be parried, and leafs rain down from the ceiling from time to time. The fire from the previous stage is back as well. I highly recommend the crackshot for this battle. When you’ve done enough damage, you’ve earned a break with one of the easiest and quickest phases in any boss fight.
PHASE THREE – WHAT SLUGS HAVE NIGHTMARES OF: This phase seriously lasts like ten seconds, if that. Two salt things that look kind of like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man dance up and down. It’s an easy pattern that you can dash under. There’s a saw blade on the ground too but, yea, this is a layup and a break between the real finale of Cuphead. Take a breather, plug these guys with a couple shots, and move on.
PHASE FOUR – TOO MUCH SALT IS KNOWN TO CAUSE HEART ATTACKS: This is it! After beating the salt dancers, the floor starts to break apart and two lethal-to-the-touch columns of salt spring up. Most importantly, a series of platforms start to appear. If you don’t have Ms. Chalice’s double jump, this section is so much harder. After a few seconds of jumping from platform to platform, the Chef’s heart will appear. You have to shoot it, and apparently it can be parried too though it doesn’t seem necessary to killing it. It’s a bit of a letdown for a finale, especially with how epic those first two phases were. But, that’s it. Unless there’s even more surprise DLC or a sequel coming, this was the final phase of Cuphead.
To all my readers, thanks for the support over the last eleven years.
Everyone at Indie Gamer Team, you’re all my friends and I love you so much.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge is Chick-Approved
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge was developed by Tribute Games
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