Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course Review
Cuphead‘s long-awaited expansion, The Delicious Last Course, is finally here. And, well, it adds more, uh, Cuphead to Cuphead.
There are just over a handful of bosses to overcome in The Delicious Last Course (“DLC”, get it?), all set in their own unique area. It’s accessible early on in Cuphead‘s main campaign so if you’re a newcomer you don’t have to wait until completion to jump in. Not that it really matters, because The Delicious Last Course doesn’t exactly serve up anything vastly different.
That’s not a criticism, per se. There’s a lot to love about Cuphead. You can read our original review here to read more about it. But you only have to take one look at its beautiful art style to know that this is something special. It has the charm of a true classic cartoon, with characters just as memorable and iconic as Mickey and Pluto were when they were first drawn.
So iconic, in fact, that in a full 360 turn, Cuphead actually is a cartoon now, thanks to a Netflix deal. What a time to be alive.
But back to The Delicious Last Course. This isn’t going to appeal to you if you didn’t really gel with Cuphead in the first place. It introduces a new playable character, Ms. Chalice, who comes with her own suite of abilities, but make no mistake: this is still the same tough-as-nails game. And if you struggled with the original bosses, you’re still going to struggle here.
Developer Studio MDHR has even doubled down on its insistence that playing on “Simple” mode – a watered-down version of each boss designed to make it a little easier – means you can’t fully complete the game. This was a bugbear the first time around and today, with difficulty and accessibility discourse so rife, it feels even more egregious.
Ms. Chalice’s unique abilities do, at least, go some way to make Cuphead‘s gameplay a little easier. She can double jump, her dodge roll makes her invulnerable for a short time and she auto-parries by dashing. Certainly on paper they feel like huge improvements over Cuphead’s more basic abilities. And since you can go back and play any level as Ms. Chalice, perhaps you now have a fighting chance of getting through on ‘Normal’ difficulty. Or so you can hope, anyway.
The Delicious Last Course‘s bosses fit right in with those of the main game. Each foe you find yourself up against is as wonderfully designed as ever and, in terms of its art at least, it’s as masterful and joyous as you’d expect. There’s a new overworld section to explore with a smattering of characters, and despite being set upon its own island, it feels seamlessly integrated into the rest of the game.
If you’ve been longing for more Cuphead, then The Delicious Last Course is for you. But if you were, for whatever reason, hoping for a big shake-up in terms of gameplay or difficulty, you’re not going to find it here. Brutal but beautiful, this is simply more Cuphead, be that for better or for worse.
Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course Review – GameSpew’s Score
