Anyone else totally underwhelmed by Cuphead?

[djc]

I agree that Cuphead is an artistic masterpiece that's not particularly fun to play.
What was the point of making it so hard?

Because game developers have forgotten that games are supposed to be fun. It's all about making a game now that takes a long time to beat so people play it longer. It's almost like they take pride in making a game hard as balls. Unfortunately that just turns off casual gamers (like myself) quite a bit. This is why I rarely play any of the newer consoles.

[Retro STrife]

Otherwise, it's much more forgiving than any Contra, and I feel it's finely tuned enough to be more than a gimmicky art style wrapped around an average game.

Envision it like this... For the shmup stages, keep all the core gameplay the same, but remove the cartoon graphics. In place of the cartoon, change it to a standard space shmup -- i.e., your cup/mug guys are now spaceships instead, and they are shooting bullets at spaceship bosses. Now how do you feel about the game? To me, it's now an utterly average shooter, at best. Put the game in space shooter clothes and you realize it's inferior to all the classic space shooters we grew up playing. But those cartoon graphics are so special that they hide the mediocrity going on underneath.

As for the run-and-gun stages, I think they're even worse. Remove the cartoon graphics, and insert some generic army men battling some generic aliens, and we would suddenly hate playing it. (Though, I think I sorta hate those stages even with the current art style.)

[Paul Campbell]

Otherwise, it's much more forgiving than any Contra, and I feel it's finely tuned enough to be more than a gimmicky art style wrapped around an average game.

Envision it like this... For the shmup stages, keep all the core gameplay the same, but remove the cartoon graphics. In place of the cartoon, change it to a standard space shmup -- i.e., your cup/mug guys are now spaceships instead, and they are shooting bullets at spaceship bosses. Now how do you feel about the game? To me, it's now an utterly average shooter, at best. Put the game in space shooter clothes and you realize it's inferior to all the classic space shooters we grew up playing. But those cartoon graphics are so special that they hide the mediocrity going on underneath.

As for the run-and-gun stages, I think they're even worse. Remove the cartoon graphics, and insert some generic army men battling some generic aliens, and we would suddenly hate playing it. (Though, I think I sorta hate those stages even with the current art style.)

Exactly. You nailed it. I might as well have added this to the end of my initial post.

[Voor]

As promised. I think it’s a unique genre—“platform shumup”?—that isn’t particularly accessible due to its difficulty. They discuss strategy throughout the video.

https://youtu.be/2QBhssdZVEA

Side note: I do like the resurgence of hard games again though.

[LoganRuckman]

I agree that Cuphead is an artistic masterpiece that's not particularly fun to play.
What was the point of making it so hard?

Because game developers have forgotten that games are supposed to be fun. It's all about making a game now that takes a long time to beat so people play it longer. It's almost like they take pride in making a game hard as balls. Unfortunately that just turns off casual gamers (like myself) quite a bit. This is why I rarely play any of the newer consoles.

But many old games, especially during the 8 bit era, are notorious for substituting fun and good game design and artificially lengthening replay value with high difficulty and trial and error. If anything, games today are more accessible, and the ones that are difficult are ultimately a more rewarding kind of hard because they're challenging without resorting to being cheap.

[PAAGaming]

I feel like this about a lot of games now. I think, ‘am I missing something?’, and ‘why did this get such good reviews’.

Maybe it is just my age (42). My Switch is filled with older games and remasters. I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old smeg though.

[Paul Campbell]

I feel like this about a lot of games now. I think, ‘am I missing something?’, and ‘why did this get such good reviews’.

Maybe it is just my age (42). My Switch is filled with older games and remasters. I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old smeg though.

Pretty much exactly where I am and what I always catch myself thinking...

[CharlieR]

There's a great thread here also stating that Celeste is a big name indie that is overrated. I have not played that or Cuphead, so I won't comment on the quality of those games, but I wonder if the art style in general of some of these indie games is why they get so much praise.

[Retro STrife]

I feel like this about a lot of games now. I think, ‘am I missing something?’, and ‘why did this get such good reviews’.

Maybe it is just my age (42). My Switch is filled with older games and remasters. I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old smeg though.

Pretty much exactly where I am and what I always catch myself thinking...

There's a great thread here also stating that Celeste is a big name indie that is overrated. I have not played that or Cuphead, so I won't comment on the quality of those games, but I wonder if the art style in general of some of these indie games is why they get so much praise.

Remember back in our school days when a teacher would use a rubric to grade our papers? To get a 100, the goal wasn't to write the best paper -- instead, you got a better grade than your classmates just by ticking all the boxes on the teacher's scoring guide. Instead of writing to be interesting, you write to meet the checklist.

I feel like game reviews work the same way these days... How are the graphics? How is the voice-acting? How is the control? Is the single player campaign at least 15 hours long? Did the developer add some robust multiplayer modes? etc etc etc... Rarely does the reviewer ever just sit back and ask the most important questions -- how much fun am I having right now? And does that fun remain consistent throughout the game?

So you end up with games getting an 85 or 90 score because they checked all the right boxes with the game design, and then maybe the reviewer will deduct 5 points because they were bored out of their mind for half the game. And you almost can't blame the developers for not focusing enough on the fun factor -- their profit and staying in business depends on getting good reviews, since those good reviews translate into better sales. It's like us and our old high school papers - instead of designing to be fun, they design to meet the checklist.

[Paul Campbell]

Very good point. Probably one of the gaming downfalls of our hyper-critical online society.