All in all, The Cuphead Show is an overwhelming success. You can understand why these compromises were made, since two and a half hours of hand-drawn animation would be prohibitively expensive, but for a property that prides itself on authenticity, it can sometimes take you out of the moment a little. Although the surface touches are there – the screen is flecked with dust marks – the characters often carry the sterile perfection of computer animation, while the voices are recorded a little too cleanly. Cuphead the game was so rigorously 1930s in its outlook that one of the levels saw him standing in an ashtray, fighting a barrage of cigars and cigarettes, and that would obviously be unthinkable to place in a children’s TV show in the 21st century. Weirdly, though, Cuphead’s period frills don’t feel quite as authentic on TV. But, again, for a show that deliberately harkens back to a time where entertainment wouldn’t hesitate to scare kids, that’s probably par for the course. There’s one scene near the end of the series, where the devil mutates into a series of wild animals, that has the potential to ruin a couple of bedtimes. It is at once a giddy genre exercise and something that your kids would happily watch. This is the sort of cartoon where characters find babies abandoned by their front door, where radio antennas broadcast concentric circles and morse code, where down-and-outs still have the self-esteem to dress themselves in raggedy suits. Instead, The Cuphead Show! is a collection of standalone cartoons that have fun splashing around in the tropes of the era its animation was inspired by. The show deliberately harkens back to a time where entertainment wouldn’t hesitate to scare kids. While there’s a loose nod to the game’s plot – in which Cuphead and Mugman lose their souls by gambling with the devil, who in turn forces them to chase down his debtors – this is by no means a dramatisation.

The show sees Cuphead (a headstrong and cocky sentient cup) and his brother Mugman (in effect, a differently coloured Cuphead created solely to allow a two-player mode on the game, here beefed up into a cowardly Luigi type) as they blunder through a succession of wacky misadventures. Because The Cuphead Show! feels like Cuphead reaching its most perfect form. It might sound complicated – a cartoon based on a game based on a different cartoon – but go along with it.

Which brings us to The Cuphead Show! (Netflix), in which the Cuphead characters are given their own series of 15-minute cartoons. The game might have caused you to rip out your hair in frustration, but the characters were too charming to be dismissed. You might not be able to get past the level where you have to steal the soul from a giant onion (long story), but you could still buy Cuphead dolls and Cuphead books, and you could visit YouTube and watch a seemingly limitless number of users create no end of Cuphead songs, cartoons and comparison videos. The characters were so engaging, and the aesthetic so beautiful, that a small cottage industry sprang up around it. It seemed like such a wasted opportunity.Īnd yet, despite this, the kernel of Cuphead remained irresistible. One early reviewer (who plays games for a living, remember) noted that he had died 188 times during the game. It might have looked and sounded beautiful, but it was also cripplingly difficult to play. But then the game came out, and it sort of sucked.

Garden story opencritic