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Was Cuphead as hard as a FromSoftware game for those of you who played it?
- Thread starter ScOULaris
- Start date
I'll never get why the difficulty in Souls games is such a big topic. They are very punishing and require more skill than the average action game, but the
games itself always present some loopholes to overcome any obstacle without relying on skill alone.
Grind souls/runes, cheese strats, switch to different (OP) builds, magic sniping, dupe/XP glitches, Co-Op and what not. All these things can make the game so much easier, not easy but less difficult.
Cuphead, on the other hand is just grueling hard without ever giving you any form of hope or silver lining. It really feels old school and sadistic in a charming way, so much that I was happily willing to bend over and over again just for the gorgeous aesthetic alone.
games itself always present some loopholes to overcome any obstacle without relying on skill alone.
Grind souls/runes, cheese strats, switch to different (OP) builds, magic sniping, dupe/XP glitches, Co-Op and what not. All these things can make the game so much easier, not easy but less difficult.
Cuphead, on the other hand is just grueling hard without ever giving you any form of hope or silver lining. It really feels old school and sadistic in a charming way, so much that I was happily willing to bend over and over again just for the gorgeous aesthetic alone.
I was more than happy to support the devs but got absolutely nowhere with the game. I'd love it if they just shared cheap codes or something. Otherwise I'll never see any of the game.
I think they're two different types of difficulty. Cuphead, Returnal and Sifu are in one camp (you need good reactions, one true way to play the game, etc).
From games require more strategy and they're a lot more flexible in how you can approach situations. The difficulty from these often comes from working out the right approach and having the patience to perfect it.
But in answer to the question, I find From games harder than the others.
From games require more strategy and they're a lot more flexible in how you can approach situations. The difficulty from these often comes from working out the right approach and having the patience to perfect it.
But in answer to the question, I find From games harder than the others.
I'm in the same boat. Bounced off of two Souls games before beating and enjoying Sekiro. I did beat Elden Ring, and a key difference was that I constantly wondered if I was just not skilled enough or not a high enough level to beat a boss. Every single time it was the level.
It's a lot more straightforward to me in Cuphead and Sekiro. I just need to be patient and learn the patterns to a precise degree.
From games aren't even hard. They maybe get a hard boss or two per game and even then they're only hard by modern standards. I haven't even played Cuphead and can say it's harder from what I've seen alone. Returnal was far harder than From games. They ain't all that as far as difficulty goes. If anything they're pretty easy because there's very little punishment for actually dying and you have control over what you may or may not lose.
It's way easier, at least from what I've played (left it at the train guy cuz I got bored). It's in 2D and u can clearly see the projectiles comming, there are straightforward fights (no ambusses etc.) and the attacks are easy to predict even on a first try.
Cuphead has a very satisfying difficulty curve that feels like a perfectly tuned Mega Man game. The game would be hard hard if it wasn't for how Cuphead is over-equipped to deal with all the bullshit the game throws at him, the telegraphs are mostly on point and give you enough information to commonly be able to intuit what's going to happen next, and everything on the player's side simply works consistently.
That, and most boss encounters being two minute fights with instant-retries takes a lot of the edge off of Cuphead's difficulty.
From Software games meanwhile have this heavy, front-loaded difficulty that then weaves back and forth with difficulty spikes that are functionally random. You'll breeze through two bosses, have trouble on one, and breeze through another three or four before getting snagged on another with a brutal segment through a prison in there somewhere that just destroys you.
I dunno. I can't say one game is harder than the other. Different skill sets and all. But I CAN say Cuphead has better quality difficulty than most From Software games I've played.
That, and most boss encounters being two minute fights with instant-retries takes a lot of the edge off of Cuphead's difficulty.
From Software games meanwhile have this heavy, front-loaded difficulty that then weaves back and forth with difficulty spikes that are functionally random. You'll breeze through two bosses, have trouble on one, and breeze through another three or four before getting snagged on another with a brutal segment through a prison in there somewhere that just destroys you.
I dunno. I can't say one game is harder than the other. Different skill sets and all. But I CAN say Cuphead has better quality difficulty than most From Software games I've played.
I'm not sure why are we even reading so many comments about the "different skillsets" involved. I don't feel like it's particularly true.
Every single skill you can leverage to progress in Cuphead (timing, precision, ability to read a boss' moveset) is useful to get by even in the entire line-up of the Souls games, except the latter are orders of magnitude more forgiving than the former in how much they allow you to screw up before sending you back at the starting point.
Sekiro was possibly the one that took most learning to beat the final boss, but even that was nothing that went anywhere near to the point of frustrating me.
Conversely, I went back to Cuphead three or four times at this point and I keep giving up before even gaining access to the final area.
Every single skill you can leverage to progress in Cuphead (timing, precision, ability to read a boss' moveset) is useful to get by even in the entire line-up of the Souls games, except the latter are orders of magnitude more forgiving than the former in how much they allow you to screw up before sending you back at the starting point.
I never even struggled particularly to complete any From Software game, and I'm far from considering myself a paragon of skill.
Sekiro was possibly the one that took most learning to beat the final boss, but even that was nothing that went anywhere near to the point of frustrating me.
Conversely, I went back to Cuphead three or four times at this point and I keep giving up before even gaining access to the final area.
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Cuphead is much harder, but the bosses are well designed and have a competent progression, so replaying them you truly get better and learn more. I feel like a majority of the From Software bosses, you just kind of wait for a play through where the boss bugs out or you get a lucky hit etc.
Mannn, I was just thinking back on this video and was like, people were overly mean to this person for being so bad, they weren't THAT bad. Rewatching it however, it's truly pathetic and I don't understand it at all. My gf is not a super avid gamer and hates platformers, but barely struggled with the tutorial and managed to get through the first stage decently. I don't even think my dad would be this bad, I'm gonna put it to the test one day.
Mannn, I was just thinking back on this video and was like, people were overly mean to this person for being so bad, they weren't THAT bad. Rewatching it however, it's truly pathetic and I don't understand it at all. My gf is not a super avid gamer and hates platformers, but barely struggled with the tutorial and managed to get through the first stage decently. I don't even think my dad would be this bad, I'm gonna put it to the test one day.
Cuphead expects more from the player in terms of dexterity and reflexes. I imagine everyone that's played both Cuphead and a Souls game died much, much more often in the former, despite it being a much shorter game. But Cuphead can feel less frustrating due to how it treats defeat. Retries are not instantaneous the way they are in Celeste or Super Meat Boy, but they are very fast. You don't lose anything on death, and you're told exactly how far into the boss/level you made it, which provides a useful and satisfying way to chart your progress. The game feels like it's on your side, like it wants you to succeed but expects you to earn it.
Death happens a lot less frequently in Souls games, but is more frustrating. Save points can be sparse, so you can at times lose a lot of progress in terms of how deep into the area you've gotten (you can generally just sprint past enemies to get back to where you were, but that may not be immediately grasped by inexperienced players). There's the risk of losing quite a bit of XP. Rather than a cute graph showing your progression, you're instead treated with "YOU DIED" in giant lettering, as if the game is gloating over your defeat. And the games tend to be full of troll-y enemy placements, gank squads, and booby traps that either make you laugh or rage when they cause you to die. Cuphead is harder, but Souls feels more adversarial, and as a result I think it can be more frustrating to play (at least for unseasoned players).
Death happens a lot less frequently in Souls games, but is more frustrating. Save points can be sparse, so you can at times lose a lot of progress in terms of how deep into the area you've gotten (you can generally just sprint past enemies to get back to where you were, but that may not be immediately grasped by inexperienced players). There's the risk of losing quite a bit of XP. Rather than a cute graph showing your progression, you're instead treated with "YOU DIED" in giant lettering, as if the game is gloating over your defeat. And the games tend to be full of troll-y enemy placements, gank squads, and booby traps that either make you laugh or rage when they cause you to die. Cuphead is harder, but Souls feels more adversarial, and as a result I think it can be more frustrating to play (at least for unseasoned players).
Cuphead requires a level of twitchy reflexes that I was blessed with. FromSoft games require patience and careful strategy [unless you cheese it,] things I was not naturally blessed with.
Harder. So yes.
Also, Cuphead is such a well designed game with incredibly, impeccably designed bosses, it would make any Souls based game blush with envy.
And no, this isn't hyperbole.
Doubly also, all this e-peen being tied to any and every single Souls game being this difficult journey, doesn't, and shouldn't, hold any sway or significance as Cuphead has mastered, yes, mastered difficulty settings and still produced an incredible difficult setting that wasn't watered down, or lessened the significance of the game due to it having a difficult setting. What a crock of shit that argument was, and continues to be.
Also, Cuphead is such a well designed game with incredibly, impeccably designed bosses, it would make any Souls based game blush with envy.
And no, this isn't hyperbole.
Doubly also, all this e-peen being tied to any and every single Souls game being this difficult journey, doesn't, and shouldn't, hold any sway or significance as Cuphead has mastered, yes, mastered difficulty settings and still produced an incredible difficult setting that wasn't watered down, or lessened the significance of the game due to it having a difficult setting. What a crock of shit that argument was, and continues to be.
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OP
OP
This post neatly describes my situation with these games. Cuphead's main skill requirement of dodging on-screen projectiles in 2D comes very naturally to me. Like, to the point where I don't even consider Cuphead to be a particularly challenging game compared to so many others.
The patience aspect of Souls design, on the other hand, is always at odds with what my monkey gamer brain wants to do.
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This is just flat-out not true. Cuphead requires very high precision and solid reflexes in addition to memorizing the patterns.
Agreed
Cuphead was easier, but I usually play From games armorless and shieldless so that raises the difficulty there. Plus I'm just better at 2D games.
Neither are as hard as the games I normally play though, at least they don't require years of practice to get through (shmups, rhythm games).
Neither are as hard as the games I normally play though, at least they don't require years of practice to get through (shmups, rhythm games).
Cuphead was way easier for me. My biggest issue with From games though is my lack of attention span for repeating entire sections when a boss kills me. Cuphead I got right back into the action and it was great.
You dont have to re do shit again if you wanna fight a boss again In Cuphead, so it's like a million times easier in my book (talking about pre Sekiro games)
Stop using FromSoft games as a benchmark for difficulty when the roguelike genre exists as an immensely deeper abyss of punishing game mechanics.
From games aren't even that hard.
From games aren't even that hard.
You have to re-do basically all there's to do in the game when you die in Cuphead.
No matter how far ahead you were in a boss battle or a run and gun level, you'll have to repeat all from the beginning.
And as already pointed by many the skill bar to clear is way more demanding in Cuphead.
What a weird contrived argument to use.
If you die in Cuphead you re do the boss, they may be a little long but nothing too crazy, you don't have to re do one of the run and gun levels if you die or something like that, which is what happened in the pre Sekiro From games, you can't just re fight a boss inmediatly if you die.
Plus even if that's the case, I just find really exhausting re doing stuff before bosses on From games, or at least the one I played, bosses on Cuphead may be harder and longer I guess but re trying inmediatly makes the learning process easy and the penalty minimum, if you die agains a boss in a From game you can't do any of that and that makes it waaay harder for me, if you don't agree with that cool, I don't care.
Case in point: for the love of the good old "Show, don't tell", this is an old video of me finally beating the final boss of Sekiro (SPOILER, I guess?) after a bunch of attempts:
This was the first time I did it and it's a rather clumsy attempt where I made mistakes in spades all over the fight, which contributed to drag it in length more than necessarily (you'll easily find videos of people way more skillful than I was, dispatching this guy under the two minutes mark).
If this was Cuphead, I'd be sent back to the starting point a million time, since I'd be allowed to be hit or to fumble A LOT less.
There are STARTING BOSSESS in Cuphead that are less forgiving of a player mistake than the "notoriously difficult Isshin" shown in this clip.
This was the first time I did it and it's a rather clumsy attempt where I made mistakes in spades all over the fight, which contributed to drag it in length more than necessarily (you'll easily find videos of people way more skillful than I was, dispatching this guy under the two minutes mark).
If this was Cuphead, I'd be sent back to the starting point a million time, since I'd be allowed to be hit or to fumble A LOT less.
There are STARTING BOSSESS in Cuphead that are less forgiving of a player mistake than the "notoriously difficult Isshin" shown in this clip.
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In the end what I'm telling you guys is precisely related to this type of argument: it's just your bias, it's not ACTUALLY about the From games being more difficulty, more punishing or more unfair. Because in fact they aren't ANY of these things.
Cuphead has a baseline that's far more demanding than any Souls games, but they occasionally spike over that, and for me that max struggle is what really defines difficulty. To be specific, I've been stuck several hours on some bosses in Dark Souls, BB, Sekiro and Elden Ring, but I don't think we were ever stuck even close to an hour in Cuphead.
(Cuphead was in coop, Souls always solo)
(Cuphead was in coop, Souls always solo)
As long as I've sufficiently leveled up my health From games tend to let me get away with more mistakes, I'm error prone even if I have a enemy pattern down but I can often get away chug an estus and stay in the fight. And these games tend to let you build up a good stock of healing items by the end. Yes there are some exceptions to that with certain bosses OP attacks but largely that's how it feels.
Games like Cuphead with thier limited hit points tend to feel harsher. Old school platformers with often even more limited hit points where always a major challenge to me, I didn't beat many.
Games like Cuphead with thier limited hit points tend to feel harsher. Old school platformers with often even more limited hit points where always a major challenge to me, I didn't beat many.
I like hard games, but I FUCKING LOATHE the difficulty in Cuphead. And it mainly stems from the art design that is attractive to kids. My kids wanted to try it and at worst they can watch me. But it is way too hard for what it is. It really needs a proper, not gimped easier mode.
At least From games even by their appearance you know what you are up for.
At least From games even by their appearance you know what you are up for.
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Cuphead is 10 times harder if you ask me. I've banged my head for 2 hours against 1 DLC boss in Cuphead yesterday...
Last boss of Sekiro remains unbeaten for me, but I've finished Cuphead on regular. I'll never beat you, Sword Saint. King Dice was a frustrating nightmare though. As others pointed out and I agree with, it's more that Cuphead requires twitchy reflexes and it being a flat 2D platformer that makes the difference. I cheese through 50-75% of From's bosses (it feels like) with plain old str/dex builds. Nothing fancy.
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I've returned to Cuphead and it's even harder than I remember, in 2020 when I played it first I A Rank'd all the hard bosses(not all, didn't have much time) like Dr Kahl and the Devil and King Dice, now... I'm getting destroyed even in the first 2 isles lmao
OP
OP
After hopping back into Cuphead for the first time in years to play the DLC last night, I'm even more confused by the responses in this thread. Even as rusty as I am I'm still steamrolling every new boss, with only the hardest of them taking me upwards of 5-6 tries. Even in that scenario that amounts to like, what? 15-20 minutes at worst to beat the hardest ones?
How anyone in here can claim to struggle with any of the early-game Cuphead bosses while also having beaten the likes of Orphan of Kos utterly confounds me. I don't see how that's remotely possible.
There's something very interesting happening here with Cuphead's design I think. Either that or my experience with shmups makes Cuphead significantly easier to me than most people. Because the hardest FromSoft bosses are SOOOOO much more punishing and demanding to me than anything in Cuphead. Most of them take like 20 hits or more to kill while being capable of one- or two-shotting you in the blink of an eye, and each attempt takes much longer than a Cuphead boss as well.
How anyone in here can claim to struggle with any of the early-game Cuphead bosses while also having beaten the likes of Orphan of Kos utterly confounds me. I don't see how that's remotely possible.
There's something very interesting happening here with Cuphead's design I think. Either that or my experience with shmups makes Cuphead significantly easier to me than most people. Because the hardest FromSoft bosses are SOOOOO much more punishing and demanding to me than anything in Cuphead. Most of them take like 20 hits or more to kill while being capable of one- or two-shotting you in the blink of an eye, and each attempt takes much longer than a Cuphead boss as well.
Depends on the From game.
I've finished From games but I ultimately rely on the ability to either summon help or grind in order to do so.
I would compare Cuphead to Sekiro, neither of which enable any sense of grinding or being able to quickly draft in experienced help. Those are two games that I'd just never be able to beat on my own steam.
I've finished From games but I ultimately rely on the ability to either summon help or grind in order to do so.
I would compare Cuphead to Sekiro, neither of which enable any sense of grinding or being able to quickly draft in experienced help. Those are two games that I'd just never be able to beat on my own steam.
i mean that's really been the big takeaway in this thread, people with backgrounds in schumps genearlly having a much easier time with cuphead
Yeah, you are somehow very good at Cuphead. Congratulations.
it doesn't change a thing. Any skill that can be leveraged to be good at Cuphead gives you an edge in the "Souls games" as well and the latter are far less demanding/punishing than the former.
I can have the pattern of a Cuphead boss down to a T but I need just to be hit THREE paltry times across the entire battle (five with a specifically dedicated upgrade) to be send back to the menu.
I can go through an average Souls boss fumbling and stumbling like a mad man for entire minutes and as long as the mistakes aren't back-to-back in the span of few seconds and I don't get entirely nuked, I can keep chugging down healing items and stay into the battle.
Kind of sounds like you're playing under-leveled or with poor build optimization. Bosses shouldn't be one shotting you.