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YMMV / Cuphead

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For YMMV tropes from The Cuphead Show!, go here.

YMMV tropes with their own pages:

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    #-E 
  • Adorkable:
    • Both brothers qualify, but especially Mugman due to his quirk of using funny facial expressions and dancing at times.
    • Grim Matchstick for being a clumsy stuttering dragon with a cute design.
    • Cala Maria often gasps like Betty Boop in dismay when things don't turn out the way she expected them to, from losing her grip on her giant fish friends to getting zapped by electric eels.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • It's hard to tell with the bosses since all you do is fight them, but not all of them seem inherently evil. After all, Cuphead and Mugman lose their souls to the Devil and aren't evil. At least, some of the debtors probably aren't evil, but they are none too keen to lose their souls so all of them resolve to go down fighting.
    • Baroness Von Bon Bon and her castle Whippet start crying and beating the ground like a Sore Loser upon their defeat but considering that the brothers were trying to aquire her soul contract so they could give it to the Devil, could their reactions actually be out of terror and despair at her eventual fate?
    • Grim Matchstick may be infamously difficult, but he's also one of the nicest debtors, going off of his win quotes. His third win quote has him outright suggest that the Cups should just run away; all that being considered, are Grim's highly-theatrical animations the result of him being a Large Ham, or is he actually trying to scare Cuphead and Mugman away so he doesn't have to kill them?
    • The final scene of The Cuphead Show! reveals that the show was (to some extent, given the differing backstories of both work's versions of Ms. Chalice) a Stealth Prequel to the game the whole time. If some version of this applies to the game's canon, then a lot of the game's events gain much more depth. For example, the show establishes a few of the bosses as having interacted with the brothers beforehand; how did the brothers react to being forced to battle them, especially Cala Maria, who Mugman is shown to have a crush on? Similarly, Elder Kettle turning from a cranky old man in the show to a kindly grandparent in-game could be seen as him realizing the stakes the brothers face in their darkest hour, while the Devil & King Dice Taking A Level In Badass in-game could be seen as them deciding that they've been foiled enough times after the show's events.
  • Anti-Climax Boss:
    • King Dice himself is already pretty easy to counter attack, seeing as the player has likely mastered parrying at that point. It's justified, as the Boss Bonanza beforehand was the main draw of the fight. But if you realize that the gap between his hands and the wall is juuuuuuuust big enough for Cuphead to fit...
    • The Devil's last phase is just you shooting at the guy's face while he cries. His only real attack at this point is the flaming blue poker chip from the previous two phases falling on the last platform left to stand on, which is very easy to dodge (technically his Tears of Blood are damaging too, but they don't actually come close to hitting you). In fact, the Devil as a whole might count as this. He's no harder than previous bosses and is arguably easier than some, since he doesn't send randomized minions after you whose attack patterns take longer to learn, like King Dice or Baroness Von Bon Bon.
    • For all the show put into her showdown, the Queen in the King's Leap is pretty easy, especially after the hectic nature of the Rook fight. One of her attacks is easily dodgeable via parrying at the right time with an obvious tell, and the other is a cascade of projectiles that's comparable to Baroness Von Bon Bon's gumball machine in Isle 2. The only real issue might be during the King's Gauntlet, as she's at the end of the gauntlet, and nerves might get the better of you.
    • For how hard it can be to actually find, the Secret Boss with the Angel and Devil is agreed to be a massive letdown. It was originally meant to be a single phase of multiple and it shows, as the boss only has only two attacks, both of which can be completely neutered by simply turning around or outright dodged with either the Smoke Bomb or Chalice's dodge roll. With how hectic all of the bosses on the DLC isle can get, many fans found themselves disappointed that the one that took the most effort to find was the least exciting.
  • Anvilicious: Gambling is bad, and gambling for more than you can afford to lose can be catastrophic. The game is not very subtle about its message, given how the casino is run by literally Satan, but it can be mostly forgiven as the cartoons it pays homage to were similarly Anvilicious and the message is just as valid today as it was in the 1930s.
  • Awesome Art: Easily one of the main selling points of this game. Everything in the world of Cuphead was traditionally hand-drawn in order to capture the feel of old-school cartoons akin to Fleischer studios, and the dedication certainly shows. The backgrounds in each level look absolutely stunning and the characters are extremely well animated, allowing them to stand out alongside the scenery as well as among the chaos onscreen.
  • Awesome Bosses: Many bosses have become notable with fans for one reason or another (Werner, Wally, Phantom Express, etc), but King Dice is usually the most fondly remembered thanks to his fight pitting you up against multiple mini-bosses before finally facing him.
  • Awesomeness Withdrawal: How long someone takes to beat the game depends on their skill, but the game only has twenty-eight levels and a quick tutorial – with King Dice's level consisting of anywhere between four to ten separate fights – and a successful run at a given level or fight doesn't take longer than a few minutes. Considering the unique and impressive boss fights and animation, it has led to at least some reviewers lamenting there wasn't more content. As of The Delicious Last Course having launched, this became less of an issue.
  • Breather Boss:
    • Wally Warbles is far less stressful of a boss in terms of the Bullet Hell-laden plane battles as long as you realize the first two phases can be managed by hugging the left side of the screen and carefully dodging. Willy is easily surmountable by careful use of shrinking in and out of his egg shield and parrying. And while the final phase might overwhelm you if unprepared, compared to other fights it's easier to take out Wally since you just got the Bomb projectiles to hit him from above. What helps is that the tone of his battle is the most comical of the aerial fights.note 
    • Sally Stageplay is less stressful to fight compared to some of the earlier bosses. Keep in mind, she can still be tricky to beat, but her attacks are easier to read and not quite as chaotic as the Bullet Hell of some of the other bosses. Perhaps fittingly, her fight is more comical compared to the Nightmare Fuel in the earlier boss battles, and her final phase is arguably the most mundane in the game.
    • Werner Werman also counts too, as most of the attacks in his phases are easier to dodge and are can be easily telegraphed compared to some of the other bosses in his world. Akin to Sally, the overall tone of his battle is more comical as a result. In fact, many a player has recalled he's the only boss outside of World 1 that they managed to beat on a first try.
    • Captain Brineybeard's attacks are very easily telegraphed, the barrel at the top is invulnerable but only comes straight down, and there is significantly less on-screen action when compared to Rumor Honeybottoms or Cala Maria. Even the final phase, while having unusually moving projectiles, has very little health when compared to others. True, there are a ton of simultaneous threats even if each one's simple, the last phase can easily pincer you into an inescapable situation between barrel and Breath Weapon, and on his own he'd likely qualify as average or even That One Boss. But considering his specific location, with Honeybottoms being the only other available path and right after the infamous Difficulty Spike that is Grim Matchstick, his battle comes off as outright restful.
    • The Phantom Express isn't as difficult as it looks, especially if you know that you can dodge most of its attacks by staying in certain spots on the screen* . Even without this knowledge, staying on top isn't too hard as long as you can parry decently, and having Parry Sugar neuters most of the constant dangers of the stage.
    • From the King's Court, both Hopus Pocus and Pirouletta are incredibly easy to beat if you have the Smoke Bomb equipped. Hopus Pocus' skull attack can easily be bypassed just by dashing through it, and the horizontal line of projectiles he sends at you is easily beaten with a parry or evaded with the Energy Beam's i-frames. Both of Pirouletta's moves are easily dodged via dash, as her rain of roulette balls can be dashed through easily, and as long as you don't dash too early, you can easily dash through her legs when she is dancing across the screen. Mangosteen is also very simple, as he's a Stationary Boss with a very easily dodged attack; just stay away from the edges of the screen to avoid being ganked by a sudden chalk cube, and you should be alright.
    • Of the six main bosses in The Delicious Last Course, The Howling Aces are the easiest to defeat. A lot of their attacks are very easily telegraphed lacking much of the Bullet Hell of bosses like Glumstone the Giant or Cala Maria. The plane controls are very simple once you get used to them, and even factoring in the Interface Screw of the final phase? As long as you know how each dog bowl coming at you works (red goes under, yellow goes over) and telegraph where the lasers will strike, you can beat them in under two minutes. Even if you can't handle the Interface Screw, there is a hidden phase that you can get rather easily that removes it completely.
    • The Moonshine Mob is largely pretty easy as well. Everything comes at you while being telegraphed nice enough, the second phase can be managed by remembering which direction the phonograph lasers rotate (or just outright cheesed with either the Smoke Bomb or Miss Chalice's dodge roll), and as long as you know where the anteater’s tongue is coming from (and don’t get tripped up by the Victory Fakeout) they should be a breeze.
  • Broken Base:
    • Back when the game was Xbox/PC exclusive, this decision sparked a broken base. Was it a smart idea that allowed Microsoft have another game license of its own, or should've it also been released on other platforms so that their followers can get a chance to play it at launch? Of particular contention was the original intent to release on other platforms, then Microsoft essentially bought the whole thing out from under everyone else. While the additional cash did allow for the immense content expansion into the final game, many were still disappointed. Mitigated by the fact that the PC Windows version isn't exclusive to Windows Store (in fact, it's also available on Steam and GOG.com), allowing Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and non-Store using Windows 10 users to buy and play the game. Even more when the game was later released for Mac, Nintendo Switch, and lastly in 2020, PlayStation 4.
    • The non-English translations' liberal use of Dub Name Change for most of the characters has gotten mixed reception. This is common practice, especially for cartoons of the era Cuphead is emulating, but because the game was already out for a few years before it was localized, non-English speakers had already grown accustomed to seeing the characters' English names. Some find the localized names charming, while others think it was unnecessary to change them, or at least think they didn't have to change them so drastically.
    • Were the Run-n-Gun levels a fun distraction from the bosses, or an annoyance that is only useful for getting coins for new weapons and charms?
  • Cant Unhear It: Because the game cutscenes themselves are silent to emulate the cartoons they are homaging, many players imagine voiceovers from the animated series cast to dub them in their own heads.
  • Cheese Strategy:
    • Defied with Djimmi the Great in the original version of the game. In the first phase, you could get into the small space behind Djimmi to avoid his projectiles... but another projectile will come from the top or bottom of the screen to hit you if you stay there. Later updates patched this out.
    • Played straight in King Dice's battle. If you get all the way to the left or right of the screen before he brings his hand down to do his card attack, you can just stay behind his hand without fear of the cards hitting you.
    • In The Delicious Last Course, in the Pawns' battle, you're supposed to wait for them to jump down from the top of the screen so you can parry their heads. But if you play as Ms. Chalice, you can actually use the parry move along with her double jump to get to the top of the screen and take them all out in just a few seconds.
    • In a similar defiant move to Djimmi above, you could go directly above or below Esther Winchester's final phase, but doing so will have you be assaulted by cans of beans from the third phase flying in from the right of the screen.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Cuphead and Mugman's black shirts are often mistaken for their skin due to the resemblance to Mickey Mouse. But by looking at their grey legs, it is clear that it's just a shirt and their actual skin is grey, something The Cuphead Show! appears to confirm.
    • Contrary to what it seems, the Moonshine Mob's anteater from "Bootlegger Boogie" can be damaged by hitting his tongue, but since it lacks the Flash of Pain bosses usually have, players are eager to be mislead.
    • The Fan Nicknames (see below) of some formerly unnamed characters are often mistaken, even by some professional media, as their real names.
    • Altough it's a common assumption that Cuphead and Mugman are children, this has never been explicitly confirmed. While the writer did refer to them as adolescents, this still doesn't preclude the possibility they're 18 or 19. The novel "Cuphead in Carnival Chaos" does potray them as elementary schoolers, but it's not confirmed canon.
    • There is a persisting misconception that pirated versions of the game use a unique song for the main menu; there's a seemingly Dummied Out version of the theme song that's been reversed, pitch-shifted and contains spectrogram images of the Final Bossnote . The game has no anti-piracy mechanics whatsoever, and the song was eventually discovered to be part of an extremely well-hidden Easter Eggspoilers .
  • Creepy Awesome: The Howling Aces' airship. On one hand, it's an enormous, metal monstrosity with a doglike face that includes hollow, black eyes and razor sharp teeth. It also worms around in an unnatural way. On the other hand, it's a giant freakin' airship with laser guns, and in the final phase, it has some of the most impressive animations in the game.
  • Creepy Cute: Baroness Von Bon Bon is actually kind of cute when you look past her Slasher Smile.
  • Critical Dissonance: While both critics and fans have high praise for the game, they seem to be split on the quality of a certain boss fight (the randomized Boss Bonanza against King Dice) towards the end of the game. Critics panned it as a Disappointing Last Level that reveled in the type of Fake Difficulty that the game had avoided until that point. Fans, however, have really taken to it, treating King Dice as an Ensemble Dark Horse and praising the fight as an excellent Climax Boss and a great lead-up to the Devil himself, pointing out that the randomized nature of the fight fits into the anti-gambling themes of the game. (It's also not actually random — you can go exactly where you want with good timing, which is made pretty easy with a Parry Sugar. The bonus HP hearts are randomly placed, though.)
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • During the Boss Battle with Goopy, you don't just fight him, you also fight his tombstone. It can move around and smack you flat. Well done Faking the Dead, Goopy.
    • When fighting against the giant cuckoo clock bird Wally Warbles: Once defeated, he will become knocked out and featherless, then his son Willy, a chick with psychic powers, will fight you instead. After defeating Willy, Wally appears again, now featherless and lying on a stretcher carried by two smaller blue birds that aid him in the battle. Once Wally is defeated again, the blue birds choose to prepare to cook and eat him, salting and peppering his body.
    • The curtain in Sally Stageplay's fight proudly displays that it's made of asbestos. A post-launch update also lets you stand on some cherubs to drop a light fixture on Sally's husband, crushing him to death.
    • The Macintosh Launch Trailer is a short involving a character with an apple for a head coming across Cuphead and Mugman happily eating apples from a nearby tree. When the Applehead sees this, he understandably freaks out. Cupheadnote  sees this freak-out, hesitantly swallows his bite, and sheepishly puts the apple away. Mugman?note  He happily keeps eating with no care in the world.
    • Esther Winchester from Delicious Last Course shares a similar fate to poor Wally: the transition to her third phase has her vaccum suck her up, then suddenly turn into an ACME-branded cooker, which turns her into a living mass of sausage links that spits steaks at you while flying cans of beans get in your way. Then in her fourth phase, she's packed into a can of M-D-H-R brand sausage links... and then the sausage links burst out of the can to act as obstacles as the picture of Esther on it spits hot peppers at you. Finally, when she's defeated for good, the angelic spirits of the sausages in the can fly out, alternately praying, holding her hat, and playing a banjo.
    • The boss fight against the rook on the King's Leap, also from Delicious Last Course, is probably the most darkly hilarious in the game. While the other bosses on the Leap are what you'd expect — a gang of pawns, a knight that's a knight, a bishop that's a bishop, and finally the queen — the rook is the King's executioner, complete with a black hood over his head and an axe that he grinds against a whetstone, who daydreams of what's basically Betty Boop as a guillotine before the fight starts. Then there's his primary method of attack, which involves severed heads and skulls popping up out of his whetstone, the former of which you have to send back his way by continually parrying them to damage him. The entire thing is surprisingly grim for a cartoony game like Cuphead, but also utterly hilarious.
      • The severed heads he sends at you have a look of utter despair on their faces... until you parry them to send back, after which they smile gleefully and menacingly as they fly back at the one that executed them. REVENGE!
  • Crossover Ship: Cuphead and Bendy, which has enough of a following to the point where it borders on One True Pairing. See Friendly Fandoms below.
  • Dancing Bear: The whole selling point and reputation of the game is primarily based on its art style; being an authentic recreation of the Inkblot Cartoon Style of the early 20th century. An art that was nearly lost and not seen in modern animations, let alone a video game.
  • Designated Villain: In an amazing example of irony, the Devil himself is this for some. Though a minority, a nonetheless considerable number of fans argues that the Devil, while not a good guy by any stretch of the imagination, is actually Necessarily Evil in the context of the story. Since the Inkwell Isles folks you fight against all willingly signed a Soul Contract and sold their souls to the Prince of Darkness himself, it makes all of them not particularly good people, and in trying to avoid the consequences of their actions, earning something out of their deals and paying nothing in return, they are effectively Karma Houdinis... Except for the fact that what Cuphead and Mugman did to the runaway debtors before challenging the Devil is them being on the receiving end of Break the Haughty.
  • Difficulty Spike: Inkwell Isle Two is much harder than the preceding island, and features three bosses at the start (all of which are much harder than Cagney Carnation, the toughest boss of the first island). The third island kicks this up a notch even more, as the only two bosses available at the start are both extremely tough, and are top contenders for the toughest boss of the island on their own. If you bought the DLC, Inkwell Isle Four is another notch harder than even that!
  • Draco in Leather Pants: The Runaway Debtors, despite being infamously difficult AntiVillains (with the only exceptions being Ollie Bulb and Grim Matchstick), are almost never portrayed this way by the fandom.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • Despite being a very difficult boss to many, plenty of people have been slowly growing attached to Grim Matchstick. The general consensus is that he's too adorable to stay angry at, and is generally beloved despite the rage he induces. Helping matters is the fact that his death quotes are very sweet and apologetic as opposed to the taunts of most of the other bosses, and his attacks, while extremely annoying to contend with, are quite cool to witness, and lovingly designed.
    • Cagney Carnation was one of the first bosses seen from the game, leading to him having a place in many players' hearts. The general Body Horror he pulls off during his fight (such as his many twisted facial expressions), the lively background music of the stage, and the fact that his fight is where the game's difficulty really starts picking up really help him make a good first impression.
    • Cala Maria is another extremely popular boss, mainly among a certain part of the fandom thanks to her attractive design.
    • Ollie Bulb is also a decently popular boss due to him being the Token Good Teammate of the Root Pack and for being one of the very few bosses not to attack you directly. His woobie status also helps.
    • Despite being infamously difficult on Expert Mode, a good amount of people love Wally Warbles for his unique design and his Humiliation Conga earning him lots of sympathy from the players. The fact that his third phase shows that he has a Papa Wolf side definitely helps.
    • Mac and Silverworth are both secondary characters who only pop up on the Inkwell Isle overworld, but they do receive quite a bit of attention.
    • Evil Cuphead and Vile Mugman only appear on-screen for a few seconds on the bad ending screen, yet they are very popular because... Evil Is Cool. Ms. Malice also follow the suit for the same reason.
    • The female saluki pilot of The Howling Aces quickly became this after The Delicious Last Course was released, especially with furries.
    • Despite being one of the more difficult bosses, many people enjoy Esther Winchester for her cool design and the way she parodies the Deep South trope. Not to mention how she turns into sausages in her third and final phase.
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • King Dice, credited to his great design, Boss Bonanza boss fight, and his very catchy Villain Song.
    • Don't forget The Devil himself; he spends most of the game with a smug grin which gives the impression that he always wins in the end, and he knows it.

    F-M 
  • Fandom Heresy: A lot of fans get upset when people unfairly accuse Werner Werman of being a Nazi.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Cuphead and Five Nights at Freddy's fans tend to be a mixed bag. This is due to Freddy Fazbear Pizzeria Simulator coming out two months after Cuphead's release and despite FNAF being a massively successful video game franchise from its beginning to this day, Cuphead proved to be more popular than Pizzeria Simulator. This caused some FNAF fans to grow jealous and accuse Cuphead of "stealing their thunder". That being said, there's still a third party who likes both franchises equally.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot: A small example: Many fans love the idea of either Cuphead or Mugman (but more frequently the former) to be singly turned into their evil self from the bad ending, followed by the other brother trying to save the corrupted one.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
  • Fan Nickname:
    • As a duo, Cuphead and Mugman are sometimes called the "Cupbrothers" or "Cupbros". In official medias, they are solely referred to as "the boys".
    • Some occasionally refer to Beppi the Clown as Bepis (a memetic name for Pepsi), due to both the similarity of names and because of his color scheme (red and blue with shades of white, close to Pepsi's own).
    • Hispanics call the game as a whole "Mortgagehead", due to the creators having funded the last stretch of development with a mortgage on their own houses; a fair amount of memes have also been created involving Cuphead and said mortgage.
    • Japanese fans affectionately refer to the Devil as "Akuma-chan" ("Akuma" being the name assigned to Satan in Japanese Christianity).
    • Super Art III, the Giant Ghost, is often referred to as the "Stand" or "Stand Power" due to it being a Fighting Spirit.
    • Many fans call Dr. Kahl "Dr. Robotnik" and the gem he uses to make his Bullet Hell attack pattern the "Chaos Emerald" in reference to the Sonic the Hedgehog series (and because the gem he holds out looks a lot like one).
    • Fans tend to call The Phantom Express 'Mr. Bones' Wild Ride' due to the coincidence of a speeding train and a giant skeleton being together at once, much like the meme itself.
    • The formerly unnamed members of the Tipsy Troop have also been called Mary Teeny (martini), Bourbob (from bourbon whiskey), and Sourpuss (after Brandy Sour, a cocktail that uses brandy, which cognac is a type of). A Youtuber also referred to them as Madame Martini, Walt Whiskey (possibly a reference to Walt Disney) and Rupert Rum. The Art of Cuphead, a book showing much of the game's concept art, eventually gave the troop's real names; Ginette, Ol' Ethan and Rumulus respectively.
    • The members of The Root Pack are officially named Sal Spudder, Ollie Bulb, and Chauncey Chantenay, but prior to their names being revealed, fans called them Moe Tato, Weepy, and Psycarrot, respectively. Likewise, the unused beet boss was called 'Betty Beet' by fans before the artbook officially named her 'Beatrice Lutz'.
    • Before his name was revealed in the art book, Willy Warbles was usually called Wally Jr.
    • Regarding several members of the Phantom Express, specifically who the fandom commonly calls "T-bone" and the "Blaze Brothers", The Art of Cuphead book officially refers to them as "Conductor" and the "Lollipop Ghouls", respectively.
    • Popularized by Markiplier, the parry move is sometimes called the "slappa".
    • When King Dice is drawn younger in fanart, he's referred to as "Prince Dice."
    • The fork-headed character on Inkwell Isle Three was nicknamed "Forkington" before his official name was stated to be Silverworth.note 
    • Before her name was revealed to be Sergeant O'Fera, the female saluki leader of the Howling Aces was commonly nicknamed "Captain Bluebell" by fans.
  • Fanon:
    • It's widely accepted that the Devil is always portrayed without clothes because his layer of fur causes him to dislike them. In addition, many fans have taken to comparing Old Scratch to a cat, complete with purring and enjoying getting his fur scratched.
    • Fans of the bad ending versions of Cuphead and Mugman often depict them as the Devil's adopted sons in fanart (and occasionally King Dice's too).
    • Grim Matchstick made his Soul Contract because he was lonely.
    • Humanizations of King Dice tend to favor towards portraying him as black, due to his inspirations from Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong.
    • While Cuphead and Mugman look relatively the same in-game, fanart tends to make Mugman leaner with a thinner cup for a head, usually due to the comparisons to another certain duo. Likewise, it's generally agreed that Cuphead is the older brother and Mugman is the younger brother.
    • Fans also like to assume that Mugman speaks with a very friendly southern drawl, like Jack McBrayer's.
    • Baroness von Bon Bon and Beppi the Clown tend to be depicted together as Vitriolic Best Buds. Many fans also throw Djimmi the Great into the mix to make them a Power Trio, with Djimmi sometimes being portrayed as the trio's Only Sane Man or Team Dad.
    • Baroness von Bon Bon and Grimm Matchstick are sometimes portrayed as Platonic Life-Partners, or Monster and the Maiden. If it's romantic, then they'll get a Beast and Beauty dynamic. Grimm is sometimes accociated with the above mentioned trio as a Team Pet.
    • With his mad scientist look, status of That One Boss, and not showing up in the ending, some people have gone with the interpretation that Dr. Kahl is the only legitimately evil/villainous debtor.
    • Hilda Berg and Cagney Carnation are often portrayed as close, potentially childhood friends, and sometimes even lovers.
    • Cagney Carnation and Blind Specter are commonly paired as a couple that embraces the ideas of life and death together.
    • Goopy Le Grande and Hilda Berg are a popular romantic pairing befitting the Brains and Brawn dynamic.
    • Because of his military hat, it's common in fanworks to depict Werner Werman as a war soldier who has a Dark and Troubled Past involving the war (which would most likely explain why he frowns all the time). Some fans even like to give him a Hair-Trigger Temper or a Deadpan Snarker attitude as well.
    • When it comes to crossovers with Bendy and the Ink Machine, it's quite common to feature Cuphead and Mugman not getting along with Bendy due to the similarities between their respective games (despite being in Friendly Fandoms).
    • Because of him being a flower, it is widely believed that Cagney Carnation hates winter and will spend it inside.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
  • Game-Breaker:
    • The charge shot weapon used to deal an absurd amount of damage relative to the time needed to charge it to full strength, making it a very effective weapon in most situations. It was so overpowered that the developers nerfed it in a patch to deal with it.
    • Some of the bosses have massive, screen-sized attacks that need to be avoided in a certain way (like Sally Stageplay's wave that you need to parry a pink star to avoid). You could dodge them in the intended ways, or you could use the Smoke Bomb dash to cheese them.
    • If you bring in the Lobber and Roundabout weapons into a platformer fight, you can overcome their low fire rate by rapidly switching between the two, dealing massive damage to bosses in the process. This was removed in a later patch.
      • The Roundabout weapon by itself is extremely powerful. When used properly it can end most battles before a minute has even passed, very effective against 90% of the bosses.
    • From the Delicious Last Course we have the Crack Shot. This weapon is in essence the combination of the spread shot and chaser weapons all in one. It’s an all-around great weapon to use for any boss fight.
      • Also from The Delicious Last Course is Ms. Chalice's Parry Dash, which makes some of the fights and Run 'n Gun levels from the base game MUCH easier.
  • Genius Bonus:
    • The name of the level "Murine Corps", where you fight the rat Werner Werman. It seems like a simple play on "Marine Corps", but "murine" is an adjective that describes something rodentlike or related to rodents.
    • That the above level combines Tom and Jerry with World War I imagery is another clever gag: during WWI, "Jerry" was a nickname given to German soldiers (hence Werman being German-coded), and "Tommy" was a slang for British soldiers.
    • The constellations that Hilda Berg uses to telegraph some of her attacks are not random; astronomy buffs should notice that they are faithful replicas of the actual zodiac constellations (and the form she takes indeed reflects that).
    • When you reach the steam engine in the battle against the Phantom Express, it suddenly gets up and starts galloping like a horse. "Iron horse" was a common literary term for the steam engine when it first appeared.
    • The lose screens for the Pawns, Knight, Bishop and Rook in the DLC are all references to the actual movement of the respective chess pieces. Additionally, they're faced in the order of their relative value on the chessboard; the Knight is even fought before the Bishop, referencing how the bishop is usually considered slightly more valuable.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: There are various fan artists all the way over in Asia (mostly Japan and Korea), as you can see from Twitter, Pixiv, and Tumblr.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • The fish in Perilous Piers die quickly and have a predictable pattern, but they're everywhere and they appear randomly at random heights.
    • The purple imps from The Devil's first phase. They're pretty slow and they die in one hit, but they show up constantly and they're very easy to miss given all the other chaos on-screen. There are few things more infuriating than narrowly dodging one of The Devil's attacks only to get nicked by an imp who just walked in from the edge of the screen.
  • Good Bad Bugs: Though many of these bugs were dealt with in a later patch, this list compiles the bugs that were available in the previous version of the game.
    • You can end the fight against Mr. Chimes almost immediately by forcing him to clip out of the arena.
    • "Fresh Expert". After the game is cleared on any save file, you can set the difficulty to Expert, quit to the main menu, and either load another file or start a new one, and the difficulty selector will remember it's set to Expert. The selection appears as a blank space, but still works, allowing Expert clears and S-ranks to be earned right away.
    • By rapidly alternating between the Lobber and Roundabout shots, you can exploit a glitch with most of the bosses' hitboxes to cut down their health at a stupidly fast rate. Gleefully abused by the Hobo Bros here.
    • By standing just on the edge of the hole that leads to its second phase (so that the wall of flame doesn't reach you) and then firing the Charge weapon repeatedly, the second (and arguably more difficult) half of the Final Boss easily becomes a Zero-Effort Boss (demonstrated here).
    • Pulling the first Super on King Dice, while he's marching out the cards, can turn him into a Zero-Effort Boss. (Don't rely on this to help you get an A- or S-rank, though — it only kicks in if he decides to use the same hand twice in a row, which is very rare.)
    • And for the finale, there was the infamous Mugman glitch where you click "Remove Player 2" and get another Mugman.
    • Having trouble defeating some of the bosses with the Cursed Relic equipped? Start the fight as Ms. Chalice, die, and then re-equip the Cursed Relic from the Continue screen. Now Chalice will be the one that's cursed! You'll still only have 1 HP, but having access to her moveset helps considerably.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Ms. Chalice's line at the end of the Delicious Last Course, about how her revival isn't worth it if she has to sacrifice a soul becomes this after The Cuphead Show! features her having made a Deal with the Devil to be brought back to life and him demanding she trick the cups into signing their souls over to him against her will.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight:
    • Due to an accidental case of Reality Subtext, Chad and Jared Moldenhauer having to mortgage their homes and risk everything to make this game a success mirrors Cuphead and Mugman's struggle. The game going platinum in just two weeks surely reflects on the story's good ending, too.
    • Cuphead is made as a loving tribute to the rubber hose and slapstick style of cartoons popularised by King Features Syndicate and Fleischer Studios... only to end up becoming an actual King Features Syndicate cartoon!
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Devil May Cry 4 had That One Level where you had to play a board game by hitting a die, with a random chance of either fighting enemies or a previous boss, which fans hated. Cuphead used a similar mechanic for a boss fight several years later, which fans really like.
    • This comic, created months before the game's release, features a disgruntled Cuphead calling Bendy "Let's Play trash", due to how popular Bendy's game was with Let's Players. Come the release of Cuphead's game, it too became a favorite among Let's Players. Spoke a little too soon, huh, Cuphead?
    • Part of Djimmi's battle (which is, as with all battles in the game, a bullet hell mixed with a shoot-em-up level) involves you fighting a giant marionette who can shoot blue egg-shaped orbs at you.
    • Grim Matchstick's third form is a three headed dragon, and his death card has his leftmost head making a goofy grin. This game came out nearly two years before Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) catapulted the antics of Ghidorah's scatterbrained left head to memetic status.
  • Hype Backlash: The amount of hype the game receives by its fanbase has resulted in some people turning against it, thinking that the game gets too much praise to the point where people are willing to ignore its flaws, deeming it as an average or okay game at best and a mediocre one at worst. This normally stems from the game's infamous Nintendo Hard difficulty.
  • Idiosyncratic Ship Naming:
    • Snake Eyes = The Devil/King Dice
    • Ghost Blossom = Cagney Carnation/Blind Specter
    • Melon Candy = Grim Matchstick/Baroness Von Bon Bon
    • Starry Flower = Hilda Berg/Cagney Carnation
    • Magical Carnival = Djimmi The Great/Beppi The Clown
    • Smokey Roulette = Mr. Wheezy/Pirouletta
    • Cupcest = Cuphead/Mugman
    • Lab Rat = Dr. Kahl/Werner Werman
    • Eye Candy = Blind Specter/Baroness Von Bon Bon
    • Pollination = Cagney Carnation/Rumor Honeybottoms
    • Blue Moon = Hilda Berg/Goopy Le Grande
    • Orange Compote = Chauncey Chatenay/Cagney Carnation
    • Candy Clown/Candy Carnival = Baroness Von Bon Bon/Beppi the Clown
    • Rolling Dice = Pirouletta/King Dice
  • I Knew It!:
    • Many fans knew the Windows Store exclusivity for the computer versions will not last long, before Cuphead gets a release in both Steam and GOG.
    • Just about everybody and their sous chef predicted Chef Saltbaker being the Final Boss of the DLC.
  • Incest Yay Shipping: Some fans can often ship Cuphead and Mugman with each other in art (they are brothers, after all), putting the Ho Yay meaning to the term "brotherly love". Combined with the fact that they have Vague Ages* , it's possible that they just started puberty, which can make their relationship with each other a little more... suggestive.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Along with other Indie Video Games becoming mainstream, this game has been criticized for its sudden rise in popularity on the Internet.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Cuphead is the main reason why he and Mugman have to collect soul contracts in the first place but as the Storybook Opening suggests, he also shows regret over it. The Fandroid Music song even lampshades this, especially with the lyrics, "I'm sorry that I bet it all, I'm sorry that we have to hurt you".
    • Many of the Runaway Debtors are infamously difficult but much like Cuphead and Mugman, they sold their souls to the devil and have to fight back in fear of losing their contracts.
      • Goopy Le Grande is one of the many difficult bosses you'll have to fight. He even gets bigger in a manner similar to taking steroids and will stop at nothing to defeat the player but after his second phase, he dies and continues to fight the player, despite the fact that he's dead. Because he isn't shown in the ending, it can easily be assumed that he's most likely Killed Off for Real, with many believing his defeat was overkill.
      • Grim Matchstick is one of the hardest bosses in the series but as his game over quotes show, he has no malicious intentions. Some of the faces and movements he makes look kind of goofy, theatrical and even Adorkable, making it seem like he bears no ill will towards Cuphead and Mugman. His stutter may also make him more sympathetic.
      • Wally Warbles is a Perpetual Frowner who is infamous for being brutally difficult on Expert mode but he lost his house, got defeathered, his son got beat up, he gets knocked unconsious and because his phase ends with the paramedics about to eat him, his chances of survival don't look too good.
  • Karmic Overkill:
    • Goopy Le Grande dies at the end of his fight. While one of the creators did confirm his survival, most fans agree this element is too cruel and thought that defeating him was karma enough, especially since he isn't shown in the good ending.
    • Wally Warbles gets defeathered, his son gets beat up, he gets knocked unconsious, he's left with an Uncertain Doom with him about to get eaten by the paramedic birds and he loses his house. Similar to Goopy, although his survival was confirmed by the creators, this prompted more sympathy for Wally than catharsis, especially since, much like Goopy, he isn't shown in the good ending.
  • Love to Hate: King Dice for his Evil Is Cool status, his catchy Villain Song, and his creative boss fight.
  • Magnificent Bastard:
    • King Dice is the dapper right hand of the Devil and the manager of the casino that entraps Cuphead and Mugman. King Dice lures in the greedy by allowing them to win big before calling in his boss to cheat them out of their souls, doing the same to the brothers and forcing them to collect the soul contracts of previous victims. Watching them every step of their journey, he takes notice of their growing power and sets up a trap to steal the contracts and offer them to the Devil in their place. Making full use of his casino theme, King Dice first weakens the brothers with a series of boss battles before fighting them directly with his playing card powers. Ultimately defeated, King Dice maintains a wicked grin throughout in contrast to his cowardly and pathetic master.
    • The Delicious Last Course:
      • Chef Saltbaker is first introduced as a kind and jovial baker seeking to create the Wondertart to bring Ms. Chalice back to life, but in truth has his own devious ambitions. Manipulating Cuphead and Mugman under false pretenses to gather the ingredients for the Wondertart, Saltbaker intends to bake one of their souls into it and use the power to become a god. In a titanic battle, Saltbaker creatively uses the Wondertart's ingredients as weapons against the brothers and later morphs the very salt of his being into deadly traps against them while attacking them with his empowered heart. While he is ultimately defeated and arrested, he fights to the bitter end and comes to genuinely enjoy his once humiliating community service.
      • The Moonshine Mob are a group of criminal insects who guard the Distillery Dough, one of the Wondertart's ingredients. First to fight the cups is the Spider, who summons bombs and reinforcements at the press of a button, followed by the Light Bug, who seduces the police to attack the cups while emitting harmful soundwaves from her gramophone. Last is the Announcer Snail, the Mob's boss, riding the giant Anteater who attacks with his tongue—sometimes faking out—and by flinging the insects he's eaten. After the Anteater's defeat, a fake knockout screen is shown before the Snail bombards the cups with his own soundwaves from his megaphone.
  • Memetic Badass: Chef Saltbaker, the final boss of The Delicious Last Course, has become well-known for being the final boss who upstaged the Devil, both in difficulty and sheer spectacle (not to mention witnessed evil). Comments along the lines of "I can't believe they made a salt shaker this terrifying/epic" aren't uncommon.
  • Memetic Mutation: Has its own page here.
  • Moe:
    • Suffice to say, Cuphead and Mugman themselves are adorable.
    • Among the bosses, Ollie Bulb is the main example for obvious reasons.
    • Ms. Chalice is also very cute, both as a ghost and as a playable character.
    • Cala Maria is really adorable in her normal mermaid form. See Adorkable and Ensemble Dark Horse for more details.
  • Most Wonderful Sound:
    • The sound that occurs when Cuphead or Mugman is revived. "Thank you!"
    • When you use the missile attack, and connect with the enemy in a massive satisfying "BOOM!"
    • The little fanfare that comes with beating a boss on the map screen. "Cup-heeeead!"
    • The slap sound when you parry an attack.
    • "Knockout!" (When you defeat a boss) / "Bravo!" (When you complete a run n' gun level) / "Victory!" (When you beat a Mausoleum)
    • On a somewhat weird note, quite a few people thought that the "apple crunch" sound from the Crispy Apples short was very satisfying to hear. Some even compared it to ASMR.

    N-S 
  • Nausea Fuel:
    • In The Delicious Last Course, when Glumstone swallows you, you have to fight his stomach ulcer. His disgusting stomach ulcer as it spits food at you.
  • Nightmare Retardant: Two examples from The Delicious Last Course.
    • In his battle, Chef Saltbaker does horrible things to the sentient food items you've collected (slicing them up, breaking them apart, kneading them and carving cookies out of them) to use them as weapons... aside from the Gnome Berries, in which he just squeezes the non-sentient berries out of the sentient basket, sending it crying off like a little kid.
    • Possibly done on purpose, Chef Saltbaker's reveal of being Evil All Along, complete with slasher smiles and a terrifying boss fight, is followed by the end credits, which show him sentenced to community service while singing about how he was "a naughty crook" and how he's learned his lesson. It takes a lot of the edge off.
  • Nintendo Hard: The developers aimed to capture the difficulty of Run-and-Gun games during the 1980s and 1990s, despite the visuals resembling something from half a century earlier. Even in press demos, very few players cleared some of the bosses' final forms. Indeed, there are no checkpoints in the action and boss stages, and the only free health pick-ups in the whole game are granted on three randomly chosen fights against King Dice's minions. You can, however, purchase an option to start with one or two extra hit points at the cost of slightly or largely decreasing your attack power, respectively. Reflexes, memorization, and careful choice of weapons are absolutely essential to beating this game.
  • Obvious Judas: From The Delicious Last Course, Chef Saltbaker seems like a genuinely nice fellow who shows no signs of a single vice...But come on! It's obvious someone has to be the Final Boss and since there is no other suspects, is it really a surprise that he turned out evil?
  • Polished Port: Bar some slightly longer loading times and some minor lag during more intense sections, the Nintendo Switch port is practically a flawless port of the game, that is portable to boot.
  • Popular with Furries: Sergeant O'Fera, the Saluki pilot from "Doggone Dogfight", quickly gained a dedicated following among canine furries thanks to her graceful and attractive looks, sense of honor, and thrilling boss battle. It helps that she's based a lot on Cammy White.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • DevilDice = The Devil/King Dice
    • DevilCup = The Devil/Cuphead
    • DiceCup = King Dice/Cuphead
    • DevilMug = The Devil/Mugman
    • DiceMug = King Dice/Mugman
    • CalaMug = Cala Maria/Mugman
    • CalaBerg = Cala Maria/Hilda Berg
    • CarnaBerg = Cagney Carnation/Hilda Berg
    • GoopBerg = Goopy Le Grande/Hilda Berg
    • CalaBon = Cala Maria/Baroness Von Bon Bon
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • A very mild example, but due to the fact that his greed and carelessness kickstarted the game's main plot, a lot of fans believe that Cuphead has some sort of mean streak. While not too far off from his canon portrayal, fanart often likes to go further and depict Cuphead as being a Deadpan Snarker or an occasional Big Brother Bully to Mugman.
    • Because he's That One Boss who doesn't show up in the good ending, many fans believe that Dr. Kahl is the only genuinely evil debtor. Similar to Cuphead, fanart and fanfiction often likes to go further and depict Dr. Kahl as being a Manipulative Bastard or an occasional Big Bad in fanworks.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Thanks in part to Evil Is Cool, there's no shortage of people who want to see the Devil and King Dice succeed in their scheme, which they technically did in the Bad Ending.
  • Sacred Cow: Cuphead's fandom isn't as vocal as some fandoms, but calling the game bad or judging its art style is likely to get you judged in return, considering the time, heart and artistic merit that went into creating the game, and the delightfully beautiful end result.
  • Salvaged Story:
    • For those who thought that Dr. Kahl was too hard, one of the updates fixes this by giving you the ability to parry some of the gems that come out of one of his inventions in his third and final phase.
    • Because the original game left players confused as to whether Goopy le Grande and Wally Warbles were canonically dead or doing just fine, The Delicious Last Course makes it clear that Death Is Cheap in this universe by having Esther Winchester recovering off-screen from being turned into canned sausages and Chef Saltbaker instantly restored from being shattered and reduced to a pile of salt.
    • Chef Saltbaker's final battle, also in The Delicious Last Course seems to be an apology for The Devil. In addition to being much more climactic and exciting, it also adds some Nightmare Fuel by having Saltbaker sport a Nightmare Face throughout the fight.
  • The Scrappy:
    • Rumor Honeybottoms is one of the least popular bosses, and possibly the only one to be outright disliked. Her fight is plagued with random platforms, like those in the Grim Matchstick boss fight, but going upwards, and at her final phase, she flies down to the bottom of the screen, practically making the Chaser shot mandatory. While Grim was able to become an Ensemble Dark Horse due to his cool design and likeable personality, Rumor isn’t considered to have either of those things, and as a result, has very few fans.
    • The Cupcake that Baroness Von Bon Bon sends out in the second-to-third phase of her fight. Many fans despise him for being too fast and unpredictable for them to keep up with due to him bouncing on the ground so fast, that the players can't keep up with him. Fans have even made wishes (on sites like Reddit and through comments on YouTube) for there to be an option to actually eat the Cupcake.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • The lack of visible health bar during the boss fights. One might quickly realize how needed it would be when trying to get any of the achievements requiring to finish a boss with a specific move. Good luck trying that without knowing how much health the boss has left.
    • The lack of invincibility frames after the 1st Special Ability will get you hit at least once.
    • The game's use of RNG to determine things like when and where enemies will spawn, what attacks bosses will use, and where the platforms appear in Grim Matchstick and Rumor Honeybottoms' fights makes certain parts much more difficult and much less fun at times.
    • You can't use your EX specials once your Super Meter is full. This is annoying if your meter is full, so parrying or attacking more would be a waste, and using your Super Art would be overkill or you'd rather save it for later, but you'd still like to use an EX to speed up the current phase of the battle.
    • The game, which is Nintendo Hard as is, has a Simple (easy) Mode, but you need to beat all the bosses on Regular Mode to reach the endgame, making Simple nigh-pointless. Even still, Simple Mode could have been a useful tool to learn the bosses' moves and attack patterns before you fight them for real in Regular Mode, but it's also useless for that as well, because entire phases of the boss fights will be skipped over in Simple Mode.
    • Due to Gameplay and Story Integration, Ms. Chalice's playability in The Delicious Last Course is somewhat clunky. Instead of being able to select her on the file select screen, she swaps with the character who has the Astral Cookie equipped, meaning she can't use any other charms and doesn't appear on the world map. She's also an "easy mode" character by design (having a Double Jump, parrying dash, and dodge roll), so players who use her will be locked into that moveset even if they don't want it.
  • Scrappy Weapon:
    • Chaser is often disfavored due to its low damage output, as well as there being several fights where it's unwise to use due to homing in on worthless targets, most infamously the moving barrel in the fight against Captain Brineybeard. The Delicious Last Course further cemented this by adding Crackshot, which most consider to outclass Chaser in nearly every way.
    • Lobber is often disfavored as well due to how difficult it is to hit bosses with, as the Lobber fires at an arc downwards, meaning that if the boss's hitbox is above you (and many bosses are bigger than the Cupbros and Chalice, meaning that most likely it is), chances are the shots will miss completely unless you stand directly next to the bosses. As such, there are very few fights where the Lobber can be considered useful.
    • The Whetstone charm's effect of being able to parry bosses to damage them is generally agreed to be far too risky to be worth using in most scenarios. While it does help in Pacifist Run and Gun levels, Smoke Bomb and Twin Hearts upstage it in the base game alone.
  • Self-Fanservice: While Cala Maria is already beautiful in canon, a lot of fanartists tend to play up her attractive design and flirty nature in fanart by giving her even bigger Hartman Hips and a bigger bust, turning her into a full-on Ms. Fanservice.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: The DLC adds a lot of content to make the game surprisingly easy. Ms. Chalice gives you an extra health point, dodge roll, parry dash and double jump all for the cost of your charm slot once you unlock Inkwell Isle 4, the Crackshot allows you to effectively use the Spread and Chaser charms in one weapon slot, the Game Djimmy Easter Egg allows you to go into boss fights with double your health at the cost of only being able to get a B+ rank, and while it requires the player to go through a fairly difficult grinding process, the Divine Charm lets you use most charms without any consequences, including a stronger version of the Health Ring to make up for the lack of health charms.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: Every ship that doesn't involve Cuphead, Mugman, King Dice or the Devil is this, given how none of the bosses are ever seen interacting with each other aside from the Golden Ending, and even then, they merely celebrate together. Some exceptions include ships of characters who actually fight together, like Sally/Her husband or Pip/Dot.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: There's a rivalry between fans over which of the brothers Ms. Chalice should be paired with. Some fans choose to depict it as a Love Triangle.
  • Shocking Moments:
    • A possible two-in-a-row for Murine Corps. The first comes when the boss, Werner Werman, is eaten by Katzenwagen, the cat behind the wall, who then breaks it and fills the screen. Even if the background hints clued you in to this, you will most likely be stunned when it actually happens. The second, completely unexpected occurrence arrives when you actually beat the boss: It's revealed that Katzenwagen was a mechanical cat, and Werner was controlling it through a cockpit in its head the entire time it was on-screen. You magnificent trooper, Werner.
    • This can be an usual reaction for any beginner that has defeated Goopy Le Grande in the second stage and never expected that the battle still continues with his gravestone attacking you.
    • The Moonshine Mob fight has the Victory Fakeout at the end. Many players genuinely fell for it on the first time they saw it.
    • The fight against the Howling Aces' third phase where the screen gets turned 90 degrees anticlockwise when the airship opens and closes its mouth. Many considered this quite a shock considering that the other Interface Screws like Cagney Carnation's pollen or Captain Brineybeard's squid ink weren't this huge.
    • While it was fairly easy for players to predict who the Final Boss of The Delicious Last Course would be, just how evil he turned out to be ended up being a shock to most of them. Certainly helped by the fact that Chef Saltbaker's first phase consists entirely of him murdering characters on-screen and weaponizing their corpses.
  • Special Effects Failure: The game is so well-animated, the parts that aren't 100% up to snuff can stick out like a sore thumb.
    • In general, some rotating objects stick out for being too smooth and running at too high of a framerate; while it's more practical for gameplay, it can still be distracting when the rest of the game makes an effort to appear as though it runs at 24 FPS.
    • For a specific example, in Djimmi the Great's first phase, the scimitars are static sprites that don't bounce or squash when rotating until they shoot at the player. Also, when they appear from the chest, they appear facing up, then jarringly snap to the direction they'll be moving in.
    • Whenever Rumor Honeybottoms is about to spit homing rockets at you, she makes chewing noises... despite her mouth not moving in a chewing motion at all.
    • Look at the Yankee Yippers close enough during the Howling Aces' second phase, and you'll notice that their rotation is a bit choppy, snapping between the animations of the same pose, but viewed from a different angle. This one is understandable, because they couldn't have drawn them from every single angle and the number of angles they were still drawn from is impressive, but the effect still looks odd when combined with the smooth movement of their actual sprites.
    • Also, defeating the Howling Aces the normal way results in a defeat animation that's... surprisingly non-animated. While her machine is sputtering and wobbling, the Saluki pilot is only wearing a shocked expression and bouncing back and forth while maintaining that static pose. This is in contrast to their secret phase, where beating her results in her wringing her hat in shame.
  • Spiritual Successor:
    • This is practically the sequel to Alien Soldier, being a Run-and-Gun game with a large cast of bosses, a wide variety of weapons, equippable mobility options, and infamous difficulty.
    • To Silhouette Mirage, a similar notoriously difficult 2D Platformer/Shoot 'Em Up hybrid starring a red and blue main character who also uses a Finger Gun that shoots energy blasts as their main attack, with quite a bit of religious symbolism in it, really weird and creative bosses as the main meat of the game, a very exaggerated cartoony style, and an animal shopkeeper that you buy different shots and power-ups from using coins found in the levels.
    • Cuphead has some similarities to Contra as well. And given the doubtful and uncertain future that's been cast over Contra by Konami's executive meddling, Cuphead may be the only great-quality game that can take its place in the 2D Run-and-Gun genre.
    • And to an extent, Parodius. Both are Nintendo Hard Cute 'em Up games started out on Microsoft platformsnote , and share some other similarities as well. Also, like Contra, Parodius' future is uncertain given by Konami's executive meddling, so Cuphead could be a spiritual Video Game Remake of Parodius for eighth-generation gaming systems.
  • Spoiled by the Format: In The Delicious Last Course what makes Chef Saltbaker being evil so predictable isn't anything about the character himself, as he could've genuinely fooled many players if not for the fact that the story has no main antagonist and Cuphead being the kind of game it is, most expected a Final Boss. And who's a better candidate than him?
  • Stuck in Their Shadow:
    • Poor Elder Kettle. Despite proving himself to be a Reasonable Authority Figure, he's usually ignored by the fandom, since he only appears at the very beginning, a brief cutscene after the first isle, and the end, and has the bad luck of sharing his Big Good role with the Legendary Chalice, who plays a bigger role. And in an odd twist of fate, he also got overshadowed by his self from The Cuphead Show!, due to the latter having more screen time and a more established relationship with Cuphead and Mugman. It reached the point that many fans weren't even aware of the Adaptational Dye-Job due to always mentally picturing him with the show's design.
    • Goopy le Grande isn't considered a bad boss, but he really pales in comparison to the more varied and visually impressive fights to other foes provide. His battle is very short and mostly consists of going back and forth while occasionally dashing to dodge him. In term of visual, he's just a blue slime ball that turns into a bigger slime ball, and then a tombstone; doesn't sound all that memorable.
    • To a similar extent, Captain Brineybeard. His battle is one of the more forgettable ones, he's Overshadowed by Awesome by most of the other bosses (including fellow human bosses Sally Stageplay and Dr. Kahl), and he's the one boss in the game who doesn't even get to fight in the last phase of his own battle, getting upstaged by his own ship in a rather humiliating manner.
  • Surprise Difficulty: How hard would you expect a game with a 1930s aesthetic and cute cartoon characters to be? When you know that it's a Parodius-esque Cute 'em Up Boss Game inspired by Run-and-Gun games like Contra and Metal Slug, it’s VERY HARD.
  • Suspiciously Similar Song:

    T-Z 
  • That One Achievement: "Rolling Sixes" which requires to defeat King Dice without taking a single hit. While the boss is fairly easy in theory, the fact that you have to do the whole dice board to access the fight in the first place makes retrying quite frustrating.
  • That One Sidequest: Getting P-ranks on all six of the side-scrolling stages. The first few aren't too bad, but getting it on Perilous Piers is nigh-impossible without at least an extra heart. To wit: the last leg of that particular level leaves you stranded on a tiny space maybe five or six steps wide. Enemies will be attacking you from both front and behind. And you can't shoot a single one of them. Oh, and you have to remember to keep parrying the pink jewel, or say hello to Cuphead's Super Drowning Skills. Have fun!
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • Battling against the Devil's debtors to earn your freedom could have made for an actual interesting story, but none of the debtors are ever developed beyond "boss for you to fight" and the plot remains an Excuse Plot throughout. Somewhat justified due to being based on old 30s cartoons that didn't really have much of a plot, but still disappointing.
    • With how much emphasis Elder Kettle puts on the boys to do the right thing when they finally reach the Devil himself, it's a shame it's never shown how he feels about their Face–Heel Turn in the bad ending.
  • Unexpected Character:
    • The Legendary Chalice as the third playable character, Ms. Chalice, in The Delicious Last Course.
    • Also for The Delicious Last Course, it's safe to say that nobody really expected Canteen Hughes, an overworld NPC from the base game, to not only show up in a boss battle, but to be such a central element of "Doggone Dogfight".
  • Unintentionally Sympathetic: Wally Warbles. While whether or not we're supposed to like him is debatable, he's supposed to be That One Boss who players won't feel sorry for once they defeat him. However, a lot of fans felt sorry for Wally. He not only loses his house, gets defeathered and has his son get beaten up but he's also left with an Uncertain Doom with him about to get eaten by the paramedics. Many fans consider this Karmic Overkill and the fact that he isn't seen in the good ending definitely doesn't help matters.
  • Vanilla Protagonist: Cuphead and Mugman are truly no FlatCharacters, per say but their Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling dynamic sets a stark contrast when the player is fighting the colorful bosses in Inkewell Isle. The two brothers are their Foils. There's also the deliciously hammy King Dice and The Devil.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Being a giant flower, Cagney Carnation gets this sometimes since flowers are seen as feminine. Even worse when some translations flat-out turn him female.
    • For those who miss the bosses' names in the title cards of the fights (or are simply unfamiliar with her relatively obscure first name), Esther Winchester's masculine attitude and classic cowboy stereotypes can lead some to believe she's a man. While she is a cow, cows are among the most frequently subject to Animal Gender-Bender, particularly in cartoons.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The game succeeds in capturing the art style of 'toons from the mid-20th century without looking out of place in a game that runs at a silky smooth 60 FPS. Seriously, just watch gameplay footage at 720p60 or higher, or play it on Xbox One X or PS4 Pro and be amazed.
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • The Woobie:
    • Mugman, who, through no fault of his own (thanks, Cuphead), is forced to do the Devil's dirty work.
    • Ollie Bulb, the second of the Root Pack, who upon arrival seemingly looks for the recently defeated Sal Spudder and whose power happens to be Ocular Gushers. Poor guy is the only boss in the game who doesn't even try to fight. He's so scared and upset that all he can do is have a meltdown. (But ironically, his tears can hurt the player, meaning that he "fights" them unintentionally.) He's also probably the only boss of the game who doesn't outright mock you when you lose to him. At least, you can leave him alone and let him depart in peace after the 1.2 update.
    • Grim Matchstick's game over quotes also seem to be more good-natured than those of the other bosses. Some of the faces and movements he makes look kind of goofy, theatrical, and even Adorkable, making it seem like he bears no real ill will towards Cuphead and Mugman. His stutter may also make him more sympathetic. There are also theories that he made his deal with the Devil because he was lonely, which would certainly land him in this category.
    • Sally Stageplay becomes one in the 1.2 update if you decide to stand on the two cherubs and make the chandelier crush her husband to death; she even cuts her first phase short to cry for him.
    • In the DLC, the sentient ingredients in the first phase of Chef Saltbaker's boss fight, who are all terrified of him and end up being grievously injured by him for use as projectiles. Unlike many of the other cartoonishly gruesome moments in the game, this is not Played for Laughs, given the ominous atmosphere and music, the high stakes that the battle presents, and Saltbaker's creepy Slasher Smile throughout it all.
  • Woolseyism: The death quote for the Pawns in the Latin American Spanish version of the DLCnote  is a slightly altered quotation of "Despacito" of all things, while still referencing the movements of pawns in chess.

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