Cuphead Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

5. Possibly The Best-Looking 2D Game Of All Time

The jury's out on whether one particular art style can ever be 'better' than another (art history dictates it cannot) but still - just look at Cuphead.

Aiming to bring the "Rubber Hose" style of animation that American cartoons popularised back in the 30s, Cuphead is the first game to ever take such an aesthetic and execute on it masterfully. The nearest comparisons to outstanding 2D visuals in gaming come from Ori & the Blind Forest, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Child of Light and Rayman Legends, but there's a genuine heartfelt depth to artist Maja Moldenhauer's work that genuinely feels unprecedented.

Simply because the entirety of Cuphead was once hand-drawn, scanned in and painstakingly animated, everything from the expressions on Cuphead/Mugman's faces to the very projectiles that come at you are bursting with personality and memorability.

It comes to something when during the fight against a whopping great dragon who spews a screen's worth of fireballs, each one is animated like a small knight gallantly marching across the battlefield with the utmost purpose, making the countless restarts almost laughable as the whole project is so damn lovable.