It took me over 25 attempts to beat Esther Winchester, a wild western cow riding what can best be described as a \u2018saloon cart\u2019, <\/strong>in Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course. A couple of dozen sessions of tireless repetition, hyperfocus, and the slow, steady mastery of the rhythms and colourful attacks being thrown my way. Gradually, I\u2019d learn that she has a moment of downtime after lassoing a giant cactus towards me, that if I don\u2019t <\/em>shoot down that flying dog-thingy it\u2019ll eventually shoot a little cactus chunk that I can parry, and that in her third phase (when she turns into a anthropomorphic mass of stringed-together sausages) the key is to dodge up and down a lot<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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DUALSHOCKERS VIDEO OF THE DAY<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The steady and clean (yet intense and frenetic) influx of information that I absorb each time I fight and fail against this and every other boss in the Cuphead DLC means that, even across dozens of deaths, these beautiful battles never become tedious.<\/p>\n
There were plenty of complaints about developer StudioMDHR\u2019s decision years ago to shift Cuphead from a side-scrolling shooter-platformer into what\u2019s now essentially a Boss Rush game, but that decision has helped it become a beacon of gruelling yet fair boss design.<\/p>\n
Something I wrote in my review of the Cuphead DLC is that once you finds its rhythm, you become \u2018part of the machine;\u2019 your understanding of each of the moves, even as they start overlapping each other and coming at you all at once, makes you so attuned to it that you merge with this monster that\u2019s trying to destroy you. Something that helps in attaining this state is that each battle takes place on a single screen, and your eyes are naturally attracted to every beautifully drawn element coming towards you. Every element is visually distinct, remaining clear even amidst all the chaos.<\/p>\n
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