Cuphead & The Delicious Last Course (NSP, XCI) ROM + v1.3.7 Update

Cuphead & The Delicious Last Course is a bundled offering that includes the original Cuphead adventure along with its follow-up expansion, The Delicious Last Course. This is a video game that was released on June 30th, 2022. The Legendary Chalice returns as a new playable character going by “Ms. Chalice” in her playable form whenever Cuphead and/or Mugman uses the Astral Cookie as a charm (if you have enabled 2-player mode, you will take turns being Ms. Chalice), and there are new bosses, levels, and a new, seemingly friendly character called Chef Saltbaker. The DLC is preceded by Cuphead.

GAMEPLAY

Cuphead’s gameplay is centered on continual boss fights, interspersed with run-and-gun levels. Each is housed in one of four worlds, with the final fight against the Devil. Each boss fight includes a simple, regular, and expert difficulty mode (except the final two bosses, which lack a simple mode). Defeating a boss in regular mode is required to progress through the game and unlocks expert mode for that particular level. Most boss battles take place on land, although some involve player characters piloting airplanes and play like a side-scrolling shoot ’em up.

The game includes role-playing elements and a branching level sequence. Player characters have infinite lives, maintaining all equipment between deaths. Equippable weapons and special abilities, referred to as Charms, can be purchased from Porkrind’s Emporium, an in-game shop, using coins found in levels and the overworld. Player characters can use a slapping parry attack on objects marked in pink to various effects, the most important of them being a super meter charge that enables more powerful attacks.

The super meter is represented by a row of five playing cards, and can also be charged through attacking or Charm effects. An enhanced attack can be executed at the cost of one card, with its particular form determined by the currently equipped weapon. The most powerful strikes, or Super Arts, require the Super Meter to be fully charged and will completely drain it upon use. Three Super Arts are available, one in each of the first three worlds; to earn each one, the player must enter a mausoleum and parry a horde of ghosts to stop them from reaching an urn at the center of the screen.

After completing a level, the players are ranked with a grade based on performance, determined by the time taken to complete the level, hit points left post-battle, number of parried attacks, and the number of times part of the super meter was used, in addition to the level difficulty. The levels are accessible through a top-down perspective of the world with its secret areas. The game has a two-player local cooperative mode, in which either player character can return to the game after being killed if the one parries the other’s soul before it rises off the screen.

PLOT

Cuphead and Mugman are told that The Legendary Chalice needs their help and has to travel to a far-off isle. The Legendary Chalice, within the astral plane in her ghost form, offers Mugman a cookie. Mugman happily accepts it, not knowing that he and The Legendary Chalice would switch places, effectively turning her into Ms. Chalice (as well as turning him into his ghost form).

Ms. Chalice takes them to meet Chef Saltbaker and unveil their grand scheme: creating the aforementioned Wondertart that will bring her back to life, permanently. The trio travels across Inkwell Isle, fighting against five of the bosses to obtain the five ingredients for the Wondertart. Once all are collected, the protagonists head back to prepare the Wondertart, but Chef Saltbaker is mysteriously absent; however, a door to the cellar is unveiled, as the protagonists travel through it.

Once at the end, they find Saltbaker at the end of it, who reveals to them that he was only using them for his benefit, having exploited them all along. Saltbaker also reveals that the Wondertart requires a literal soul, having kidnapped one of the player’s friends while they were out. With the protagonists there, Saltbaker plans to dispatch them to continue with his plans, but he is simply beaten into submission after a long battle; with this, their missing friend is freed, and if one of the players was playing as Ms. Chalice, swap places again.

From all that fighting, the bakery collapses, as the three protagonists and Saltbaker make it out, in where Saltbaker mourns his loss. Though no longer able to get the Wondertart to revive her, Ms. Chalice shrugs it off and states that she won’t buy it if it requires another soul, as long as she gets new friends along the way. In the epilogue, Chef Saltbaker is arrested and sent to court, where the judge orders him to do community service. When his community service ends, Saltbaker rebuilds his bakery and makes pastries for everyone, possibly as an apology gift.

THE DELICIOUS LAST COURSE

Cuphead’s brother, Mugman, acts as an alternative skin and potential co-op partner within the game. The DLC expansion, Delicious Last Course, adds a new area with its campaign, including new bosses, weapons, and Charms; a third playable character is also added, Ms. Chalice, who replaces either Cuphead or Mugman when equipped with the Astral Cookie Charm. Ms. Chalice has her own unique set of moves, including a double jump, an invincible roll maneuver, and a parry dash.

After freeing a soul known as the Legendary Chalice from one of the main game’s mausoleums, Cuphead and Mugman receive a summons from her to visit a distant fourth Inkwell Isle. Once they arrive, Chalice demonstrates an “Astral Cookie” which allows her to trade places with the brother who eats it, turning him into a spirit and temporarily bringing her back to life as Ms. Chalice. The cookie’s inventor, Chef Saltbaker, unveils his recipe for a special dessert known as the Wondertart, which has the power to give Chalice her own permanent body. Saltbaker notes that several antagonistic inhabitants of the Island hold its required ingredients, and the brothers set out to collect them with Chalice’s help.

Once the cups return to the bakery with the ingredients, they find Saltbaker in his cellar. He reveals that the Wondertart requires a living soul baked into it to work and that he intends to use the Wondertart for himself and conquer the astral plane. To this end, he has captured the soul of one protagonist (who may be any character not in play upon reaching the bakery) and decides to dispatch the other two to continue his scheme.

Once Saltbaker is defeated, his bakery is destroyed, leaving no way to finish the Wondertart. Unwilling to let anyone else give up their soul for her benefit, Chalice decides to remain a spirit until she can find a way to return to life without sacrificing anyone while offering to continue helping Cuphead and Mugman when needed via the Astral Cookie.