Studio MDHR’s Cuphead is a run and gun platformer with an art style that pays homage to cartoons from the 1930s. There’s nothing quite like it in the gaming world — its aesthetics make it instantly recognizable. As a tribute to classic works from the likes of Disney and Fletcher Studios, Cuphead dazzles, and the fact that it’s a great game is just icing on the cake.
So what would it be like if other popular titles were recreated in the style of Cuphead’s iconic look? YouTube creators 64 Bits have an idea of what we might be able to expect, as evidenced in “Cupsouls,” a brilliant one-and-a-half minute long video that marries the surreal world of Cuphead with the unforgiving gameplay of notoriously challenging series Dark Souls .
Comparisons have been made between Cuphead and Dark Souls in terms of difficulty ever since Cuphead hit the scene, so this mashup isn’t such an unexpected one. Dark Souls and games of its ilk, such as Bloodborne, are universally considered extremely hard, with memes and viral videos created to demonstrate the severity of some of its bosses. Seeing the game’s typical action-adventure hack-and-slash mechanics reworked into a shoot-‘em-up version that better fits the Cuphead theme is pretty astonishing.
From the beginning of the clip’s “Praise the sun!” to the enormous and menacing bosses, this is a spot-on recreation of what Dark Souls might have looked under the creative direction of Studio MDHR.
It’s an extremely well-done parody treatment that’ll have you itching to play these two games again. And if you haven’t already, well, that’s something you should certainly get on. While they’re undoubtedly hard to get through, there’s also a delicious challenge waiting for anyone brave enough to stick it out to the end.
What was your favorite part of the Cupsouls parody? Was it the garish skeleton queen near the end of the clip, or maybe the werewolf that starts out as an adorable wolf pup? Let us know in the comment section below!
