Think you have what it takes to traverse the Inkwell Isles and fight against 8 big, bad bosses? Well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we? Take on the roles of Cuphead and friends and face off against these foes as fast as you can! You’ll be rewarded after every success and greeted with upgraded goodies at Porkrind’s Emporium too! Ready? Set. Roll!

What Is It?

Cooperative – Players work together to take down the bosses

Dice Rolling – Each round, players must roll their dice and assign them to their player boards to defend against boss attacks and attack back whenever they can. They may also be able to assign dice to earn parry tokens and wallop cards to help them throughout the game

Real-Time – Each round, players only have 10 to 20 seconds to roll and assign dice

Campaign – Players work their way through 8 boss boxes (“levels”), upgrading their characters as they go

Who Is It For?

  • 1 to 4 Players – Scales well at any count
  • Ages 10 & Up / Light Gamers – Very straightforward (roll dice, match symbols). Some bosses add a few more rule,s but overall, it is very approachable
  • Fans of Real-Time – The time limit is no joke, so if real-time isn’t your thing, this probably isn’t for you
  • Fans of dice chucking, co-op, campaigns, and chaos

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Love Cuphead art!
  • Components – Nice custom dice, good cards and cardboard components. I love the big player boards
  • App – Works well, and the music adds great ambiance to the game
    • I do appreciate that you don’t have to use the app though if you don’t like games with apps. You can use any timer, and the chart in the rulebook to calculate rank
  • Save Sheets are handy if you want to “pause” and come back
  • Rules are clear/well-written
  • Easy to reset decks/boxes once you’re finished
  • Lots of choice of equipment, and I like that everyone can buy the same equipment, or players can go different routes
  • I like that different bosses had special rules to change things up game to game

CONS

  • Luck – The game is all dice rolling with little opportunity to mitigate rolls, so it can be frustrating if you just can’t roll right
    • Coupled with a very tight time frame can add frustration
    • Plus, I don’t love that you have to assign dice to spots in order
  • Some of the special rules for decks are written very small on cards, and easy to miss/forget
  • Replay Value – Once I finished all the boss boxes, I felt like I had seen all of the game. It doesn’t really change much game to game

Final Thoughts

This game is definitely chaotic, but sometimes that can be fun!

I felt a sense of accomplishment upon finishing the final boss, very much like the epic end of a video game, so I thought that worked really well here. But with that, I did feel like it wasn’t something I’d go back to often afterwards because it felt “completed.”

Overall, I thought it was fun for at least one playthrough (which is fairly lengthy to be fair), especially if you’re already a fan of Cuphead. If you like dice rolling and real-time – check it out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Designer – Patrick Marino
Publisher – The Op Games
MSRP – $59.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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