Enchanted Portals Conjures Cuphead-Like 2D Platforming On Switch This Week

Looks awful. Bargain bin Cuphead. Minus the charm, effort, and inspiration.

That is a very bad trailer. Just one of the game's fights in its entirety, with no sound effects?

'Get ready for an adventure like no other...'

Lol, some folk think game creation is that easy!

checked in on this a while back and thought their newer trailer was worse than the reveal, guess it was a trend. i think the trailer is just bad, but will have to see.

It doesn't look like most of the hits are even registering.

I'm all for being inspired by great games - but this one looks particularly bad.

I don’t have a problem with other developers making games that look like Cuphead but to just make it play like Cuphead too…what’s the point. Do something new with it.

...I thought this was cancelled, wtf? Go back to being cancelled. >:c

Yeah, it's a low-budget and much slower ripoff of Cuphead, but I'm fine with that. Cheap clones can still be good games. I'll be keeping my eye on this.

It's not the same artstyle that upsets me here, because its not like Cuphead owns that oldschool aesthetic, in fact all they were doing was imitating old art themselves. No, what bothers me is that it's the same exact gameplay as Cuphead on top of having the same kind of artstyle. It's about as close to plagiarism of a game as you get without being a true direct copy, there is no shame here. You know what I would respect though? Taking this kind of artstyle and making like a Metroidvania or like a Sonic-speed kind of platformer. That would be so much more interesting and so much less of a direct ripoff.

@Quarbit You are right. If it gets well recieved then I'm in

at best, an adequate clone for folks who find Cuphead too difficult to enjoy
at worst, a cheap, shameless knock-off cash grab.

Straight-up clones have existed since the beginning of video games, so there’s no getting righteous on them at this point. Let them be, I say..

I wait for reviews on this one. I don’t have a problem with other devs making as some would call "discount Cuphead" games, among other names, as long as they are actually good but so far I haven't gotten that kind of vibe from EP.
The fact that we haven't (far as I'm aware) heard any in-game sounds yet doesn't help either.

I honestly feel bad for the devs. They've been working on this game for years now and people have been crapping on it since the beginning. That's on top of accusations of racism because one of the bosses happened to be dressed in Native American attire. Not sure why that's controversial when plenty of the other enemies in the game are white. I guess forcing the devs to get rid of representation is somehow progress, eh?

You can call it a shameless knockoff, and while some aspects are a blatant copy like the design and animations of the main characters, there's a lot of originality in the bosses here. A frog princess, Mozart piano guy, 1950's greaser chicken, and anouter space boss are all thematically very different from the bosses found in Cuphead. Even if the final product sucks, there was a lot of love and passion that went into this game. Aspects like the way the crinkles on the princess' dress are animated are really fluid and well-done. That had to have taken a lot of time to get right.

Maybe it won't all come together to form a cohesive whole, but there was genuine effort that went into many facets of the game. That said, I hope the game is good. Maybe the seeming unresponsiveness from the boss taking damage is due to the frame rate of the capture footage or something. We'll know soon enough. I really hope this is good though, but either way, people will dunk on this game till the end of time, which is a shame.

Hopefully it's a bit easier than Cuphead.

Honestly what puts me off isn’t because it’s a “clone” I want more games like cuphead, but it does seem to lack the time that mdhr put into there video game, just the dlc alone we didn’t get for years, cancelation after cancellation, and I can see why, I think it’s cool that we getting another game like it, but there is a polish that is missing, and I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the animations which I honestly like, or the way the background enemies are placed, just something feels off.

I do however hope the game does well, and I really hope to hear this game is a 8/10 game, I really do, as the developers have been trying, and it has been pretty rough for em.

I don't mind a clone. On some levels this is figuring out what made Cuphead work. But this doesn't feel like they really get it.

Also I will argue people who like Cuphead already have Cuphead, so it needs to hit as good as Cuphead or the prime audience won't care.

My thoughts exactly @duffmmann

@Not_Soos
I‘m pretty sure the devs put a lot of honest work into it but can you really blame people for crapping on a game that looks flat out stolen? The creative director of this game must have just said: make it look and feel like Cuphead. They are basically cashing in on the huge amount of ground work that was laid by the Cuphead developers and that is simply a bit unfair. Why not take a different art style from later or even earlier cartoons? Why not add in different gameplay mechanics?
Maybe 15 to 20 years after Cuphead people would call something like this a nice callback to the original game but given that Cuphead is fairly recent this will go down as a shameless ripoff.

@Duffman92

I dunno, I'm just not that bothered by "clones" as long as they aren't directly stealing assets. Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl and Multiversus are Smash clones at their core, but with a roster of characters from different properties than the ones found in Smash. Crash Team Racing, Disney Speedstorm, and the DreamWorks game coming out all boil down to Mario Kart clones.

Often with games I love (Cuphead being a prime example), I can only replay it so many times before I get burned out. Sometimes I just want another game that gives me... more of the same. It doesn't need to re-invent the wheel. If it takes Studio MDHR six years to make a Cuphead sequel (which given their track record, it will probably take them that long), I'll gladly take something with the same gameplay loop to keep me pacified in the meantime.

It's not like this game is gonna take away from Cuphead's sales, so they've hardly "stolen" anything from Studio MDHR. If I were the creator of Cuphead, I think I'd be flattered to see other games taking inspiration from mine, like all the "Breath of the Wild copies" we've gotten such as Immortals Fenyx Rising and Genshin Impact.

Every game dev has to start somewhere. Nintendo's first arcade game was largely a clone of all the popular space shooters at the time. It was a big flop, they made Donkey Kong, and the rest is history. Nintendo couldn't get by with something like that nowadays, but back then, they were nobodies in the gaming industry just like the makers of this game. (I don't even know who the company is.) For theirI presume is their first game, I'd say it's more impressive than what most of us would be able to accomplish, and I respect it. If they were a bajillion-dollar corporation, I'd expect them to set a higher bar for themselves, but they're not.

Maybe you're right that they're just capitalizing off the success of Cuphead, but to me, I feel like this is a passion project from people who genuinely love Cuphead from both a mechanical and artistic perspective and want to try and capture that same magic. Doesn't mean the end product will be good, but I commend the effort. As long as they're not stealing assets like Flappy Bird did, I'm not bothered. Too much work went into this game to chalk it up to laziness. Making a clone of CUPHEAD of all things has to be one of the most difficult games to clone, with every frame being hand-drawn. If I really wanted to be lazy, I'd make like an Undertale clone since that game basically already has Atari graphics, lol.

@Snatcher I have a feeling this game is going to be a similar story to Clive 'N' Wrench, a labor of love that ultimately gets critic scores of like 3/10 but still manages to find a cult following from players like myself who can look past the jank and appreciate it for what it is--a charming homage to a beloved classic.

Won't buy it on principle for ripping off Cuphead.

@Not_Soos Honestly I think so as well, hopefully the lack of sound effect messed it over that much, and honestly if the game reviews well or if it didn’t I will just get on sale, either way, Im totally getting it one way or another.

@Not_Soos
You got a few valid points there, here‘s hoping it will actually turn out to be decent.

@Cashews "It doesn't look like most of the hits are even registering." — that was one of my main gripes with Cuphead - every enemy just felt like an actual bullet sponge, it never felt like any impact was being made, and you're essentially just dodging projectiles until a timer runs out

Where did this find the funding after the Kickstarter(s?) tanked?

Comparing the original trailer with the above, it looks like the step away from trying to look like Cuphead has made it a lesser version of what it already was.

Better to have been an unashamed Cuphead clone than an ashamed one methinks. At least with the former they can go "Like Cuphead? Here's more like that" cause Cuphead 2 isn't happening anytime soon.

=

"an adventure like no other"

Okay, mostly ashamed!

Glad it was delayed, now all of the potential Switch customers have the opportunity to read the overwhelmingly negative reviews of the PS5/XBX/Steam version and avoid this steaming pile.

So it's basically Cuphead, with slightly less impressive visuals. Hey, if they tone down Cuphead's absolutely uncompromising difficulty I might give it a chance.

@OldManHermit
It's just like Cuphead.... except significantly worse in every possible aspect.

even copying Cuphead's delays now.

WOW! Hard to please crowd here, I suppose. Everyone is a critic now-a-days.

couldn't they have just made a straight platformer or...something? it's just so blatantly a ripoff as is

This game got so many negative reviews on PS5 and Steam, maybe it wasn't the Cuphead competitor we were hoping for.

I know I'm clearly in the minority here, and the game could very well be terrible, but I'm actually kind of interested in a game that looks and plays like Cuphead but is less dark, twist, and difficult. So, if that's the case, I'd want to check it out.

Weird, I was under the impression Enchanted Portals was already released, I saw a full game walkthrough on Youtube last week.

Also, not surprised at the low scores. I don't mind people making Cuphead "inspired" games, nothing wrong with competitors, but it was already clear for me a long while ago that EP was gonna be nothing more than 'big discount' Cuphead. EP isn't that bad but it is really as basic as it gets and should be recommanded for people wanting to kill some time for around an hour or so.

If I can't beat Cuphead, I definitely won't touch this.

I am usually not negative on this site, but this game looks like garbage. Always have since I saw it way back in 2019, those early trailers were bad. They should just cancel this game altogether for switch with the way it’s being received.

I feel bad for the parents who would buy this game for their kids because they think its like Cuphead

Gotta pile up the mounds of shovel ware I suppose.

Personally, even as a big Cuphead fan, I don't have any strong feelings towards this game either way but I can already see the What Happened episode on this game popping up on Matt McMuscles' YouTube page.

I don't mind the heavy inspiration even if this isn't as lovely drawn. Heck, a cartoon hand drawn run n gun other than cuphead can share the spotlight. I'm moreso concerned on how the game plays.....and I've been hearing round this parts that it isn't good.....worrying.

I watched a playthrough on YouTube, it has absolutely terrible level design and gameplay, whoever made this game has no idea what they are doing. The fact that it's such a copycat only adds insult to injury.

I think if Cuphead didn't exist, people might have been quite excited about this game and its artstyle. But as it stands...yeah it looks like a cheaper version of Cuphead. But as someone else said, a lot of work evidently went into creating this. Cuphead is excellent, it's just insanely hard to reach that level of quality.

Sometimes we get angry a little too fast. Is this a blatant copy? Yeah i guess it is. Is everyone on the team that's working on this a horrible person because of it? Surely not. It is very questionable though, why anyone would attempt this, considering the inspiration is so blatant and the only option basically is guaranteed failure, with Cuphead being absolute perfection (not to me, i didn't like it, but according to reviews and the general hype surrounding it).

Can anyone explain to these people what a color palette is and how Cuphead took advantage of it?

This looks like they actually traced a lot of the animations. It should not be given any attention whatsoever

It's the very definition of "We have Name brand at home", and it does look mostly flash puppet rigged, but for a game that's trying to get that same rubberhose style as cuphead, I applaud their efforts in trying.

@Axecon maybe it wouldn't be a total loss for the parent. Thinking back on some of the crap-ish games I used to play a lot as a kid, I could see my younger self being gifted this and mastering it without a second thought haha

"An adventure like no other" is an ironic way to begin that game description

You know, I’m impressed, I knew sound design is important in video games but boy do I take it for granted because this game is everything not to do when it comes to sound design, it’s awful.

@Snatcher Crappy games like this one make me appreciate the good ones even more.
It's the same with movies, whenever I watch a bad one it reminds me again how much effort and good decision making has gone into the ones I love.

This is an actual game?!?! $19.99 for this crap?!?!?! When you can get Suika Game for freaking $2.99!!!!!!!!

@miwa I know they didn’t have much of a budget, it’s two people and the kickstarter failed but wow. They really should have spent more time on it, cuphead took years to come out, it took a long time. If they had just spent more time on the game it could have been great but the run and gun levels are horrendous, and the sound the design is the worse I have ever heard for a video game.

So yes I agree this game really just showed me how much care is actually put into such seemingly small but important details.

I don't know if they're brave or foolish for still going through with a console release of this game after the PC release got an absolute thrashing; not sure if any amount of post-release bug fixes/polish will be able to salvage this one at this rate.

The sad thing is it actually looks pretty good from the trailer, but it's SUCH a Cuphead rip-off that it just makes you want to play Cuphead instead.

It does look bad. Ever since I heard of this game, everything I've seen just confirms I have no interests for it. And just to be sure, I'm here checking it out again.

But imagine, you put your heart and soul into this project, and now years down the line this is what you have, nothing more. What a disappointment.
I hope those guys have other sources of income, I'm not giving them money for this.

Many reviews already came out. The game is garbage.

No it doesn't, it is nothing like cuphead at all.

I would give this one a chance if it weren't for the asking price. As it is, I'll stick with Cuphead and eventually get the physical version.

I've seen the reviews for the PC version. Not good, not good at all. I almost feel bad for the devs because it seems like if they had given themselves more time and had gotten more funds it could have at least been seen as a "clone". Instead the consensus is that's it's a shoddy and frustrating rip-off. It won't scratch that cup head itch.

Finally, I get to play crudhead with my dad. That'll be fun!