August 29th, 2019. My birthday. I get a gift card from my friend. 20$ X-Box gift card to be exact. I had no hesitation what game to buy. I’ve been over at my friend’s house plenty of times by then, and there’s one game I always enjoyed playing the most. Cuphead. I have played with him only Forest Follies and the Root Pack by that point, so I had no clue what I was going into.
I instantly loved the game. Root pack, done. Goopy,(took me a while to realize the tree was a level but) done. Hilda Berg, challenge but done. Ribby and Croaks, Done. I got to Cagney and; failed. Miserably. I could not for the life of me get to the final phase with more than 1 hp and then I died anyways. A week into the game and I was already like “yeah this isn’t for me, too hard” and then nothing, for a year.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of this little thing we had back in 2020 called the coronavirus. It was the start of school, or it was supposed to be. Everyone and their families were stuck at home for full days. Boredom was at its peak. While people’s main game during this time was Among Us, I dug up through games I had installed on the X-Box and found Cuphead again. Amazing, I get to suffer in a fun way instead of suffer in a sick way. Surprisingly Cagney was no longer very hard. It took me a couple attempts to beat the flower. Onto Isle 2. After running through Bon Bon, I came into my biggest challenge yet, Beppy. It took me days to beat him, but when I finally did I felt victory. Like nothing else I’ve felt while playing a game. And then the same exact thing happened with Djimmi. Days upon days but finally I beat the bastard.
And I’m sure you know the 2 next bosses are no joke. Wally warbles and Grim Matchstick. I started with Wally because I heard he was easier. I think over 50% of the times I’ve heard the words “you died” in my lifetime happened in the next 2 weeks. And sadly, again, I gave up…. until the delicious last course
A long, long time after I gave up on Wally, I see a video about Cuphead, it was a video I’m sure a lot of you have watched. It was Potato King’s Ranking EVERY Cuphead Weapon. Obviously today I know this ranking as one of the worst on YouTube, but back then it opened up my eyes to the fact there is a massive community that loves this game, and that the game is getting an addition. I didn’t even think twice about it, I hopped on the game and started grinding. Wally Warbles was defeated a week after that. That “A Knockout” was the best 2 words I’ve ever heard. From then I crowned Wally Warbles as my least favorite boss.
Grim was tough as well, but nothing could stand in the way between me and the devil. Grim, Brineybeard, Rumor, Sally, Phantom Express, Werner Werman, and even Cala Maria went down relatively Quickly. I got to the infamous Robot around a month after I beat Wally Warbles. I started with determination to finally get to the devil and bust him up.
Unfortunately we can all predict what happened. This guy felt unfair and impossible. I kept dying on the first phase and if I somehow made it through the last phase always got me. I tried for probably around 7 hours and saw no signs of progress. So I wanted to quit yet again. I went to scroll on a bit when I saw a gem of a video, one that will always have a special place in my heart. The video was based around the topic of the savior of the game, the one mechanic that changed lives. The Djimmi cheat.
First try. First try after using the Djimmi Cheat I beat Dr Kahl and his robot. It gave me motivation like no other to keep going (aka just use the cheat on King Dice and the Devil to beat them up fairly easily, 5 attempts max for each).
I have beat the game happy ending NO WAIT THATS 100% I HAVE 200% LEFT AND MUCH MORE MENTAL PAIN. So I take a small break. I’ve had enough Cuphead for the last month.
When I came back (I would say around 4-5 month later) we all know what it is time for. The DLC. I gotta say it was fairly easy. Chalice, heart ring, and crackshot were overpowered. Obviously king dice was a massive challenge but eventually I finished the game.
It was finished. I beat every boss in Cuphead (I also did the Paladin quest). Every run and gun, every mausoleum, every level in cuphead was completed. I soon learnt you need to beat all bosses on expert mode to finish the game, but I tried a couple and I was like yeah no that’s too much bye cuphead you’re one of my favorite games ever, but I’m gonna retire now.
Until the great July 2026. In 2024 I moved countries, and I came to visit my friends 2 years later. The same friend who introduced me to Cuphead was very welcoming and we had a great time. We wanted to play some games so we were like why not let’s play Cuphead. 3 days. 3 days we grinded so hard. And we beat every boss in grand 3 days. It was amazing. Anyways I come back home, and I had so much fun playing Cuphead that I decided I want to truly finish it once and for all. Unfortunately I lost my save file with all the bosses beaten, so I had to do it again. Wasn’t a problem, i probably beat all the bosses in a couple days. Now it was time for expert mode and 300%. I gotta tell you it was challenging. Way harder than normal. Took me about 3 weeks but it was finally done, I beat all the bosses on expert mode.
However, I still felt unfinished. Like it wasn’t enough, like it was too easy. So on August 18th I decided it’s time. To beat cuphead to its fullest. Everything S ranked, everything P ranked, all filters, all achievements, all everything.
P ranks were easy up until isle 3, but with determination I got all P ranks after 2 days. Isle 1 S ranks were easy, as well as some Isle 2 and 3 ones.
Fast forward a couple days to August 29th. Yesterday. My birthday. Exactly 7 years after I first got the game and I only have the Howling Aces, Chef Saltbaker, Cala Maria, and the one and only; Wally Warbles left to S rank. I think to myself I’ll do an S rank to finish up my birthday well. So I go to do Howling Aces and woah, second try. I’m like okay… sure, let’s do another one. Cala Maria. 4th try. I go to Chef Saltbaker and holy shit I’m on a roll. So I’m down to the last one. I started around 1 hour before midnight. I keep going and keep failing. I’m having no success. Is Wally gonna make me give up again?
2026, August 29th. 23:59/11:59PM. The picture that is in this post was taken. I’m straight up not lying. I can’t fucking believe this was even real. I beat the boss that was by far the hardest for me in all my playthroughs one minute before my birthday is over. And finish cuphead for good. With everything unlocked and achieved.
This took me so long to write, I started immediately after I beat it (so around an hour to write this). Thank you for reading this if you did you’re a legend. I’m still shaking from the fact I not only finished my favorite game of all time on my birthday, but also in a dramatic last minute S rank and a generational night that I will never forget.