The enemies all have blue triangles above them. Then there's the other world, which is all Menu / Turn Based. All the enemies have red triangles above them. Everybody attacks by just walking up and hitting things. Like say - there's these two different worlds, one is the Action Combat world. Nothing that would get a copyright lawsuit, but subtle nods to characters from other games.Ī really really cool concept would be to make a fusion game - where Secret of Mana action combat meets Chrono Trigger menu battles. There could also be plenty of humor and references to other games. Especially if it took Secret of Mana style gameplay and added different twists. People would heap praise on a game like that. Now imagine something similar to Secret of Mana or LTTP but done in that hand drawn animation style. It looks amazing even just being a pixel art game. Go look at something like Hazelnut Bastille by Aloft Studios, the whole game is just Zelda: Link to The Past with different characters and way more emphasis on solving puzzles. Plus, with games like Seiken Densetsu 3 / Trials of Mana getting an HD remake and the Mana Collection having recently been released on Nintendo Switch, I really foresee this type of game coming back in style. Had they done something like say - do an overhead view Action Combat RPG like Secret of Mana, or Link To The Past - the rage at them for 'plagiarism' would be drastically less than what they're getting right now. Because of that choice, they are going to get so much hate and negative attention because they did a Cuphead-like game so soon. (And honestly it's just Contra, you know it and I know it). I feel like they made a bit of an unfortunate choice by deciding to stick with the Run and Gun gameplay that Cuphead uses. (but only the game sprites, the environments are all 3D objects with texturing that makes them look toony).Īnyway. But go back and look at something like DuckTales Remastered and it uses the same clean looking hand drawn art. Sure, it looks a little too clean, not as dusty and vintage as Cuphead looks. If you actually analyze the frames of their animation you can tell a lot of time and effort went into it. Clearly the artist for Enchanted Portals has a bunch of talent.

Cuphead reaction to enchanted portals