This Cuphead Clone Failed BADLY
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- Enchanted Portals has had a rough life cycle. From being called a ripoff of Cuphead to the developers themselves being called racists and insensitive, the game has finally released and its time to check out whats up with this new indie game.
0:00 Racism is Racist
1:28 Sketchy Marketing
2:41 To Clone or Not to
3:34 Everything wrong with Enchanted Portals
6:38 Random Added Chapter for Effect
8:44 Haha
9:07 Final Review
#indie #indiegame #cuphead #art #clonewars #enchantedportals - Hry
Imagine going through the trouble of animating a game full of characters that fit the Fleischer/Cuphead aesthetic and being dismissed as a no-effort clone. Like sure if the game is rough, the game is rough, but to dismiss it entirely because it uses a recognizable aesthetic is silly. Gamers are the the fuckin worst, man
hey, for what its worth these devs made a better game than I can make, and I absolutely recongize the hard work. But Hard work doesnt automatically equal a good product, just because the devs put work into something doesnt mean we have to like the end result.
The controls are like if you messed up your controller when you are playing cuphead thy
Bro it was made by like 4 people
Sure the controls are whacky, but give them time to solve the problems.
have you even played it? like at all, imagine bitching about people complaining that a game you (probably) haven't even played is garbage, that's like saying "I don't like (food)" but you haven't even fucking tried it
@@Doggof2pcuphead was 3 people
The worst thing about this game is a lack of something as basic as safe files... Like wtf.
imagine if it had passwords like in the first 3 mega man x games.
What’s the song here on 1:58
@@adrianramirez9166is from pizza tower, from the pirate/beach theme
@@TomLostWave thank you
@adrianramirez9166 tropical crust from pizza tower
the getting hurt sfx is LITERALLY the stock smack.mp3 file 💀
lmao
Keep in mind its okay to use stock sound effects for game creation if you don't have that many people on your team or are tight in budget.
@@fartlordsmellytoe3690I'm almost certain there are more fitting, less iconic sounds available.
@@EmperorZ19 Never in my comment did I argue that the sound effects sounded good or fit in the game, I just want to inform people that there's nothing wrong with using stock sound effects in your games especially if you're tight in budget.
@@fartlordsmellytoe3690bro, the game cost 20 dollars
Ofc i don’t want stock sfx in the game that cost this much
The worst part is they charge the SAME PRICE as cuphead.
Really ? No way , that is ridiculous
You can literally buy anything that costs $20 that isn’t Cuphead, and they’re all better than this, not just Cuphead itself.
Im pretty sure they charge more, actually
This is true, but cuphead is the easiest comparsion since they are bascailly the same game dispite what the devs want to believe @@magnusvonbraun9870
@@magnusvonbraun9870yeah but Cuphead is the game relevant to the discussion here.
The trailer was CLEARLLY animated, the demo was way diferent of the trailer
"YeS bUt iT Is a DeMo"
The "Space Cow" fight was way more finished in the trailer. For example the animations were smoother than what we got and had more stuff.
Trailer:😀
The finished game:💀
Yeah, the game was awful. But the developers at least tried, so I respect It.
@@WhiteWhistleBondrewd well they should try again. ngl this game has the potential, it's just that when you make a clone game people expects certain qualities from the original to be present in the clone
@@WhiteWhistleBondrewd They didn't even try hard enough
You know if you don't pay your devs the agreed amount they can refuse to give you their work?
Crazy!
Its not like the only reason this game sucks is bcz of the failed kickstarter
Crazy!
I think the issue was they tried to get too close to cuphead’s gameplay. I wouldn’t mind playing another cuphead-like game, but the point is, like icarus, they flew too close to the sun and burned.
Too apply a bit more context. I honestly think enchanted portals could be good if they decided to actually focus on a more platforming feel. I honestly believe that if they took the time and effort they could polish those platforming sections to make it a great option. Cuphead was all about the boss fights, but I think enchanted portals could take a thing or two from the OG contra.
Also, the fact is they showed up out of the blue. They were probably like “Eh, it’s gonna flop anyways, RELEASE IT AND HOPE PEOPLE BUY IT!”
They got so close to Cuphead that they outright copied the jumping animations from Cuphead 1:1 lol
I agree, it would have been fine if they actually tried their own ideas for the entire thing instead of copying every aspect (except for the stupid color mechanic) of Cuphead itself
Yeah, this has been a problem w games and even movies for so long. When something become popular, everyone try to get piece of that popularity by making cheap knock off. Because of that, many times when something become popular, there's 20 cheaper knock offs from that.
EP didn't went that level but because there's history of companies trying to scam people, EP being too close to the cuphead made it looks like cheaper version of the Cuphead. They had some potential and some of the animations and art were really nice on the game, but because it just felt and looked like cheaper version of the cuphead, people started to treat it like one.
They could keep the idea but also plan "How we can make this different from the Cuphead. Why people would buy our game when they could buy Cuphead?" Because right now I really don't know. That's the number one rule when you design the game. Know your competition and think, what makes people buy your game.
To give them credit: the art style changing between bosses is cool
I agree, nice touch
Its a cool idea, but with poor execution. It only happens like twice in the whole game and it feels kinda jarring and random. Maybe if it happened more often it would feel less weird.
if they kept that as the main focus i bet you people would like it more. personally i think this games biggest issue is how close it replicated cuphead
@@sabsyoutube241 Yeah, I don't know how people convince themselves that the game isn't a clone when it so blatantly is. It's totally fine for games to copy each other and MDHR doesn't own the rubber-hose style and all that, but seriously they copied everything from Cuphead down to a T. The artstyle, the gameplay, the whole boss-rush aspect, ALL taken from Cuphead. At this point, its beyond inspiration and is just blatantly copying. If they had copied a few things from Cuphead, maybe a few things from some other games, expanded upon those ideas, and came up with some original things of their own, that would be excellent! That is how you properly take inspo from things! I don't have any ill-will towards the devs and I don't hate them or anything, nor do I think they deserve harrasment. And when they say the were inspired by Cuphead and just wanted to make something like it, I believe them. But they just took it to far, and honestly, the game deserves all of the negative reviews its getting. Sorry for the rant. I've been wanting to get this off my chest for awhile. I've seen a lot of people denying that this game is a clone and calling people who think otherwise idiots and its just been frustrating me. And they all make the same two points: "Its fine for games to copy other games" and "MDHR doesnt own the rubber-hose art style" and while both of those statements are technically true on their own, I hope I properly explained why they aren't effective defenses of this game. Anyways, rant over. Peace.
I hate it because of how random and incosistent is that, it would work if it's stays consistent for every boss fight but when it happens for those two bosses there is no reason at all how is that happened and why. In short, it's stupid
My biggest question is why on earth the devs didn’t add a SAVE SYSTEM
This game just makes me want to play Cuphead even more over this. What's worse is that they even blocked a guy from giving them criticism on the game like the clunky controls, lack of sfx, music being bland, etc. And they blocked him
They've blocked more than one person for the same reason: giving constructive criticism.
@@Rockystan675
I honestly believe that. They weren't the best at publicly conducting themselves in the past. Not rude or anything, but giving an implication that they didn't fully know what they were doing.
To see them acting like everything is hunky-dory now is just embarrassing.
Uh oh, people might wanna be more careful when it comes to hurting the devs of this games feelings with totally true statements
Garten of Banban style Devs, fragile child that can't take criticism.
@@tatarchan5212 just great MORE fucking pansies that are too pathetic to handle criticism we already had the euphoric brothers being just annoying and pathetic now we have essentially euphoric brothers 2.0?
I kinda feel bad for the developers, the game had a lot of potential
Shouldnt have tried copying something better then you
I wanted this game to be good so badly
I mainly feel back for the devs
I honestly feel like this can get better cuz it got from releasing a demo to the actual game that fast. Maybe this game can be better developed in the future cuz i honestly feel like its still a w.i.p. for the devs.
Agreed
As someone who's currently dabbling in indie development with a very small team, sometimes you can't just hold onto a game and work on it forever, because funding is a ticking time bomb and there's often real pressure to get the game released or backed so that people working on the game can continue to get paid. I wouldn't at all be surprised if they had to rush this out half-baked because they ran out of funds. The animation style is pretty darn expensive.
yup I really do believe funding is behind most of the issues of this game
The bosses have such fun designs, like genuinely they're genuinely good designs
I know, its so frustrating because while playing I could literally see the thought process behind the designs, they just didnt have the skill or knowledge to make it actually work
Man I really liked the frog princess and the pianist those were cool
When they first announced this game, my friend and I predicted the game would fail miserably and we weren't part of any of the backlash. When the game got released, we saw a gameplay of this game, we did not expect it being this worse. With that in mind, I feel like the production of the game is rushed.
with the backlash and a failed Kickstarter, it was really hard for them to get funding. I considered this game even coming out as lucky because they found someone to fund the game.
@@damonlam9145I doubt this was funded at all, everything you see in the game was already in the 2020 trailer
considering it took years to make this game, it's more like procrastination or lack of effort rather than rushed
@@gamin546 What I think realistically happened, is that due to a failed Kickstarter, the devs could not hire anyone to work on the game at an adequate speed, and so only the team of 2 could work on the game. Additionally, they likely needed to get work elsewhere to sustain themselves as they attempt to develop the game in their much-limited free time.
What may have consumed the most time that many people don't realise, is how difficult it can be for a game to be published to so many different platforms. Each console has their own tech peculiarities and large list of requirements that must be followed for a game to be accepted by the corresponding company (nintendo/sony/microsoft, steam's easier though)
But the worst thing is after the game flop people start giving criticism constructive and destructive mixed in, and you know what the dev did? They outright blocked people who criticized, how could i feel sad for them
And this ladies and gentlemen… is why MDHR took their time.
It took them 4-5 years to make Enchanted Portals
@@ethanpoegamerpoe9346
That… is even worse.
@@rexwrecks2735 I know
How could they messed up this bad while developed for 4+ years??? I’m 💀
@@Greenmansillyguy They didn't have Microsoft funding them
I was like “aw it can’t be that bad”
5s later:
“NO SAVE SYSTEM?!?”
my exact reaction, from that alone i could tell things were looking grim for this game
*Insert Megamind "no bitches?" meme but the text being "NO SAVE SYSTEM?!?" instead lmao*
Bro the first thing i noticed is no sfx, it infuriated me so much
If they made it more unique, like not a run and gun, I think it'd be better
hey wait... it could play similarly to a MegaMan game, could it not? i think it could've been a better choice than it trying to play exactly like Cuphead
There is also a rocket league clone that just appeared on the switch e shop 😬😬
@@kaxcommentssomethingREALand there IS a game that did that and recently released: 30XX. It even has the lack of a save point and remedies that by actually making it a roguelike
Yeah maybe it could have been an turn-based rpg that could of kept that artstyle change stuff mid battle
NGL, it does look somewhat unique, but it still bugs me the poses when firing the wand, and the stances, especially the male, looks identical as Cuphead, even the dodge animation. And there’s games like Freedom Planet that does well making an inspired title become far different and unique from the original source it was inspired by.
they really had the balls to price this game as much as cuphead
its rough
Great points & video!
To be fair to the game, the kickstater being a flop is something that impacted its gameplay/release. That's not to say "if it was funded it would be good/better"- but clearly the developers could not meet their scope with their means & created a product that reflected that. Much of their footage didnt have any sound effects until the final release trailer- so i'm guessing it was a last minute addition.
at the very least I applaud them for finishing their product despite the backlash.
this is a great comment. I absolutely dont hold not having the budget against the devs. And at least they tried you know? Hopefully they can either fix this up a little or make something better next
Should have just given up and made a new game.
They still could’ve at least made the game have save files, right? Like how many games now release without proper saves? None, because save files exist for a pretty good reason.
@@Allustaryeah I’m generally in agreement. I get they had no budget, but that doesn’t give them a cart blanc pass to make a bad game that people would not have spent money on if they knew the state it was in.
@@Allustar I was uncertain of that too honestly... as far as I know, that seems to have been a bug(?)- or at the very least they patched it as of now I think. Still absurd that it happened though.
It's great that you reviewed the actual gameplay mechanics rather than just saying it's a knock-off. It's too bad it's not fun to play, that Tim Burton level looks amazing and a lot of bosses have pretty interesting designs.
yeah I was really hoping this would be a good game
I still think it’s funny people say this game ISN’T a Cuphead ripoff. It is. It’s not because of the genre, or the art style, or the boss fights. It’s because the game is structured the EXACT same way with all of those things and didn’t start development until AFTER Cuphead. It is and always was a clone. Now, some of the ideas are fresh, fun, or unique. It’s not soulless. But trying to bank off of Cuphead’s success is what sealed it’s fate.
ah yes because cuphead owns the fucking rights to boss rushes and bullet hells, makes sense
@@GB-sr9kv Did you not read my comment? Of course Cuphead doesn’t own those things. This game just did the exact same things in every department (but worse) and barely delivered anything new. That’s a ripoff. 😅
Thank you!
I'm baffled so many people try to claim it's not a cheap knockoff.
I can't fault anyone for liking it, but at least be honest
@@DexDexter0 It is and always was a clone. Now that doesn’t mean it’s 100% fated to be bad, but considering their budget, amount of time taken to make the game, and lack of originality… it was a preeeeetty small chance anything better than “passable” came out of this. I honestly think it would’ve been better received as a Cuphead Mod because then it would at least have a good foundation to be built on top of. (But they wanted to do a cash grab off or a popular game’s success so they wouldn’t do that as they can’t profit much off of it)
eh, if the game had save files and the audio was finished... and the run and guns were actually designed.
It just wasn't daring to do more with its concept. The creators weren't really creative. They didn't have to do a rubberhose style, they could have done a different style for each world, but they stuck to it because that's what Cuphead did. Nothing seems cohesive. It's sterilized randomness. "Princess is Frog, Rooster Biker, Space Cow." Cuphead had wacky ideas, but they went through many different ideas into crazy places. They're so close to creativity, but they seem like they stuck with their 1st draft and went with it. I believe that Tim Burton art style change was done out of being unable to do the rest in the rubberhose style.
bruh my sentiments exactly
Some of the designs are pretty creative. The cowboys/indians go from riding a buffalo to the buffalo riding them in the second phase, and I thought that was pretty funny at least.
Space cow is also decently clever because it plays into the common trope of aliens abducting cows, so it subverts the trope by making the cow into the mastermind the entire time.
To be fair the princess one is probably the best one in terms of design and cohesion with the "fairy tale" theme
@@GiegueX my issue isn't the designs, but what they do with the concepts. frogs alone couldn't carry the princess level. they should have done multiple princess tropes along with the frogs. poison apples, roses, kiss marks, glass slippers, something else
@@frustratedsquirrel ohhh I didn’t get the cow joke. That’s cute.
I appreciate professional reviews like this. Highlighting flaws in a product without it sounding visceral or bitter. It's great to see that you judge it as a game on its own but even then, it's lacking. It doesn't help that they shadow dropped the game in one of the busiest seasons for game sales aside from the holidays. Unlike Hi-Fi Rush however, this game didn't get any radar from streamers. Heck, I didn't even know this game until I saw a few gameplays of this today. I also agree that this game suffers more as rookie mistakes on the most basic features in games since the late 80s to early 90s aren't here. There's clearly some effort in designing the enemies and backgrounds but does seem to be lacking in important elements like you already listed. If this was a student project that was for a contest, I think people would forgive it more. I would probably say "There some things you need to work on, but I think you got something here." Overall, this video not only gives fair opinions but highlights the basic things you can't ignore when making a game especially as a product you are selling.
Thanks, I appreciate the well written response. This whole game sadly just feels like it didn’t have the time budget and experience behind it that we all wanted
"Disasterpiece"
Thats one way to describe something
It’s a great song too
disasterpeace@@vacantile
There’s a composer by that name who made hyperlight Drifter
and its one of the best game soundtracks. I think the musician did fez as well@@triggerhappy4199
i wanted so bad for this game to be awesome 😔
you and me both Sunny.
@@PogobroSame
I always knew it would be shit
Gave a chance to the game...
@@fromager2091they did and they didn't like it
6:19 oh my gosh all the rigging on that title screen doesn't even loop...
look... one thing i can praise this game for is the art style, and the animations are not quite bad, it reminds me a lot of old school cartoons with insane plots and just plain fun, but gameplay is not looking the brightest, i was kinda looking forward to it expecting for there to be... MORE to it, you know? i kinda feel bad for the devs, they had something goin' but, this feels like a game that should have _never_ been published in the state that it is in now.
On the topic of the "racist" depictions of natives, I'm reminded of the time when people tried to cancel Speedy Gonzalez fore being "an offensive and harmful stereotype" while every single Mexican I've ever spoken to loves Speedy Gonzalez and never had a problem with him
Another reason why twitter is still bad.
I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would be offended by being stereotyped as awesome buff tribal warriors who can take down bison using only bows and arrows.
yea, but the costumes are innacurate tho.😐@@Lar_me
The actual racists want to remove depictions of other races in games and movies because they hate them.
This is why you don't listen to twitter.
Didn’t native Americans also live with and hunt bison as well or something? Because that last bit he mentioned with the bison made me raise an eyebrow
Another bad thing is that the announcement trailer clearly had smoother animations, and the game's versions somehow cut down on the quality hard.
did they really animate the trailer instead of showing gameplay footage?
@@mikadosannoji553 That's...what I dread may have happened.
The release trailer CLEARY had actual gameplay that you could tell from all the choppy animation, but the Kickstarter trailer is a whole other can of worms. @@mikadosannoji553
@@mikadosannoji553from what i saw other said, yes they animated the trailer using something specific for this type of thing
It's sad because it HAS some really cool ideas I haven't seen done, I just think the Devs needed a bit more funding and Development Experience.
Yep agreed
So we should buy I game that isn't good so the devs can make a better game later?
@@omgman5745 No, I'm not saying that, I'm saying that this game was missed Potential.
@@ThisChannelIsAbandoned300 And how are they supposed to get more funding?
@@omgman5745ummmm you poor or something dog?
I feel this is incredibly important information to know. They were funded by Epic to finish the project, so yes they did have funding. There’s no excuse for the quality of the game lol
Do you have a source of the funding from epic? I doubt it a lot, cause nearly everything they showed in the 2020 trailer is in the game and nothing else, it just feels like they released what they had back then.
@@nazurin5982 They announced it on their official acc check there
@@nazurin5982Dunno when but on their Twitter they said "We are pleased to announce that Enchanted Portals are Epic MegaGrant recipients" Megagrant is basically Epics funding system for games they like
@nazurin5982 lmao, your eyes didnt notice that trailers are animation not gameplay? They use puppetjoints during gameplay , meanwhile all smooth movement was in trailers xd
How much funding though? Like if it was just enough for the devs to have ramen salaries for 6 months then that's not saying all that much.
It's ironic how the run&shoot stages in Cuphead were admitedly the worst element from that game (to the point they didn't create any new ones for the DLC) and yet they decided to have those as well, but it becomes obvious they couldn't be bothered to put any curated enemy design in any of them either since they rely on procedural generation wow
I'm actually one of the people who was watching how this game unfolded since 2020, and I was supportive until recently.
I started to notice trouble when they did their little teaser at the Future Games Show event. It had the same intro cutscene they showed twice beforehand, showcased rough animations, and didn't offer a closer look at what unique things the game had to offer. It didn't get any better when their release date trailer showed those "cutscenes".
It sucks, because I genuinely find the main magician kids, Bobby and Penny, to be very charismatic, and I was looking forward to playing a fun run 'n gun game as them. To see that squandered really bums me out.
Me too, at first I thought this thing can become another great cartoony game but sadly it's turn out like this.
They have the ideas, they have the theme. Sadly they don't know how to do anything about video games.
This brings up a good point about games that no one brings up. Copying a game's style doesn't really matter because it still takes good skill and knowledge to actually make the game good.
To put my own experience into this, game designers actually copy each other ALL the time. Every game has inspiration from another game to some degree. This is what is called +1 design. Its a design strategy that most game designers use to make new games where they take aspects from other games and add one thing to their game to shake things up and be unique. Example: Fortnite most likely used this with PUBG or another battle royal game when they were making their battle royal mode where the +1 design was the ability to build, then going on from there.
I was looking at non-commentary videos
I love that you don't get any expressive feedback for both hitting enemies and taking damage. I was actually baffled by how it just cuts to a still image after you beat a boss.
I sort of called it when this was kickstartered. The trailer didn't have any fast tempo gameplay like Cuphead making it look like a cheap knock off. But hey, it's inspired guys.
Notice how the trailers have noticeably higher animation quality than the final product?
Honestly showing Sea of stars at the end with the battle that resembles Lavos Spawn fight at the death peak knowing the game clearly took some inspirations from Chrono Trigger was brilliant.
It’s hard for me to personally feel bad for these guys because it was a doomed concept from the start. Similar aesthetic is one thing and it’d be forgivable if it was JUST the art style but also going for the exact same gameplay is what immediately labels this as a clone. No matter how hard they worked on it it was always gonna be that. No matter how much blood sweat and tears you put into a bad idea, it will always be a bad idea.
Jesus, thank you. Felt like I was going crazy because no one else is saying this.
They blocked me on twitter when I told them how the game can be improved. I doubt these dev's care about anyone, or anything. Stubborn and arrogant ppl they are.
thats not a good look
How are you on every single video about this game ? Like damn that's some serious dedication !
@@Cappyboom lol
That’s so bad bruh literally people are giving constructive critics (mostly notice on its big problems with controls and the obvious) and how the game can be *HEAVENLY* improved but they literally just don’t care
@@gboogie3257 It amazes me how dev's can put a ton of work in, release something, and then all they have to do is make some fixes, and refuse to do so. All that hard work, for nothing. The game's gonna die now because of all the horrible reviews it's getting. Nobody's gonna want to buy it.
the fact that youtube marked this video as a cuphead video in the description is absolutely hilarious
💀
CZcams marks every horror game as Slender or FNAF, so that's nothing special.
It's so bizarre to me that all the negativity towards this game could of instantly been turned to praise if it was just labelled a "fan-game." I was hoping for a Freedom Planet type of situation but maybe it was just bad timing or being "too blatant" with the inspiration but in the end they didn't deserve this. Granted no matter the backstory no game should be released with a price tag in that state, but judging by said backstory I guess they really didn't have much options.
Ironically, I came up with a concept to blend Freedom Planet back with it's S3&K origins (and add some pizza tower influence for bosses) where you suffered collision knockback with foes but not damage so you would have to be precise to keep your speed, and you can damage bosses anytime, but it's risky due to knockback unless the boss enters it's weakened state (I.E. Pizza Tower). Or use attacks that rebound you (there would be a move that allows you to roll/stomp on a boss as long as you don't hit a blatantly obvious danger spot like a giant drill or flame jet.)
The timing would be better too, as PT is the only recent game here.
i mean they probably couldnt make money from it if it was a fangame
Massive creds to Pogo for beating the game first day. Great dedication! ...with poor reward...
It’s like only an hour long lol, it’s a very short game
@@dsnever3041 i dont know im only saying this to get likes because big number makes me happy
@@hollowknightenjoyer I miss when the Internet was genuine and not just a place for people to feel validated by numbers :/
@@dsnever3041short game? Yeah but annoying as sh*t to finish? Pretty much
Dont waste 20$ on this dumpster fire. Play gravity circuit: one of the best indie side scrollers ive ever played.
I agree cuphead cost 20
But cuphead is better
Hâs more bosses
@@AL3X-700 oh or just buy the real good cup head lol
@@Tron1110 yes spent your money on enchanted portals
Buy cuphead or spend your 20 dollar wisely
man that king dice mozart goes so hard
The concept is neat, but the fight is 20-40 seconds long and they didn't even make his key presses fit the music... Oops
@@Lar_me would be cool if he did more than just a single attack
to be fair to these guys, i think the art (while a bit generic) is one of their strongest aspects. the character designs are good, the animation is fun and has personality, there’s lots of small great attention to detail and things look smooth. i hope they improve it soon :(
Except they scale the enemies, give 2 frames of animation for some enemies, or roll them.
I'm just gonna make the obvious joke
"Mom, can we get Cuphead?"
"We have Cuphead at home."
*Cuphead at home:*
Oh god I completely forgot about this game lmao I always thought they just cancelled the project entirely after that RebelTaxi vid
The fact that some enemies look blurrier along with everything else looking clearer than the background itself is honestly an insult to animation and art.
At this point the game devs should have just released all the assets for sale and let others create games with them. 😅
Fr lol
Maybe even better would be just releasing their game's source code and just let others toy around the game's code or make the game better than before.
I agree, I was very excited for this game since I loved cuphead and I was ready for another game inspired by that game. But when I got the game and when I played it all the way through, I was not happy with the gameplay, controls, lack of sound effects, etc. Now if the Devs wants to do like a future dlc or something then they might need to get more experience, maybe hire some people to help with all of the problems, and not to rush their projects. The outcome of this game is great way to learn from the developers mistakes and learning from those mistakes can help them do better in future (if they want to keep making more stuff)
ive done pre release feedback for small developers and frequently i hear " you were the only one that gave us genuine feedback". It's hard for people to give honest feedback to indie devs
Why is it hard lol?
@@buster3041 because usually it’s a developer asking their friends or family, and they don’t want to hurt their feelings, especially since they’re usually passion projects. Other times they reuse the same people so to evaluate and they’ve experienced it before which can change the experience vs a first time player.
The fact it costs more than Cuphead on steam. It's just not worth it.
As an animator I do have to say I really enjoyed the art style of the game.
As a person who works with audio a lot though, most of these sound effects are the generic ones you get on CZcams that middle schoolers use for their school project.
Wait… I thought they stopped their Kickstarter because they were offered by a publisher who could had fund the game?
Sadly that wasn’t the case, the kickstarter failed due to harassment from rabid/idiotic cuphead fans who called the game a rip-off the moment it’s first trailer was released, completely ignoring the fact that games can look similar yet not be ripoffs.
It’s like if call of duty fans called battlefield a rip off of call of duty dispite the two being very distinct games who happen to be shooters.
Heedless how you see it, it’s a tragic case, and worst theirs still idiots calling it a cuphead ripoff even after the original trailer was released all those years ago.
Nah, the kickstarter failed, then shortly afterwards, they were offered a deal by a publisher before getting an epic games grant. since the engine they use is Unreal.
Huh, didn’t know that, I never knew about the publisher offer, just knew the kickstarter failed due to harassment
@@arlissmith876i mean, you can tell they took major inspiration, to the point its borderline ripoff
Also, calling people “rabid and idiotic” just for stating it looked like a ripoff is kinda petty smh smh
@@somerobloxdude3699 fair I suppose, still, the amount of people saying that its a rip-off and harassing the creators did come off as rabid and idiotic, hence why used those two words, but in the end, I guess it is petty to call them that,
This is a case where the devs spent too much time working on the quantity. If they ditched the run and gun levels and just worked more on the bosses, the game could've been fun even if it's significantly shorter
The game is too small
And the cost 20 € or dollar
Ok cuphead cost 20 €
But cuphead has more boss
More levels
More weapons
A series and a dlc
So dont buy it
Instead buy cuphead
I love how pizza tower music is being casually used as background music
I think wearing your inspiration on you're sleeve can turn into a valid indictment if you have NO identity of your own. Gleamlight has a stained glass aesthetic going for it (though it does make it visually busy) and this... like its not just a clone in concept, the artsyle (or seeming lack of cohesive understanding of the artstyle) does not sell it as anything OTHER than 'the game clearly inspired by something else'.
I mean we can debate on if their use and depiction of Native Americans was kosher, but I think the very fact that they were relatively inoffensive left me questioning why it was included at all. Thats not me saying it would be better with egregious stereotypes, but that regardless of Natives or Cowboys, the devs thought just a gaggle identical anthro western caricatures was interesting enough of a design... and it really isn't. Cuphead has an actual Cow-girl, wearing a saloon as protection, shooting literal snake oil, getting fried into beef sausage and canned. Its telling that their most creative boss fight is just Beethoven in what's basically a recreation of a classic Tom and Jerry skit.
And the thing is, I don't think any amount of time or budget would have fixed these foundational problems, the seemingly insufficient answer to the question of 'why are you making this game?', and they showed though in the kickstarter trailer, which is also why I don't think it not getting funded was just a fluke of bad press, because everyone who WANTED a Cuphead clone and were confident they could deliver would have backed it, in fact the clone comments would be good press for that reason. Cuphead clone wanters, especially the ones with money, don't appear to have been universally confident in the product.
man i was hoping it would be something good and there would some good bosses
The issue is that many indie devs bite off more than they can chew. That’s why my company’s first game is small.
When this game was announced I was one of the very first people to jump on it. Yeah it was obviously a Cuphead clone, but to me that just meant Cuphead had inspired its own subgenre. To me that didn’t detract from EP, it elevated CH. I made videos on it for reactions, trailer analysis, covering the Kickstarter, and I even interviewed Xixo themselves twice: once after the announcement and again following up with them after the failed Kickstarter. In fact, those interviews are still the highest viewed on my channel. They genuinely came off as passionate creatives who wanted to build something inspired by what they love.
Unfortunately even back then I could tell their inexperience was leading to some poor decisions. When I asked them about what inspired their cool boss ideas they pretty much admitted they were just throwing whatever ideas they liked against the wall to see what sticks, which to me conveyed a lack of thorough planning. I had asked them if they’d promote the interviews, to which they said yes, but when I released said interviews and tagged them in the Twitter post all they did was “like” the tweet. When I asked if they were going to retweet it or promote it at all they responded that liking the tweet *was* their promotion, and while they were willing to (figuratively) sit down and interview with anyone who reached out to them, they weren’t going to actively bring attention to it. I still haven’t the foggiest idea why they made the decision to choose to squash free promotion (i asked why this is and brought up how they would repost fanart, to which they said if they shared one interview or news piece they’d have to share all of them and it would clutter their fans’ feeds with similar information they didn’t think was interesting, but they could pick and choose which fan art they liked). Then this odd mentality expanded soon after the Kickstarter failed and they ceased all social media presence for a long time, total silence. It led me to think that maybe the project had fallen through? Only for them to come out of nowhere and drop the next teaser with the native Americans that *really* wasn’t well received (side note: insensitive as it was, I don’t wholly blame them as they’re from Spain and totally divorced from American history. Not saying they couldn’t have done their research, but it’s more understandable as they didn’t have a relationship with the culture being depicted). After that, total media blackout *again* until, well, just prior to the game’s release.
I had hopes for this game. I wanted it to be great. I supported it best I could from day one, but sadly they kept making it harder and harder to support them with baffling decisions. The entire thing reeks of two naive, inexperienced but passionate creatives who just got in over their heads and didn’t know how to do any better. I truly hope Daniel and Gemma take this as a learning experience and don’t get discouraged. I, and many others, want them to be better.
I remember watching the trailer when it came out and seeing all the comments calling it a "Cuphead clone", and to be honest, I didn't really care if the game was a clone or not, because at the end of the day, you can still tell that the people behind this game worked on it passionately, despite all the hardships they faced along the way.
FINALLY someone who supports the game bro
I support them artistically (by what I mean is that they are not clone but instead just inspired..the art thought uh. It's kind of shiet in some parts)
But the gameplay though CHRISTY OL MIGHTY ITS BAD
I feel like a good example for an indie game that takes heavy inspiration from another series while still being generally fun to play would be Pizza Tower, it's very obviously modeled around Warioland, but the gameplay itself was actually good because the controls were made with the player's enjoyment and ease of motion in mind. It didn't matter that the forumla had already been done before, what mattered was the actual game's quality.
The developers can't catch a break 😭
The tweening is fucking insane (not in a good way)
If ur asking for 27 dollars for a unpolish game, you dont gonna recieve kind words
@@maffe_distroyerand Cuphead clone
@@MarioLeGend07 Diablo is a Rogue "clone".
@@BloodwyrmWildheart enchanted portals is 100% a cuphead clone, just look at it
Thanks for not holding back on this game, so many people see fit to try and shield the game from criticism just because it has little people working on it, and i just find it baffling that they're going do far just to push the small man narrative.
When I saw that it released I was immediatly waiting for this video 😆
The bats at the start of the video sure have sone quiet echolocation
Lets forget about the fact that the player has a stock punch sound effect when hit
Even worse is that theres 2 very clear animations that are practically ripped right from cuphead, the dash and the jump animations are almost exactly the same.
I had a glimmer of hope that maybe this game could be great. It sadly turned out to be at the level of quality everyone expected.
honestly, i'd say it's quality turned out way lower than was expected
if i wasn't given any context being shown gameplay clips, i would've assumed it was a bad unofficial remake of itself. you could see it in the quality of the sprites themselves
The "It's just more Cuphead! You like Cuphead don't you? So you should like this game" people are looking stupid as hell right now
Unlike Terraria, this game tries so hard to be the thing it gets inspired by (and fails) while also lacking it's own personality.
Honestly it deserves all the criticism that is getting.
Lies of P mentioned! It's off topic, but that game deserves so much recognition. Currently most anticipated game this year.
I think super Mario bros wonder is more anticipated
Fr pretty much the only bloodborne like game on pc cause of fuckin Sony not releasing bloodborne on pc
Now that thumbnail is probably the best one I’ve seen in awhile!
Honestly, the whole Native American issue could’ve been played off as referencing the offensive depictions many older cartoons had when it came to depicting minorities.
This game lowkey looks like a flash game.
Everyone who's playing palworld right now owes this game an apology
the only thing i don't like about the game is that there's no video cutscenes, of course photo cutscenes could work, but this doesn't feel that it needs the photo cutscenes, it needs the video cutscenes.
As a POC, I was furious when the internet tries to get rid of the pancho/sombrero outfit in Mario Odessey. No we weren't offened, we were thrilled! So stop witchhunting
love how he sensores Oney's tweet for no reason
I have been copy striked for really tiny things
If your entire selling point of a game is "it's Cuphead" but lacks everything that made Cuphead good, people would rather just play that game instead of this.
Is like bullying a plant, when you bully a plant, it won’t grow well but when you give the plant some encouragement, the plant will grow fine and healthy
To be honest, I just feel bad for the developers. Everyone was against them and it feels like they just gave up and released them game judging by the lack of saves and poor sound design.
Don’t be, after the game flop people start criticized the game (bad control,no sfx,no save, etc) and the devs blocked them
i mean they made some shit decisions in the making of this game
Most certainly a game of all time 🎉
Yes one of them
definitely a game
With its obvious flaws that makes the game shit, it is still indeed, a game ever made of all time.
I think it's a game
Its SO absurd to me because if all of these assets are made by them ( I'm not... fully sure about that, since the assets don't really all match? but I can't tell if that's because multiple artists worked on it ) but the art, especially background details like the haunted trees, are earnestly nice homages to the time period and pretty finished looking, but all together its just riddled with amateur-isms. Game wise and art wise. It really gives me this vibe of like a moderately above par first year animation student recklessly deciding " Hey, I know how to animate, why don't I make Cuphead? How hard could it be?" But they don't really have the essentials down. Like, the most fluid looking animations are the clearly "traced" ( or, probably heavily referenced ) stuff, like the walking animation for the main characters ( smooth, fullbody walking animations are hard to do, so if anything was going to be directly referenced it'd be that ) but a lot of the animations, like the dangling spiders, are at best 6 frames per second and probably only 4 unique frames total, which means that almost certainly not everything in the game is animated at a consistent or even similar frame rate-- which is a huge lack of consideration and definitely an amateur thing to do. This is a problem that would literally be incapable of happening anywhere but a modern medium like a video game, so it looks extremely off in something trying to resemble an old cartoon.
There's also tons of things that indicate this was clearly not done as authentically as cuphead, which I doubt they even advertised it being so I know, but it does explain why so much of it looks so much cheaper and unpleasant than Cuphead's authentic hand-drawn, light box and pencil animation style. Doing things authentically does matter with an art style like this. There's a certain uncanny, unnatural movement quality that a lot of digital animation gets when shortcuts are taken either using Flash or artificial tweening, and in this case it appears to be something as simple as animating in a digital program in a way that involves moving an asset ( a limb on a joint ) pixel by pixel in an impossibly clean way with little to no bounce, which actually makes animation look a bit worse. But I could overlook that-- one huge problem appears to be that, again with the spiders as an example but also the bats, the animation appears to be rigged on an object maybe too big for the original art and so they seemed to have chosen to just artificially stretch it to fit?? Which is what's causing that ugly blurring and displacement from the scene on a lot of the characters. And why do the color coded enemies have this default air brush, completely high contrast, ms paint glow to them.....
Anyways I'm rambling, I'm sure you can just look at it and tell they didn't do it right, but I'm fascinated by how much they did wrong and for so much effort only to make something that was doomed to not be well liked. But that sort of explains the whole bad clone game phenomenon, if you were capable of engineering /every/ facet of your game's design, you'd make something unique to you without relying on a reference by necessity to fill the holes in your understanding. There is a difference between a loving homage built on the deep understanding of a genre and using an existing thing as a crutch. Cuphead was a loving homage to old animation and retro shootem-ups, this is a poor photo copy of someone else's loving homage. They did not actually grasp the tenants of what made that old animation so great, they don't have the means or personal ability to recreate it, and so they could not capture it's heart, its charm, its nostalgic quality. I know a lot of people would defend this and feel empathy for the creators, say what great potential the project had for trying to exist at all, but frankly, I think its quite obvious they shouldn't have attempted to do this at all. It was nothing more than a great waste of time and money far outside their means or experience.
Btw, I know animation, not game design quite as much, but it is baffling that there is no mid-air steering, because that has to be a deliberate choice. It takes more programming to disable movement when jumping then to just leave it enabled in my experience, so that choice in a 2D platformer is so weird....
Honestly I feel like this game would have gotten less flack pre-release if it had only taken inspiration from either Cuphead’s gameplay OR art style, but not necessarily both.
Personally i just wish they did more with the Beethoven boss. It's definitely my favorite boss, i‘d say it has the potential to be better than pretty much all cuphead bosses. Im a classical pianist and as soon as i saw that i was instantly intrigued but i was quickly disappointed because the boss is too short and too easy, i think they actually animated the piano correctly
(Also i think that that picture on the wall is supposed to be Hayden, he was Beethoven's mentor. I don't believe Beethoven had a picture of him on his wall but it's still a detail worth mentioning)
I think the main thing that basically buried this game was the fact that it was announced I believe a few months after cuphead was released (I could be wrong on that so feel free to correct me). If it had came out at least a year or two after cuphead, then people likely would’ve treated it better. It could’ve also helped if they instead showed the game with a unique style and premise rather than just copying the same style of gameplay as cuphead did, Billie Bust Up is a great example of this
I actually wanted to like this game. But from day ONE I knew the game would turn out like this; I could tell Enchanted Portals was focusing too much on trying to BE Cuphead while not focusing on making a good game.
I'm hyping for someone to talk about it , all your knowledge helps me a lot and I'm thankful for that , the game is still less bossess and I'm feel like it's a another Cuphead copy and paste art styles
Full disclosure: haven't watched the video yet, still want to get the game, just wanna play it myself before hearing other people's opinions, but it's a shame that it's not as great as it could have been. You can see there IS effort in the animations.
ita 20 dollars the same price as cuphead and only has 1% what cuphead can offer
When I first saw the trailer, I could totally see the cause for backlash regarding the animation, but I was still hyped. Finally something hugely inspired by Cuphead that could probably start a trend of Cupheadlites/cuplites.
Sadly I saw a gameplay video 2 days ago and was hugely disappointed. Till now I keep asking myself, what the heck went wrong? I know development must have been rough, but they had enough years to polish the game, so why?🙁
I really wish they end up polishing the life out of the game and worked on the fixes in the overall gameplay and sound design, it has enough potential to be better, not like this.😥
i think the part at 6:50 kind of shows that there was room to do something slightly original with the artstyle to kind of distinguish it but they just didnt feel like it
I'm sick of people defending the developers by gaslighting critics of the game. "People just hated on it because it's a clone"- No, people hated on it because it's a clone that's way too derivative of its inspiration, at times to the point of borderline plagiarism (the airplane phase of the robot cow boss is too similar to Cuphead's Dr. Khal's Robot for me to think it was a coincidence). Do I think they were deliberately trying to steal from Cuphead? No. I think they simply wanted to make something like Cuphead but weren't creative enough to come up with something more original.
"Cuphead didn't create run and gun platforming or old rubberhose animation you know." Yeah no shit, and I doubt the majority of the people who hated on this game thought it did. Thing is, the developers didn't have to make it a run and gun platformer- or a platformer at all for that matter; and they didn't have to use an old cartoony art style either- they could have used a different art style. To their credit, they do use various different art styles in the released game, but it's such an under baked and poorly executed idea that it doesn't add anything to the game. Honestly, they should have made this aspect the main sell of the game- "Cuphead, but with various different artstyles", but I suspect they only implemented this after the backlash in an attempt to make the game less derivative of Cuphead.
Ultimately, the developers' critical error was making the game so similar to Cuphead that it felt unoriginal and derivative. They were practically inviting the backlash.
Plus, not a fan of how this guy casually dismisses the claims of racism regarding the stereotypical Native American outfits certain characters were originally wearing like there's no issue here. The main issue for me is that this was done in service of depicting those characters as antagonists, which (intentionally or not) evokes an ugly history of Native American persecution that old stereotypical portrayals like this were used to justify.
This is another way in which Cuphead is way better. The Moldenhauers went out of their way to avoid using any designs that could be considered racist and were pretty successful in that- So much so that the claims of racism Cuphead did get were- rightfully, written off as unfounded. This game in contrast bumbled it's way (to give the developers the benefit of the doubt) into actually doing something racist so the accusations have more merit here.
Well there is another cuphead inspired game on the switch besides this game, I forgot what it was called but it's a pumpkin as the main character, everything is black & white, I think kind of pixelated, and if I find it I make an edit
Found it, and on switch for 2.99
Edit: "Once Upon a Time on Halloween"
i hope they fix some of this since this is constructive critisism
To call this game Tesco Value Cuphead is not only an insult to Tesco’s but a lie as well, considering Cuphead is cheaper than Enchanted Portals
This is a case study for the need to do small projects before doing a full game. The lacking a save system wouldn't have happened if they instead made 1 small free game(Effectively a demo but purely for practice aka an "internship" game) to test and get an idea of whats needed for a game to work and what work well with what.
A lot of good indie devs started off making small fan games/small one off free games just to learn how to make games such as Tobifox who had made romhacks before going up to make some small fan games then eventually was skilled enough to make Undertale and delta rune.
S O U L L E S S
Soulless? Like Soulless Fnf real!?
On an serious note, the game is the hollow husk of cuphead left in the basement for over 7 years.
the game feels like a flash game
A flash game feels more finished than this
Holy smokes, I forgot Gleamlight existed till it was mentioned here. I recall their being so much discussion around it a few years ago and now it’s just been forgotten to time
THIS. Too often, players equate ‘inspired by’ with ‘bad’. A games inspiration has 0% to do with whether or not it will actually be good. That’s true for all media. If a game is well designed and well executed, it will stand by itself, regardless of inspiration. It’s just the unfortunate truth that many new developers who are still figuring themselves out and figuring out how to make good games will create games inspired by the ones that they love, but do a poor job at it. That’s how people learn, after all.
I think we can all agree that its definetly a game
yoy can jomp, schut, an wallk, game of the yeayr