Cuphead's success is largely attributed to its focused vision. While the game tells a simple narrative of two anthropomorphic cup brothers tasked with repossessing souls for the Devil, its gameplay, aesthetics, and soundscape will appeal to those who love 2D run-and-gun platformers and traditional animation. Cuphead can be difficult at times, but its difficulty reflects an older age when games were designed to squeeze players for every quarter they had at the arcade machine.
Creators Chad and Jared Moldenhauer have said Cuphead's art style, animation, and music took inspiration from the 1930s cartoons they watched as kids. Warner Bros. Cartoons, Fleischer Studios, and Walt Disney Animation Studios are just a few of the groups whose works inspired Cuphead's style. Seeing as Disney is one of Studio MDHR's influences for its breakout game, it would be interesting if Disney looked to the studio to create a game based on one of its beloved franchises.
Cuphead Proves Studio MDHR Has The Chops to Make a Great Game
Studio MDHR spent seven years developing Cuphead. During this time, everyone worked hard to painstakingly recreate the 1930s cartoon aesthetic with characters, backgrounds, and items all animated by hand. Though some assets were digitally colored to save time, everything retains the old-timey cartoon. To go with this old-school theme, composer Kristofer Maddigan created a jazz soundtrack befitting the inspired time period.
While most modern games try to increase their framerate as much as possible, Cuphead's gameplay runs at 60 frames-per-second while the animations run at 24 frames - the standard for American film. Even with this modest FPS, Cuphead's run-and-gun gameplay is precise, unforgiving, and ultimately satisfying. Combining graphics, animation, sound, and gameplay into one cohesive package makes Cuphead stand out among its contemporaries.
Disney's Success In The Video Game Industry
Disney hasn't had many memorable video games as of late. It can be argued that the best Disney games are those from the 80s and 90s: Aladdin, Duck Tales, The Lion King - all of which happen to be difficult 2D platformers with memorable 8-bit songs. Some of these games (Duck Tales in particular) were so beloved that they got remastered for the modern age.
Disney's most recent video game successes seem to center around the Kingdom Hearts series, even though Disney-based development studios haven't had any hand in creating them. Square Enix is famously known for developing the series, and usually just takes elements of Disney properties and contorts them to serve the series' narratives.
Studio MDHR Would Be a Perfect Fit For Disney
Instead of working on remasters and crossovers, Disney would benefit from asking Studio MDHR to make a video game based on one of its properties. Using the same techniques that made Cuphead, Studio MDHR could create a Disney game that pays homage to the beloved 2D platformers of the 80s and 90s. A game based around an old Disney IP like the black-and-white Mickey Mouse or Silly Symphony cartoons - animations that inspired Cuphead - would undoubtedly grab players' attentions.
Studio MDHR might have to add some color to the game to make the gameplay and aesthetics more appealing to modern audiences, but it is more than capable of doing so considering the vibrant work done for Cuphead. The studio wouldn't even have to adjust its difficulty curve, as most classic 2D Disney platformers are as uncompromising as Cuphead. Seeing as Studio MDHR is full of fans of Disney's past works, a lot of developers would likely jump at the chance to work on an official Disney game.
Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course is available now via PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.