Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course

Steam cover

***Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course*** is a video game that was released on June 30th, 2022. The Legendary Chalice returns as a new playable character going by "Ms. Chalice" in her playable form whenever Cuphead and/or Mugman uses the Astral Cookie as a charm (if you have enabled 2-player mode, you will take turns being Ms. Chalice), and there are new bosses, levels, and a new, seemingly friendly character called Chef Saltbaker. The DLC is preceded by *Cuphead*.

## Plot

"Oh, Ms. Chalice just wants to be just as real as real can be! With the Wondertart, she can then take heart, it's off to the bakery! Chef Saltbaker has a plan, the best tart maker in the land. If they're expedient with the ingredients, then he might just lend a hand!"

—Overture

Cuphead and Mugman are told that The Legendary Chalice needs their help and have to travel to a far-off isle. The Legendary Chalice, within the astral plane in her ghost form, offers Mugman a cookie. Mugman happily accepts it, not knowing that he and The Legendary Chalice would switch places, effectively turning her into Ms. Chalice (as well as turning him into his ghost form). Ms. Chalice takes them to meet Chef Saltbaker and unveil their grand scheme: creating the aforementioned Wondertart that will bring her back to life, permanently.

The trio travel across Inkwell Isle, fighting against five of the bosses to obtain the five ingredients for the Wondertart. Once all are collected, the protagonists head back to prepare the Wondertart, but Chef Saltbaker is mysteriously absent; however, a door to the cellar is unveiled, as the protagonists travel through it. Once at the end, they find Saltbaker at the end of it, who reveals to them that he was only using them for his own benefit, having exploited them all along. Saltbaker also reveals that the Wondertart actually requires a literal soul, having kidnapped one of the player's friends while they were out. With the protagonists there, Saltbaker plans to dispatch of them to continue with his plans, but he is simply beaten into submission after a long battle; with this, their missing friend is freed, and if one of the players was playing as Ms. Chalice, swap places again. From all that fighting, the bakery collapse, as the three protagonists and Saltbaker make it out, in where Saltbaker mourns his loss. Though no longer able to get the Wondertart to revive her, Ms. Chalice shrugs it off and states that she won't buy it if it requires another soul, as long as she gets new friends along the way.

In the epilogue, Chef Saltbaker is arrested and sent to court, where the judge orders him to do community service. When his community service ends, Saltbaker rebuilds his bakery, and makes pastries for everyone, possibly as an apology gift.

## Description

In *Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course*, Cuphead and Mugman are joined by Ms. Chalice for a DLC add-on adventure on a brand new island! With new weapons, new charms, and Ms. Chalice's brand new abilities, take on a new cast of multi-faceted, screen-filling bosses to assist Chef Saltbaker in Cuphead's final challenging quest.

**KEY FEATURES**:

* Featuring Ms. Chalice as a brand new playable character with a modified moveset and new abilities such as double jumps, parry dashes, and the invincible roll. Once acquired, Ms. Chalice is fully playable through the DLC and the original Cuphead adventure!
* Traverse a brand new Inkwell Isle and wallop the most wacky and monstrous bosses Cuphead has faced yet!
* Find new weapons and charms to aid you in overcoming brand new challenges and setting new records on old bosses!
* Help Chef Saltbaker on a brand new adventure to uncover the mystery of Legendary Chalice's secret quest!

## New Features

### New Bosses

There are five super-sized bosses acting similarly to the ones from the main game, with multiple transformations and even environmental changes for most of them:

* Glumstone The Giant (Gnome Way Out): A giant with a gnome following. He is described as a grumpy and powerful giant in the book series.
* Moonshine Mob (Bootlegger Boogie): A group of bug mafia with an underground rum running operation lead by a snail.
* Mortimer Freeze (Snow Cult Scuffle): An ice-themed cult leader fought in an ice fortress on the eastern part of Inkwell Isle Four.
* Esther Winchester (High-Noon Hoopla): A corrupted sheriff of the southern desert of Inkwell Isle Four.
* The Howling Aces (Doggone Dogfight): Literal dogfighters, mainly a bulky bulldog riding a fighter and a female saluki who rides a gigantic Chinook themed after them. Tagging along are four pups that are first stationed inside of the bulky dog's airplane, before fighting for themselves. They are the only boss with a secret phase.
* Chef Saltbaker (A Dish To Die For): The DLC's main antagonist, being a seemingly jolly but actually manipulative chef.
* Angel and Demon (One Hell Of A Dream): A pair of secret bosses that can be battled after equipping the Broken Relic charm for 1 coin and solving the gravestone puzzle. They are not required to beat the game and only added as an optional boss.

More challenges exist (The King's Leap), which are issued by the King of Games. All of them require the player to parry them to damage them.

* The Pawns: Based on the pawn chess piece, the Pawns' heads can be parried.
* The Knight: Based on the knight chess piece, the plume on the Knight's helmet can be parried.
* The Bishop: Based on the bishop chess piece, the Bishop's head can be parried once all candles are extinguished.
* The Rook: Based on the rook chess piece, the Rook can only be damaged by parrying the disembodied heads back towards him.
* The Queen: Based on the queen chess piece, the Queen can only be damaged by shooting cannonballs from cannons that can be parried.

### New Weapons

* *Crackshot*: *Straight shot with good damage. Breaks into weaker aimed projectiles.*
	+ Crackshot will move forward before redirecting themselves to the nearest enemy. However, Crackshot will do less damage after it redirects itself.
	+ **EX Move**: *P. Turret* - The P. Turret will send out a pink planet-shaped turret that can be parried and shoots out small projectile aiming at the closest enemy five times. The turret will disappear after some time. Parrying it will immediately send it towards the enemy like a cannon, dealing massive damage.

* *Converge*: *Full screen piercing 3-way shot. Hold lock button to narrow spread*.
	+ Converge shoots three, spread-out projectiles that pierce enemies. It is the only weapon with different shooting properties when locked, having a narrower spread than before.
	+ **EX Move**: *Electro-Bolt -* Fires a large horizontal electric beam across the screen, piercing all enemies it hits.
* *Twist-Up*: *Rapid-fire shot with arced pathway and average damage.*
	+ Twist-Up shoots three projectiles that arc upwards in where they were aimed. This means they will curve left if they are shot upwards while the player was facing forwards.
	+ **EX Move**: *Cyclone Spiral* - Fires a tornado that spirals around, piercing six times.

### New Charms

* Astral Cookie: Play as Ms. Chalice and gain access to her moveset.
* Heart Ring: Restores one HP to the player for their first, third, and sixth parries.
* Broken Relic: A simple bauble of unknown origin. Unlocks the Angel and Demon boss. Can later be upgraded to the Cursed Relic and the Divine Relic to invoke powerful effects.

### Ms. Chalice's Unique Moves

* Ms. Chalice has an extra health point.
* Double Jump replaces the original Parry Slap function, allowing Ms. Chalice to do an extra mid-air jump. (Jump, then Jump again)
* Invincible Roll requires the player to dash while crouching, only on the ground. Can be used to roll off platforms while maintaining invincibility. (Dash while crouching)
* Dash Parry replaces Ms. Chalice's parry, meaning that she can parry things by dashing into them. A successful parry resets Ms. Chalice's dash and mid-air jump, if used. Otherwise, her dash resets after about a second in the air.
* Her plane peashooter is a 3-shot spread with slower fire rate.
* Her mini-bomb arcs downward at a faster rate with varying arcs.
* Her Super Art I is Spiral Pillar, which is a vertical version of Super Art I.
* Her Super Art II is Shield Pal, which when used, spawns a floating heart familiar that negates one hit.
* Her Super Art III is Ghostly Barrage, which is an automatic version of Super Art III. She turns back to her old, glorious form, unleashes a swarm of porcelain ghosts, and generates a pink spear to refund a super meter card.
* Her Super Art in Aeroplane Battles automatically flies forward and can only be steered up and down.

### New Areas

* A small, medieval town with many buildings, including Chef Saltbaker's bakery.
* A mountainous area with a picnic bench and an entrance to where Glumstone The Giant is fought during the stage Gnome Way Out, along with three anthropomorphic pieces of mining equipment: a shovel, a lantern, and a pickaxe. This is also where Porkrind is located.
* An "icy tundra" area. This is the smallest of all the areas, and has no NPCs. This is where Mortimer Freeze is fought during the stage Snow Cult Scuffle.
* A desert area ("dramatic western plains") where Esther Winchester is fought during the stage High-Noon Hoopla. It contains one NPC: a female cactus sitting by a campfire. The NPC is related to secret visual effect.
* An Airplane hangar with a cemetery next to it, a ghost wearing a detective-like cap hides behind a tree, looking for clues with a magnifying glass. This is where The Howling Aces are fought during the stage Doggone Dogfight.

### Other

* The DLC adds 14 new achievements.
* New Original Soundtrack.

## Gallery

### Artwork

#### Miscellaneous

Artwork for the announcementAn advertisementCuphead DLC 1 million copies sold artwork

### Videos

Cuphead DLC Announcement Trailer Xbox One Windows 10 Steam GOGCuphead DLC Teaser Trailer Xbox One Nintendo Switch Windows 10 Steam GOGCuphead DLCティーザートレーラー - Nintendo Switchに2020年登場Japanese version

## Trivia

* The DLC was **Leaked** in 2019 and 2020.
* The title of "The Delicious Last Course" is a reference to the fact it is a downloadable content, as the first letter for each word in "Delicious Last Course" forms the abbreviation DLC (which stands for **D**own**l**oadable **C**ontent).
* The end of the unused *The Airship* theme can be heard playing during the first trailer, which suggested that the Airship level might be used in the DLC, or in some other way, such as a background. This did not occur.
* In an interview with Studio MDHR, Maja Moldenhauer implied that unused content would be reused in the expansion.
	+ The unused weapon Triple Laser and the Light boss were both reworked for the DLC
* According to Studio MDHR, the animation in the DLC Island is supposed to be based off of animation possible in the late 1930s to 1940s.
	+ In the same article, it is mentioned that the island took 3-4 hours for a developer to fully complete.
* The judge in the epilogue seems to be inspired by Oliver Owl from Warner Bros. Cartoons, as it is especially noticeable with the design choice of separating the mouth from the beak.
* At the end of the epilogue, Ms. Chalice is shown to be alive again, suggesting that Cuphead and Mugman had found another way to revive her.

## References

1. ↑ E3 2018 interview
2. ↑ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/cuphead-the-delicious-last-course-looks-like-a-whole-snack/1100-6504404/