Friday evening. Everybody was going home to enjoy the weekend. Some were planning to go out with their friends to places like the movies or a local fair. How was Sunset spending her weekend? In front of a TV screen playing video games.
Sunset had just got home after a little visit to the games store. In her hand, she held a small green gift card with a game put onto it. She got down in front of her TV unit and switched on her TV and her Xbox One. The startup screen had shone as a small ball with an 'X' carved into it.
She signed into her Xbox Live account with the name, "Sh1mmerC0de". After she signed in, she noticed that two of her friends were online. Their names being, "Dashie_Gir7" and "queencake".
They were both in the same Xbox Party and clearly queencake had noticed Sunset had just signed in because before she knew it, Sunset's inbox was full of party invites that had been sent from two seconds ago to one minute ago. The invites kept on coming and coming. Sunset laughed for a bit and shook her head slowly as she accepted one of the already over one hundred invites.
"Pinkie, what have I told you about blowing up my inbox?" Sunset scolded.
"Sorry!" came a rather annoying and high pitched voice. "But I REALLY wanted you to join Dashie and me," Pinkie had said.
"You do know you can just send us one invite, right," now said Rainbow.
"Well yeah, but what if you don't see it?" asked Pinkie.
Sunset and Rainbow weren't going to start an argument. Pinkie breaks logic beyond impossible so there wasn't any reason to argue with her in a situation such as this.
"So... I bought the game you told me about, Pinkie," Sunset announced.
"You did?! Finally! You've been telling me you'd by it for weeks now!" exclaimed the bouncy haired girl.
"Well sorry but I had more important things to deal with!" retorted Sunset. "I had tests, I had to work and I had to help Applejack at the farm."
"Wait. Why did you have to help Applejack?" Rainbow asked.
"Big Mac broke his arm and since AJ can't really rely on Granny Smith or Applebloom, I volunteered to help her until Big Mac gets better." Sunset explained.
"You didn't know that, Rainbow Dash?" Pinkie asked.
"Well, no. No one brought it up and I haven't seen Big Mac for a while now."
"Why do think that is?" Sunset asked.
"I don't know, I just haven't seen him as much. That's all!"
"Okay, okay! So Sunset, are you sure you bought the right game?" Pinkie asked.
"Yes, I bought the right game," Sunset replied.
"Are you sure you're sure?" she asked again.
"Y-yes, I'm sure."
"Are you sure you're sure you're sure?"
"Oh my God. Yes! I bought the right game!" Sunset was starting to get annoyed.
"Are you sure you're sure you're sure you're su-?"
"Pinkie!" Rainbow raised her voice. "I'm pretty sure she bought the right game!"
"Yah never know, Dashie!" she said back, "She could've picked up the wrong game!"
"I don't see how I could've picked up the wrong game," Sunset said, "It's all you've been talking about since you first started playing it."
"But what game is it, Sunset?" Pinkie was demanding for an answer now.
Sunset facepalmed. "Cuphead! The game is Cuphead," she finally told the bouncy haired girl.
"See? That wasn't so hard, now was it?" Pinkie teased.
Even though Pinkie Pie was one of Sunset and Rainbow's closest friends, they knew whenever Pinkie had crossed the line. But, like previously stated, arguing with Pinkie is not a good idea because she will always win so Sunset just blew off her steam and changed the subject.
"So Pinkie? What exactly do you do in this game? And no spoilers!" Sunset asked as she began the installation.
"Well, basically the game is a huge boss rush. The game has like twenty boss fights but only five more normal levels," Pinkie explained, "Oh yeah, and you should never let your guard down once because this game is blood boiling!"
That left Sunset a little uneasy.
"How difficult is this game?" she nervously asked.
"Y'know that game 'Dark Souls'?" Pinkie asked Sunset.
"Yeah?"
"Then take Dark Souls... and throw it out of the window, because this game is now it."
It was clear that that was just a joke but neither Rainbow or Sunset found it very amusing. Not even a giggle was heard, except from Pinkie.
"Seriously though, this game is hard. Like, very rather pretty hard," Pinkie went on. "Even the tutorial will test you."
"Wait, the tutorial?" Rainbow finally decided to join back into the conversation.
"Yep. Apparently some critics gave Cuphead a lower score than it deserved because they suck at tutorials."
"How hard was it for you, Pinkie?" Sunset asked.
"Oh, I completed it within the day I got it," said Pinkie.
Pinkie had literally just told them that this game was very difficult and now she's telling them that she had completed the game during her first day of playing?
Upon hearing that, Sunset was both confused and amazed. "Wow, I'm- uh... I seriously don't know what to say to that..."
"Meh, what can I say? I guess I'm better than most critics," Pinkie shrugged.
"You guess? Pinkie, completing a game like Cuphead is no small feet!" Rainbow announced, also amazed at Pinkie's achievement.
That didn't make Sunset any less nervous. Sure, she didn't feel more nervous but she didn't feel any less nervous. Then the notification had appeared on Sunset's screen. "Cuphead is now ready to play" and somehow Pinkie was able to hear it through Sunset's mic.
"Did I hear the notification? Is the game installed?!" Pinkie asked very excitedly.
"Uh, yeah. The game just finished installing," Sunset told Pinkie.
"Play it! Play it play it play it play it!" Pinkie rushed Sunset.
"Alright! I'm booting it up now."
With the game now installed, Sunset hovered over the game and pressed A. The title card appeared, showing the game's title, "Cuphead: Don't Deal with the Devil". Then after, the game developers logo appeared. Studio MDHR, the developers were called. Then old style music started playing and the title screen appeared.
"Well Cuphead and his pal Mugman. They like to role the dice," Pinkie began singing with the music.
Rainbow started snickering at Pinkie while Sunset was admiring the effort and detail that had been put into this. And she was only on the title screen.
The title screen showed a looping animation of two cup people who looked like they were showing off in front of a crowd. Even though it was only a looped animation, Sunset had already thought the style and animation looked incredible so far.
"Wow. If this is how the title screen looks, then I can't wait to see the rest of this game!" Sunset announced as she pressed the start button.
She selected one of the three save files and began her adventure into the hell hole that is Cuphead.
The game started with a book with a cover that read, "Studio MDHR Presents - Cuphead "Don't Deal with the Devil"". The book opened to it's first page revealing some dialogue.
Sunset read aloud the dialogue being shown on screen to Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, "Once upon a time, in a magical place called Inkwell Isle, there lived two brothers named Cuphead and Mugman-"
"By the way, Cuphead is the red one and Mugman is the blue one," Pinkie had interrupted.
"Thank you, Pinkie," Sunset said with slight aggravation as she continued, "They lived without a care under the watchful eye of the wise Elder Kettle." The page turned over and Sunset continued to read, "One day the two boys wandered far from home, and - despite the Elder Kettle's many warnings - ended up on the wrong side of the tracks and entered the Devil's Casino."
Sunset continued to read the pages of the story while Rainbow and Pinkie had sat there and listened to her. The reading went on for quite a while (From RD's perspective that is), but they both barely remained patient as Sunset had finished with her reading.
"...We have to find the Elder Kettle. He'll know what to do!" Sunset finished.
"Is it over?" Rainbow asked.
"Yep!" Pinkie announced. "So? What do you think so far?"
"Well the story isn't very complicated, it's actually a really simple story, but the artstyle really makes up for it. It is amazing so far!" Sunset said enthusiastically.
After the intro, the game loaded up with the small and bendy-strawed cup boy inside of an amazingly styled cartoon house. Across the small living room stood a grey and fragile kettle man.
Sunset moved Cuphead towards the kettle and more dialogue appeared, which Sunset read for her friends while trying to impersonate an old man, "What a fine pickle you boys have gotten yourselves into-!"
"What is that voice?" Rainbow almost burst out laughing at Sunset's horrible voice.
"Shut up," which was all she could retort with as she kept on reading with the voice, "I know you don't want to be pawns of the devil! But if you refuse... I can't bare to imagine your fates! You must play along for now, collect those contracts! And you'd best be ready for some nasty business...! Your debtor 'friends' won't be very friendly once you confront them!"
Sunset could still hear Rainbow and Pinkie trying to contain their laughter but she tried to just ignore them.
"In fact, I expect they'll even transform into terrible beasts! Take this potion so they won't hang you out to dry. It will give you the most remarkable magical abilities!" Cuphead jumped up as though he was now full of energy. "Now go to my writing desk and use the mystical inkwell there. You need to prepare yourself for a scrap!!" Sunset had finally finished.
Still, Pinkie and Rainbow could be heard on the brink of laughter.
"S-So, you s-see th-at p-pad of pa-paper on the t-able?" Pinkie tried to say inbetween intense giggles.
"Yeah?" She moved Cuphead towards the paper. It had appeared in a text box that this was the tutorial that Pinkie was talking about. "Oh, I see."
She pressed A and entered the tutorial. The tutorial looked quite nice graphic wise. The controls that were shown weren't anything too special: You had you're typical move down to crouch and press A to jump, or hold it in to jump higher. Then she came across a wall she had to pass. The controls instructed her to jump and press Y to jump midair.
Sunset gave it an attempt and failed to make it over the wall.
"Okay. Let's try that again," she said.
She tried again, still couldn't prevail. Then she tried once again, and failed. Attempt after attempt, she still couldn't win. Sunset growled and gave it one more shot. She failed.
"Dammit!!" Sunset shouted in rage jumping to her feet off of her couch.
She became quickly aware of her sudden outburst and sat herself back down onto her couch.
"Yeesh Sunset. I never took you as the one to rage over a game," Rainbow said.
"Yeah! Especially this early in the game," Pinkie extended Rainbow's words.
"There's a whole load of stuff you two and quite literally everyone else still don't know about me," Sunset admitted calming herself down.
Sunset got herself ready to try it one more time; she kept herself focused on her game, trying to find out where she would have to press the dash button. She jumped... she dashed... and she finally made it!
She felt victorious, like she could take on a dragon right here, right now. But then she realised that she isn't finished with the tutorial.
Next up was the controls to descend; down and A the controls were. It wasn't really anything which Sunset was okay with, maybe if the creators had extended this section somehow, it could have been better.
Next, Cuphead's ability to shoot and lock. To shoot, the control was X and locking in place was RB. Sunset practiced this ability on a target ahead. She held in the lock button and pointed Cuphead's finger to the target and held in the X button for rapid fire. Doing so, Cuphead shot blue magical pellets from his fingertip. After only a few bullets, the target disappeared in a puff of smoke and Cuphead pressed on forward.
Now Sunset was to learn how to use Cuphead's ability to parry. Ahead was three floating dots with a platform to high to jump upon. One of these dots were a bright shade of pink while the others were coloured grey. The instructions said to press A while mid-jump to perform a parry to pink objects or projectiles.
Sunset took in what lied ahead. From how it looked, she thought that this part would test her skills on timing. And judging by her time with the gaming community for the past few years, she believed that she was pretty good when it came to timing. So she took her first try. She managed to parry the first two dots and just dashed over the third one because that's possible to do. Sunset managed to make it and she was surprised by how long it took her to make it past the part where she had to use the jump dash, while she managed to beat this part on her first attempt.
Sunset noticed that at the end of the instructions, only recently stated, that using the parry slap would build up her super meter. She was confused at this.
"Hey, Pinkie? What's the 'Super Meter'?" Sunset asked.
"You see those playing cards at the bottom left of the screen?" Pinkie also asked.
Sunset followed what Pinkie said and she saw the playing cards. Two of them to be specific.
"They're there to show how much your super attack has built. Once they reach an amount of five you'll be able to unleash an extra awesome attack!" Pinkie explained, "But, if you have less than five you'll be able to shoot something called an EX move, which is just a better version of your finger gun. You're special attack takes up all five of your cards while the EX move only takes one."
"Huh, okay. But how do you do it?"
"You're about to find out..." Pinkie said in quite an unnerving manner.
Now Sunset was going to learn how to resurrect another player. This was only available in 2-Player mode so she didn't bother with that one.
Now she could learn how to use her EX move. All she had to do was press the B button. She gave it a press and then Cuphead shot a giant version of her peashooter.
"Woah-ho-ho! That looked awesome!" Sunset cheered.
"Did you use the EX move?" Pinkie wondered.
"Hell yeah I did!" Sunset said excitingly.
"There's no way it looked that awesome," Rainbow said unconvinced.
Sunset saved the last thirty seconds of what had just happened and sent it to Rainbow Dash. Yes, it's possible.
After sending Rainbow the video, Pinkie Pie and Sunset waited for her reaction. They didn't get one though. She was still in the party but she made no sound. Then they heard a sigh and Rainbow's voice.
"Okay, that was pretty cool," she said defeated.
Sunset cracked a smug face and pressed on to see what else awaited her. She ran into a gold coin.
"Huh, I think I made it to the end," she said.
"That means you will now have to face the true horrors of this game..." Pinkie with the same unnerving manner as before. "And take it from me, you will be given one hell-of-a hard time..."
"I think I got this," Sunset said trying not to sound nervous.
"This oughta be good," said Rainbow Dash cracking a smile on her own face.
She walked a little further and found a door which lead out of the tutorial. She pressed A to leave and with that, her adventure officially began.