Cuphead

Cuphead's gameplay is centered on continual boss fights, interspersed with run-and-gun levels. Each is housed in one of four worlds, with the final fight against the Devil. Each boss fight includes a simple, normal, and expert difficulty mode (with the exception of the final two bosses, which lack a simple mode). Defeating every boss on normal mode is required to complete the game, and expert mode is unlocked upon completion. Most boss battles are on land, and several are in aeroplanes in levels which play like side-scrolling shoot 'em ups. The game includes role-playing elements and a branching level sequence. Player characters have infinite lives, maintaining all equipment between deaths. Equippable weapons and special abilities known as Charms can be purchased from Porkrind's Emporium, an in-game shop, using coins found in levels and the overworld.

Player characters can use a slapping parry attack on objects marked in pink to various effects, the most important of them being increasing a super meter that enables more powerful attacks. The super meter is represented by a row of five playing cards, all of which must be filled to use one of the three strongest attacks ("Super Arts") in the player's inventory. A less powerful strike can be executed at the cost of one card, its particular form determined by the currently equipped weapon. The Super Arts are earned by entering three mausoleums, one in each of the first three worlds, and parrying a group of invading ghosts to stop them from reaching an urn at the center of the screen. After completing a level, the player is ranked with a grade based on performance, based on factors such as the time taken to complete the level, damage avoided, and number of parried attacks. The levels are accessible through a top-down perspective overworld with its own secret areas. The game has a two-player local cooperative mode, in which either player character can return to the game after being killed if the other one parries his soul before it rises off the screen.