Cupheadis one of my favorite games of all time, paying homage to a cartoon style I love whilst being adamn good gameon top of it. Being such a runaway hit, there were bound to be imitators sooner or later, chief among them Enchanted Portals, an indie title that had viewers up in armswith its 2019 trailer. Not only does the game carry a more-or-less similar rubberhose cartoon style to Cuphead but this first trailer featured nothing but bosses fought in the exact same way as Cuphead’s.
Well, after four years Xixo Games Studios has finally released Enchanted Portals, and the press has been, well, pretty bad. In fairness, the game has a lot of rough spots—from a lack of invincibility frames after getting hit to some poor level design—but it has its better moments too. Sure, it’s undoubtedlyderivative, but is that really such a bad thing? I mean,I just reviewed a Bloodborne-derivative game, and really enjoyed it! When it’s not something that could be called a mockbuster (I don’t think anyone in the market for Cuphead will get the two mixed up), the rage around the title’s seems overblown.
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Let’s start with the game itself. Just like Cuphead is divided into run-and-gun sections and boss fights, Enchanted Portals is the same—with a pair of platforming protagonists boasting a near-identical moveset to Cuphead’s. Where the latter is mostly boss fights with just six run-and-gun stages, however, Enchanted Portals focuses much more on the run-and-gun part—with a couple of levels leading up to each boss fight.
This is where the problems kick off, mainly that these levels are randomly generated; various elements of the stage are swapped around each time you play. The random generation is less the problem compared to the reason it can occur, that being how the stage elements are pretty blasé. It doesn’t help that these levels are long and don’t give you any indication of your progress after death, so you’re left aimlessly wandering through repeated cycles of spammed enemies and mediocre platforming.
Cuphead’s versions of these have you go up slopes, vertical platforms, run on the ceiling etc. The levels are of similar length, with occasional cases of enemy spam, but they’re constantly fresh and varied. Of course Cuphead had a bigger budget and a bigger team, but tightening these drawn-out levels would’ve likely reduced the workload, if anything.
The controls are actually not half-bad (save for some wonky physics), and copying Cuphead’s homework for the control layout is a good case of not fixing what isn’t broken. On the other hand, the spell wheel is practically pointless save for a few color-coded enemies, and immunity frames are practically non-existent. The matrix level (which we do not talk about lest it inhabit my nightmares tonight) in particular has sections thatwillmake your character the subject of a rather painful Rube Goldberg machine as you get slapped around between mines, police lasers, and giant viruses with nary a frame of mercy.
However, there are quite a few positives here. The animation is an obvious one. It’s not as lively as Cuphead, nor is it as consistent (the backgrounds and many character designs strike me as ill-fitting), but a lot of it impressed me quite a bit. There are some pretty clever designs, some fun takes on fairytale characters, and some really fluid animation. I also liked the shield mechanic as an option for when jumping around like a maniac doesn’t cut it, adding a good bit of depth and decision-making when in a bind.
The bosses are definitely the highlight. Not only do they not outstay their welcome like the run-and-gun parts, but they actually keep things fresh throughout. Boss 2 is particularly good with this, introducing a short non-combat snippet to the fight, as a cow DJs on a space station, while a couple of his disco-dancing pals flank him on either side. It’s a basic game of moving away from falling tiles whilst a disco beat played, but I enjoyed the goofy animations and reprieve from a hectic first phase (not to mention how said beat is now stuck in my head). They could do with being just a bit more exciting, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having fun. Ironically, if Enchanted Portals wasmorelike Cuphead and cut most of its run-and-gun stages (especially the matrix level), it’d be greatly improved.
So Enchanted Portals is pretty much the definition of a mid-tier indie game. Nothing groundbreaking and often frustrating, but not on the level of an entirely bad game. It’s noThe Last Hope-tier mockbuster, so why has it always been treated like it is? Even if the game’s not great, the effort and passion behind it is clearly on display.
The issue always comes back to it pretty shamelessly ripping off Cuphead, but in this instance I can’t really see how that’s a bad thing. They’re not stealing assets or tracing Cuphead’s animation—hell, they’re not even marketing it as a spiritual successor or as something inspired by Cuphead. Games likeYooka-Layleeor the now-infamous Mighty Number Nine were praised when they were announced despite being pitched as carbon copies of games that came before, the only difference being that they had the original creators of said games behind them. However, if the end product is still a love letter to another game either way, the result is the same. There isn’t an ethical transgression here and there never was.
Honestly, I was pretty excited for Enchanted Portals because I love Cuphead and want to play more of it. It might not be the best imitation, but it’s nothing I regret playing. It’s not an exercise in plagiarism, it’s just a decent game heavily inspired by another, far superior, title.
