Of course, assuming this is what these journalists mean when they tout Crash Bandicoot as the ‘ Dark Souls of Platforming’ or Cuphead as ‘The Brighter, Happier Dark Souls of Platform Shooters’, this still begs the question of why Dark Souls? After all, Dark Souls didn’t invent challenging gameplay, and in fact there are several more fitting comparisons that could be made in this regard.įor instance, both the classic NES titles Mega Man and Contra are platform shooters that revolve around rapid response times and memorising enemy patterns, just like Cuphead. Just as you may have to retry the same platforming section in Crash or the same boss in Cuphead a number of times in order to pass, so to do you have to replay multiple segments in any given installment of Dark Souls, figuring out the right time to attack and learning the boss’ pattern. Naturally, when people compare Cuphead or Crash to Dark Souls, they are obviously trying to convey that these games are both unforgivingly difficult and involve a certain degree of trial and error. Now, rather than jumping on the bandwagon of relentlessly mocking these journalists for their claims, I instead want to examine this comparison.
In both cases, a platforming game with bright visuals and a cheerful atmosphere drew comparison from multiple game journalists to Dark Souls, a series that, to put it lightly, has about as much thematic similarity to said games as Hannibal Lecter guest starring on Sesame Street. This comparison, between the newly released and latest indie darling Cuphead and the firmly established Dark Souls series, is reflective of a somewhat odd trend that has emerged this year, starting, funnily enough, with another light-hearted, comedic game being compared to the incredibly grim and depressing Dark Souls, in this case, the remastered Crash Bandicoot N. It’s a strange world in which a game where you play an anthropomorphic cup fighting psychic carrots and genies who summon floating pyramids that shoot lasers gets compared to many things, least of all a game centered around a post-apocalyptic dark fantasy where you play an undead abomination, but it would seem that’s the world we live in.
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