A taste of Cuphead’s Delicious Last Course is as challenging and satisfying as ever

polygon.com:

Cuphead fans have waited five long years for the game’s expansion, The Delicious Last Course, and it’s finally almost here. The add-on will be released in June on all platforms. One of the expansion’s new bosses, Mortimer Freeze, brings new challenges and new gameplay systems to Cuphead’s style of run-and-gun fun, and Polygon recently spent the better part of an hour trying to take him down at a hands-on event.

Mortimer Freeze is a three-phase boss that we’ve briefly glimpsed in its first form in the Cuphead DLC’s release date announcement trailer at the end of 2022. We saw the boss’ second and third phases during the Summer Games Fest 2022 livestream. At the Summer Game Fest Play Days event in Los Angeles, I resolved to battle the boss until I’d bested it, which took dozens of attempts across about 45 minutes.

For the fight, I controlled Ms. Chalice, Cuphead’s new DLC character. She brings several new abilities to the table compared to Cuphead and Mugman: She has an extra point of HP, an inherent double jump that’s independent of parrying, and a dodge roll, plus her dash can act as a parry when you connect with a pink object. These abilities give her an edge over the game’s original characters, making it easier to take down tough foes.

However, playing as Ms. Chalice isn’t an automatic win button; her abilities will take time to master — particularly the dodge roll, which requires pressing the dash button while holding down on the control stick. That’s not so simple to perform in the heat of combat, but the invincibility frames it provides will make it worth working into your repertoire.

The Mortimer Freeze fight seemed designed to show off Ms. Chalice’s dodge roll and dash parry. In its first form, Mortimer flew above