Cuphead

Cuphead commits fully to a 1930s rubber-hose cartoon look, hand-drawn frame by frame with an actual jazz recording session behind the soundtrack, and then builds a genuinely difficult run-and-gun boss rush underneath that charming exterior rather than softening the challenge to match the friendly art style.

Every boss telegraphs its attacks through animation specific to that fight, so learning to read the wind-up frames of a specific pattern matters far more than raw reflexes once you've died to it a few times. Parrying pink projectiles for a brief invincibility window and super meter charge is easy to forget under pressure, but working it into a fight's rhythm rather than only dodging tends to turn an unwinnable-feeling boss into a manageable one. Bendy and the Ink Machine revisits the same 1930s cartoon aesthetic from a horror angle instead.