In the Cuphead DLC, The Delicious Last Course, you’ll stumble onto the flying fortress of the King of Games, a sporting chap who’s offering vast riches to anyone who can defeat his pantheon of champions. We’re never one to turn down a good fight, especially for cash prizes. Here’s how to beat the King’s champions in Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course.
How to Beat the King’s Champions in Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course
The King’s castle houses five champions, and each one you beat will earn you two coins to spend at Porkrind’s Emporium, plus an extra coin for beating the last one. Here’s the catch, though: the King won’t let you use any weapons or special attacks in his domain. You can only fight his champions by parrying them, though thankfully all of these fights are deliberately engineered to make that easier.
While it’s not required, I’d recommend using Ms. Chalice for these fights over Cuphead or Mugman, as her parry dash is a little more speedy and flexible than their jumping parries.
Fight 1: The Pawns
This fight is pretty straightforward, just a warmup before we get to the tricky stuff. The Pawns will jump down from the rafters to run at you, leaving themselves open for you to parry their heads off. If you can parry the heads off of every Pawn, you win.
Be mindful of your spacing versus the Pawns’ trajectories. Even after you parry their heads off, they’ll keep coming at you until they’re all beaten, and they’ll do so gradually faster, so make sure you keep an eye on where you are versus where they’re going so you don’t bumble right into them.
Fight 2: The Knight
Next up is an old-school duel with the Knight. His weak spot is the pink plume on his helmet, but he’s got his sword raised, blocking passage to it. You’ll need to wait until he uses one of his attacks and leaves himself open, then dash in, smack the plume, and back away quickly.
The Knight has a few attacks at his disposal. If he crouches down, he’ll unleash a stab straight up. If his visor opens up, he’ll take a long, crescent swing to the sides and up. If he rears back, he’ll stab across to the other side of the stage. You have to stay near him while he’s moving about, or else he won’t attack. If you’re too far away, he’ll do a little “bring it on” motion with his hand to signal you to get closer.
Fight 3: The Bishop
The fight with the Bishop is a bit of a breather after the Knight. The Bishop’s head will float around the stage while he lights a few of his candles. Just walk over to any lit candle to extinguish it, and when they all go out, the Bishop’s head will turn pink, letting you parry it and damage him.
As the fight goes on, the Bishop will light more candles each time, but with a combination of dashing and dodge rolling, you can get to all of them fairly quickly. The only things you need to worry about are the Bishop’s head as it moves around and the small bells he launches. Remember, Ms. Chalice’s dodge roll is invincible, so use it a lot to move quickly along the floor of the stage and dodge any attacks.
Related: All New Bosses in Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course DLC- Which Is Hardest?
Fight 4: The Rook
Looks like the Rook has an ax to grind with you. He’ll start launching pink, parryable heads at you from his ax, as well as unparryable skulls that you’ll need to avoid. You need to parry a head back in his direction once or twice so it hits him.
Keep your eyes on the ground as well as the heads, because every time you the Rook with a skull, he’ll not only start launching heads faster and at weirder trajectories, but he’ll also start launching sparks from his grindstone on the ground. Try to stay in the air as much as you can with Ms. Chalice’s double jump and parry dash. When you pick a head to parry back, do your best to follow its trajectory back toward the Rook so you don’t drop it prematurely.
Fight 5: The Queen
The Queen, unsurprisingly, is the toughest member of the bunch, though that’s more due to how you’re supposed to fight her than her own fighting abilities. Along the floor of the stage are three cannons with pink, parryable fuses. The cannons are moving left and right on their own, and when you parry the fuse, they’ll launch a cannonball. You need to carefully lead the shot on the cannon’s and the Queen’s movements so the cannonball hits her square in the face. It has to be the face; body shots don’t count.
As for the Queen’s moves, she’ll drop a pink stack of lion statues on either side of the stage that you can parry away easily. Just be careful not to accidentally parry a cannon fuse when you go to parry the lions. She’ll also pull out two eggs that launch fancy projectiles around the stage, but just mind your placement and don’t try to get greedy about launching cannonballs while the screen is busy, and you can get back to firing at her when she stops.
Successfully defeat all five of the King’s champions, and he’ll reward you with 11 coins in total. He’ll move his ladder to the west coast of the island where you can re-challenge everyone at your leisure, as well as take on a Gauntlet of all five champions back-to-back. You don’t get anything for clearing that, it’s just for fun.
