Dark Scrolls made me miss the glory of beating a retro side-scroller and now I want another Cuphead

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but there’s nothing quite as rewarding as beating a difficult game. Growing up playing Bandicoot‘s Cold Hard Crash, figuring out Spyro‘s Tree Tops, learning the cruelty of permadeath early on in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and going Platinum in TimeSplitters‘ challenges will do that to a person. The glory has since passed over to the likes of Elden Ring, Nine Sols, Fear & Hunger. My drive to beat them is not fuelled by nostalgia, but by pride, ego, and aura-farming. Seeing the words “PREY SLAUGHTERED” can bring a tear to any eye, yet there’s always the demand for more—for another challenge, for another hurdle to bulldoze over. I prayed something would satiate my hunger, so I turned to doinksoft’s Dark Scrolls. Paying homage to the very games that shaped my childhood—Rayman and Abe’s Oddysee, Dark Scrolls is a 16-bit action-platformer that demands you come back for secondshttps://embeds.beehiiv.com/a8d62108-86ed-4039-bf49-44877ba62c15 Screenshot by Destructoid Screenshot by Destructoid Screenshot by Destructoid Screenshot by Destructoid Screenshot by Destructoid [/url] [/url] [/url] Colorful 2D animation and only three buttons to press, with secrets to find and a gimmick to ensure you keep on, keeping on, Dark Scrolls is—aesthetically—perfect. Developer doinksoft, creators of Gato Roboto, Demon Throttle, and my personal favorite of theirs, Gunbrella, showed up with yet another entertaining and charming retro-inspired 2D adventure. But it has some kinks that need ironing out. Dark Scrolls is, in true retro fashion, simplistic in its design. The auto-scrolling and three-button gameplay loop is slow and repetitive at its core, but there’s a learning curve reminiscent of loading up a 2D platformer on the PS1. Nothing is explained or handed to you—a blessing in today’s current climate of hand-holding video games. As it takes a moment to understand what you’re supposed to be doing and how the three starting characters have an ultimate and a unique perk system to match, Dark Scrolls certainly appears challenging at first. Secrets keep you invested to keep going on, run after run, switching things up as you play to find new areas and bosses to fight, alongside mysterious items you don’t know what to do with. While it has some rather obnoxious ideas like the nonsensical choice to have everything honking at you instead of dialogue, these are nothing compared to its biggest fault: Once you understand the basics, Dark Scrolls becomes far too easy. Challenge becomes fundamental when less is more. Video by Destructoid What I miss about retro side-scrollers is how impossibly hard they can be Image via FromSoftware Similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Elden Ring, the set difficulty makes you question three things. 1. Who said this was okay? 2. Has the developer even beaten this boss? and 3. Does God hate me? Genuinely difficult games cause an existential crisis, make you question everything you ever believed in, and push you past your breaking point. It is the closest we gamers will get to participating in the Olympics or flying to the moon. I swear, each time we beat an impossible level or boss, we get a step closer to those pearly gates. I had hoped a similar feeling would arrive from Dark Scrolls, but sadly, I was mistaken. Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean the game is bad by any means. Quite the opposite, I believe it’s a good time in short bursts for secret-obsessed gamers like myself. It is the more modern, arcadey attempt at a retro-inspired platformer that wants you to actually enjoy what you’re playing. Yet I couldn’t help but reminisce about Cuphead, the only side-scroller in recent years that has fulfilled me as Rayman and Oddworld did when I was a child. Beating Cuphead deserves to be put on résumés Screenshot by Destructoid Ah, Cuphead. It is the very game that put many game journalists’ credibility into question, as even getting past the tutorial seemed like an impossible task for critics. It is a relentless, unforgiving hellscape of practise, practice, practice until your brain’s contents empty like Cuphead and Mugman’s. You are being challenged frame-by-frame for absolute perfection. You are being asked not to be distracted by its glorious, jaw-dropping animation. You are demanded to lock in, to not blink, to never miss a beat. Those few minutes per level pass by in a blink of an eye, yet felt like years for you to come out the other side a stronger, more resilient person because you never gave up. There were occasions where I felt like I had been transported back to that pixel heaven where only madmen play. But you can let your mind wander inside a game like Dark Scrolls. You just have to stay mindful that something is always spawning off-screen and keep on, keeping on by button-mashing or worse, hitting Grizz’s slam on repeat for infinite invulnerability, making you immortal against all bosses. Yes, within two hours of playing, I found a way to cheese t

Jun 29, 2026 - 04:41

Dark Scrolls made me miss the glory of beating a retro side-scroller and now I want another Cuphead

Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but there’s nothing quite as rewarding as beating a difficult game. Growing up playing Bandicoot‘s Cold Hard Crash, figuring out Spyro‘s Tree Tops, learning the cruelty of permadeath early on in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and going Platinum in TimeSplitters‘ challenges will do that to a person.

The glory has since passed over to the likes of Elden Ring, Nine Sols, Fear & Hunger. My drive to beat them is not fuelled by nostalgia, but by pride, ego, and aura-farming. Seeing the words “PREY SLAUGHTERED” can bring a tear to any eye, yet there’s always the demand for more—for another challenge, for another hurdle to bulldoze over. I prayed something would satiate my hunger, so I turned to doinksoft’s Dark Scrolls.

Paying homage to the very games that shaped my childhood—Rayman and Abe’s Oddysee, Dark Scrolls is a 16-bit action-platformer that demands you come back for seconds

https://embeds.beehiiv.com/a8d62108-86ed-4039-bf49-44877ba62c15

Screenshot by Destructoid
Screenshot by Destructoid
Screenshot by Destructoid
Screenshot by Destructoid
Screenshot by Destructoid

[/url] [/url] [/url] Colorful 2D animation and only three buttons to press, with secrets to find and a gimmick to ensure you keep on, keeping on, Dark Scrolls is—aesthetically—perfect. Developer doinksoft, creators of Gato Roboto, Demon Throttle, and my personal favorite of theirs, Gunbrella, showed up with yet another entertaining and charming retro-inspired 2D adventure. But it has some kinks that need ironing out.

Dark Scrolls is, in true retro fashion, simplistic in its design. The auto-scrolling and three-button gameplay loop is slow and repetitive at its core, but there’s a learning curve reminiscent of loading up a 2D platformer on the PS1. Nothing is explained or handed to you—a blessing in today’s current climate of hand-holding video games. As it takes a moment to understand what you’re supposed to be doing and how the three starting characters have an ultimate and a unique perk system to match, Dark Scrolls certainly appears challenging at first.

Secrets keep you invested to keep going on, run after run, switching things up as you play to find new areas and bosses to fight, alongside mysterious items you don’t know what to do with. While it has some rather obnoxious ideas like the nonsensical choice to have everything honking at you instead of dialogue, these are nothing compared to its biggest fault: Once you understand the basics, Dark Scrolls becomes far too easy.

Challenge becomes fundamental when less is more. Video by Destructoid

What I miss about retro side-scrollers is how impossibly hard they can be

Image via FromSoftware Similar to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Elden Ring, the set difficulty makes you question three things. 1. Who said this was okay? 2. Has the developer even beaten this boss? and 3. Does God hate me?

Genuinely difficult games cause an existential crisis, make you question everything you ever believed in, and push you past your breaking point. It is the closest we gamers will get to participating in the Olympics or flying to the moon. I swear, each time we beat an impossible level or boss, we get a step closer to those pearly gates. I had hoped a similar feeling would arrive from Dark Scrolls, but sadly, I was mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t mean the game is bad by any means. Quite the opposite, I believe it’s a good time in short bursts for secret-obsessed gamers like myself. It is the more modern, arcadey attempt at a retro-inspired platformer that wants you to actually enjoy what you’re playing. Yet I couldn’t help but reminisce about Cuphead, the only side-scroller in recent years that has fulfilled me as Rayman and Oddworld did when I was a child.

Beating Cuphead deserves to be put on résumés

Screenshot by Destructoid Ah, Cuphead. It is the very game that put many game journalists’ credibility into question, as even getting past the tutorial seemed like an impossible task for critics. It is a relentless, unforgiving hellscape of practise, practice, practice until your brain’s contents empty like Cuphead and Mugman’s.

You are being challenged frame-by-frame for absolute perfection. You are being asked not to be distracted by its glorious, jaw-dropping animation. You are demanded to lock in, to not blink, to never miss a beat. Those few minutes per level pass by in a blink of an eye, yet felt like years for you to come out the other side a stronger, more resilient person because you never gave up.

There were occasions where I felt like I had been transported back to that pixel heaven where only madmen play. But you can let your mind wander inside a game like Dark Scrolls. You just have to stay mindful that something is always spawning off-screen and keep on, keeping on by button-mashing or worse, hitting Grizz’s slam on repeat for infinite invulnerability, making you immortal against all bosses. Yes, within two hours of playing, I found a way to cheese the entire game. And yes, I am ashamed of myself.

I’ve searched and searched for a challenge unlike any other

Image by Studio MDHR But challenges like this, I’ve found, have recently only existed in metroidvanias and soulslikes, or in rare cases, from a game like Cuphead. Though FromSoftware is the biggest and best to ever do it, I need another Cuphead to satisfy my needs and truly test me, otherwise I’m plugging my PlayStation 1 back in. Don’t try me, I’ll do it.

0 The post Dark Scrolls made me miss the glory of beating a retro side-scroller and now I want another Cuphead appeared first on Destructoid.

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