Guide for Cuphead - Captain Brineybeard

The Captain has a lot going on to observe. The elements get added as you go along during the phases. This boss really has two larger phases rather than many small ones.

The most annoying piece here is the hitbox for each portion. I will discuss those in the respective phases though.

Phases

The two phases for this fight will be delineated based on the location of Captain Briney: On the ship or in the water.

Phase 1

• Briney's Gun
• Hung Chest
• Undersea Critters
• Ship Cannon

During this first phase, all of the above attacks will need to be contended with. The fight begins with only the first two, but the last two sets get added in as you deal more damage to Briney. The hitbox for the boss here is Briney himself. Your options are to either be in close and aim up at him or jump and fire at him horizontally.

I personally preferred the jump shot to diagonal shot. That was based on my weapon choice here. Mainly, this is the result of choosing the Charge shot once again.

Let's discuss this section piece by piece before putting it all together:

1. Briney's Gun - Briney's gun is pretty easy to spot. Briney pulls out a squid (?) and holds it like a gun. He will then proceed to shoot a few shots at you. Shots can be either pink or yellow. Pink can be parried and will be a great opportunity in the fight to build them up quickly. There are usually multiple pink shots in every use of this attack. This is your only opportunity for parries as well during the whole fight.
2. Hung Chest - The chest is an easy obstacle to dodge really. It will shift from left to right across the top of the screen the whole fight. If it is above you (or you pass below it), the chest will fall to the ground. It will then rise back up and repeat the sequence.
3. Undersea Critters - There are 3 critters here to be on the lookout for: Shark, Dog Sharks, and the Squid. Each of these critters is preceeded by Briney whistling for them. You then need to pay attention to the screen (background/foreground to see which one is coming and how to react.
   1. Shark - The Shark will have you see its fin pass by the back of the screen. When you see this, you need to move to the right side of the dock closer to the ship. The shark will then come on screen from the left side trying to chomp you.
   2. Dog Sharks - The seals will have you notice a pariscope come up from the water next to the ship.When this happens, you'll want to be towards the left side of the screen. The seals will then proceed to jump onto the dock and slide across it trying to bite you. A quick jump over them will easily get you past them.
   3. Squid - The squid actually has the least telegraphing that it's coming. It's also the least dangerous of the bunch.The squid is in the background at about the middle of the dock. It will pull out an ink bottle and fling a bunch of ink dots around. You have a few options dealing with this.
      1. Shoot the Squid - If you deal enough damage quickly, the squid will actually retreat before completely the attack
      2. Dodge the Ink - It isn't too bad to dodge. The attack pattern is very similar to the gumball machine for Bon Bon.
      3. Get Hit by the Ink - Touching ink doesn't actually hurt you directly. It only obstructs your vision. The more ink you touch then the more obstructed your view becomes.
4. Ship Cannon - Finally, the ship will actually fire shots at you. You'll notice this shot is coming when the ship is beginning to look like it's going to "hock a loogie". The loogie in this case is a cannonball. You only need to jump over it to dodge this attack (just like the dog sharks).

In terms of doing everything together, it isn't as difficult as it might sound. Briney's Gun and his Sea friends are usually decoupled attack wise. Since Briney has to fire the gun or summon the undersea critter, you won't see both happen at the same time. Additionally, the chest is only a danger when it's above you. I've found that it's best to stay to the left of the screen to observe what comes towards you. I only move in to dodge the chest or shark. Most of the other attacks require jumping at worst. Jumping also becomes important to get the parry of the gun shots.

After finally dealing enough damage, the ship will appear to be in some kind of pain/have indigestion of some sort and launch Briney off the ship and into the background. This will start the much shorter Phase 2.

Phase 2

During Phase 2, your target is the uvula in the ship's mouth. Phase 2 limits the fight to only two attackers - the chest and the ship. The chest will continue the same attack style it utilized in Phase 1. The ship has two attacks to look out for:

1) Fireballs - The fireball attack will come for the little uvula thing. These will have weird pattern of moving forward with a slight spiral motion. There will likely be two or three of them on screen at the same time. They can take a little getting used to, but the more annoying piece here is that the chest is still there.

I'd say focus on trying to jump over the fireballs. That seemed to be the best way to get past each individual one.

2) Laser Beam - The laser beam is much easier to notice. The ship will close its mouth. When it opens, a massive laser beam will engulf the platform. Your only option here is to duck. That is the easy part of dodging. Some people will notice that the chest can come down on you while you are crouched, but even then there is an option. You can dash while ducked down to get out of the way and remain ducked down. You should be able to deal with this attack easily as a result and not take a hit.

Difficulty

Difficult wise this boss doesn't have a lot going on differently.

Simple - Simple removes Phase 2 of the fight. This means the battle can be insanely quick. My video for this fight probably has more loading than actual battle. Additionally, all the attacks/shots move a lot slower.

Regular - Follows the patterns as detailed above

Expert - Expert isn't all that different. The attacks are little bit more stacked on top of each other, but other than that slight speed increase, the basic patterns are the same.

A-Rank Tips

I made some tips during the fight, but here is some more details:

My weapon loadout really consisted mostly of using Charge. Any other weapon didn't make much of a difference. Charge was most important because of the hitbox location for the bosses. Both Phases are slightly above level so you need to aim or jump for a hit. Charge allowed the best way for me to deal damage consistently. Chaser might have been decent as well.

Powers - Super laser (as always). Videos show me using +Hearts, but those are still not worth much for the A-rank. I didn't really find any made a big difference here. Any of the 3 main ones I've listed could help here. Smoke Bomb has limited uses here I'd say so don't feel compelled to use it.

For health, I've found that this fight can go really well or poorly each time. Depending on shot/attack order, I've had many times with this fight go perfectly. I've also had the cannonballs and animals time perfectly for me to take extra hits.

Supers I've actually been able to do 2 full 5-card sets in a single fight. By using the parry of Briney's gun, I could build up the super early and then again before using it during Phase 2. That means you can easily hit 6 super hits and get your 3 parries.

Videos

Simple

Regular

Expert

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