The Devil

The Devil is the main antagonist and final boss of Cuphead. He owns the casino, The Devil's Casino, the place where Cuphead & Mugman's adventure started & ended. The Devil is the also specified as the rule of Inkwell Hell.

Appearance
The Devil is a large character with dark grey fur on his body. His body shape is human-shaped & he has grey feet & hands. The Devil's eyes have black color & yellow filling, and has light grey horns. He also has noses with dark nostrils, he also has wolf-like ears. He seemingly has grey eyelids & white claws.

On his second phase, The Devil grows to a massive size, with his body & eye color becoming dark red. His horns & eye filling are golden yellow. The Devil's teeth are seemingly sharper than before. In addition, his teeth are darker & he gained giant eyeshines.

Personality
Much like many depictions of Satan, The Devil is a cruel and malevolent being that grants deals to anyone who asks in exchange for their soul and servitude. He can be a clever trickster as well, turning Cuphead and Mugman into his slaves despite agreeing to spare them if they hand over all of the soul contracts. He also lacks empathy towards everyone, including his own minions, as evident by him calling King Dice a "good-for-nothing lackey" after he has been beaten. The Devil's main trait is that he is incredibly prideful of himself, believing he will always win in the end as he brushes King Dice off when he tries to warn him about the brothers becoming stronger.

Battle
Phase 1 = In this phase, the Devil appears on his normal appearance sitting on his throne, his attacks involve animal transformations and his trident. In addition, Demons appear behind his throne and come up to the foreground & try to attract the players. By chanting an incantation and swinging his trident, he can create one of three projectile attacks:


 * Creating four crystal balls that bounce around the arena erratically. One of the four can be parried.
 * Creating five fireballs moving left to right and back; four blue fireballs revolve around one pink one, which can be parried.
 * Creating six fireballs fixed in a hexagon formation, which home in on the players. One of the six can be parried.
 * He also uses three transformations, each with its own attack, the hardest seems to be the Serpent transformation and easiest seems to be the Spider transformation, by the way, those are listed below:

After escaping through the hole, the final battle commences as the Devil grows to a massive size and players fight him on five floating platforms. In this phase, players have to shoot at his large yellow eyes while dodging his first two attacks:
 * Spider - The Devil grows four extra arms and detaches his head as it grows four extra eyes, two smaller horns and four small legs to resemble a spider. In this transformation, he primarily attacks by slamming down three times before reverting to his original form.
 * Ram - His head becomes a ram and he extends his arms from both sides to crush the players in the middle. This attack can be tricky, as players have to jump at the precise moment to not get hit. Alternatively, the player can crouch to avoid this attack.
 * Serpent - His head becomes a draconic serpent and extends to either side as a means to corner the players so they can be hit by his minions.
 * -| Phase 2 =

Throughout the phase, flaming poker chips fall from the sky and land on to the platforms, damaging the players standing beneath them. These poker chips follow a pattern: if the first poker chip appears at the left, the next chip will appear at the right, vice versa if the first poker chip appears at the right. Once at the other end, it will loop back around. In addition, he summons Imps to attack the players.
 * By joining his two eyes into one, he summons a fiery axe that moves in a spiral motion that will damage the players if they run into it.
 * A bat bomb is created from one eye and spawned through either the left and right ears, depending on the eye he spawns them in. If the players fail to neutralize the bomb by parrying it, the bomb will explode covering a wide radius.

After taking enough hits, the Devil will become frustrated and the platforms will be reduced to three which increases the chance of poker chips falling onto the players. The Devil will no longer fight Cuphead and Mugman directly; Instead, he will summon his minions to damage the players in one of two ways:

After taking enough hits, the Devil will go into a physical and mental breakdown, losing his teeth and crying. In this final sub-phase, the Devil is reduced to using the poker chips and his own tears to damage the players. Only one platform remains in the center as players have to dodge the falling poker chip and dash back to the platform while avoiding his tears. All of the tears can be parried. After the Devil takes enough damage, he is beaten for good.
 * He will summon flying demons from both side to shoot skulls at them. Occasionally, pink skulls appear that can be parried. These demons can be shot down when enough damage is dealt to them.
 * Above his head is a group of small, blue-winged demons that home in on the players. These demons can also be dispatched fairly easily by shooting at them.

Color Scheme
Phase 1 =
 * -| Phase 2 =

Trivia

 * In the beginning of the story, he represents "double or nothing" in Craps, which Cuphead and Mugman played together. However he added the taking of their souls if they lose the bet.
 * The Devil's design is based on the Devil from "Hell's Bells", a short from Silly Symphonies. In addition, The Devil's transformation into a spider is based from the spider at the beginning of Hell's Bells.
 * Originally, The Devil brings evil and temptations from the bible. Like Cuphead and Mugman, they make an immoral action by playing in the casino.
 * If the player agrees to giving the Devil all the soul contracts, this will result in getting the bad ending where Cuphead and Mugman become corrupt minions. This is most likely a reference to the bad ending in Contra: Hard Corps in which the player is invited by Colonel Bahamut to join him.
 * The Devil’s first phase form is similar to Loki's and Emperor Sardius's, respectively the final bosses from Capcom’s Ghouls 'n' Ghosts and Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts.
 * The animation for his second phase may have been inspired by the lightings on Chernobog from Fantasia's Night on Bald Mountain.
 * The screen when refusing to give the contracts to the Devil had animated variant used in E3 2017 trailer, but never used in the final version. This might have hinted, that the game was originally supposed to have animated cutscenes.
 * The Devil's crystal ball attack is a close match and a possible reference to one of Crystal Man's attacks from Mega Man 5.
 * At the end of the serpent transformation in the first phase of the Devil's boss fight, there is a lingering hit-box in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. This means that if the player stays in the corner after the attack has ended, they can be hit by a seemingly invisible object and lose life.
 * Due to a bug, it is possible to deal damage to the Devil by shooting a hurt-box that appears off-screen to the left of the stage. This can be exploited to defeat The Devil's final phase very easily, as seen in this video.
 * The Devil, like King Dice, cannot be fought in Simple difficulty; only on Regular and Expert.
 * In the game code, Phase 2 is labeled as Phase 3, meaning that there is a phase missing.
 * The quote for the final phase's death screen is a possible reference to M. Bison's victory screen from the console version of Street Fighter II.
 * The achievement for defeating The Devil is called Swing You Sinners, a reference to the 1930 cartoon of the same name.