There’s no denying the fact that The Curse of Cupid leans heavily on Nintendo’s 1991 GameBoy classic, Kid Icarus, for inspiration… but if it ain’t broke, ya know? Fly around as a tiny winged character, kill enemies, collect hearts, buy upgrades, kill giant enemies, watch the credits. Simple, yet fun, and it works just as well some 30 years later, if on a somewhat smaller scale.
So, the goal in this one is to “curse the Emperor of Rome”, because why not? Oh, and something about Mars (the god) being cranky. I think. Honestly, the story’s incredibly barebones, but it’s there and it gets the job done. In case you actually needed a reason to flap about, platforming your way across clouds that disappear and reappear – straight out of Mega Man‘s Ice Man stage – and gun (metaphorically speaking) down eagle and bee alike. That’s all I got to experience as I kept running out of lives, either by plummeting my death or colliding with those pesky bees, before making much progress, at least. The game’s itch.io page does show spiders and other nasty creatures lie ahead – you know, for those better than me.
Apparently the winged protagonist also gets to battle humans further into The Curse of Cupid, as according to the developer, you have an infinite amount of golden arrows that can only harm humans, while the red ones are in finite supply, capable of laying waste to any beast. Interesting. Since bee and bird alike each yielded three hearts upon falling to my mighty red arrow, and ten red arrows cost ten hearts… that really doesn’t give you much leeway. No ‘grinding’ either, as the only way to respawn enemies is by losing a life. As such, aim carefully, or you might find yourself with no other option but to avoid combat completely. Until you encounter humans. Because again, unlimited arrows to kill tho– wait, why… is that even a thing? Arrows are arrows. Are they magical or something? Probably safest to simply chalk it up to ‘video game logic’ and go for another round of bird-and-bee slaying. Maybe this time I’ll progress?
The Curse of Cupid is available on itch.io for free.
