Uploaded June 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Featuring Sublime's crazy Super Skip setup on Ribby and Croaks. Good run!
FAQ:
- Why is the timer pausing every once in a while?
This run is timed without loading times with an automatic program that accurately pauses the timer only during loading screens. This is because different people have different loading times due to differences in their PC's specs, so the official leaderboards on speedrun.com use this method of timing to even out the playing field.
- How are you still using the Weapon Swap Glitch?
For the uninitiated, the Weapon Swap Glitch (WSG for short) is an exploit present in the 1.0 version of the game only. In this release the cooldown of Cuphead's inactive weapon is still going down even while the other weapon is currently being used, so by rapidly swapping active weapons it's possible to essentially make use of both weapons at the same time.
This exploit was fixed in version 1.1 and beyond, but version 1.0 remains available for use in the steam beta branches and rolling back to that build is fairly trivial. Obviously for this run I used version 1.0. That's what "Legacy" means as a matter of fact, it's just the name that the community decided to give the 1.0 category.
For detailed instructions about how to install old versions give this a read (section 5.2): docs.google.com/document/d/1ucyANIrtNijyi0NJc0foCTJ8V16hefsZORM4Nin2oIA/edit?usp=sharing
- How did you clip through the ledge in Forest Follies?
This is a 1.0 and 1.1 exclusive glitch. Simply approaching ledges from specific heights and dashing at a frame perfect timing next to them will clip Cuphead through. In this spot it allows to skip the fight with the acorn maker, which saves 4 seconds.
- Why are you missing your lobber Ex moves?
-Because I suck and I can't aim properly- Another 1.0 and 1.1 exclusive glitch. Making a lobber Ex move impact with the floor makes it explode twice, meaning that the cloud's hitbox will deal double the damage compared to its direct impact counterpart. It's possible to even deal triple the damage at times by hitting a precise unit position in-between an entity and the floor, dealing direct impact damage in addition to the glitched double damage. Other times it's possible to hit for 4x and 5x damage on specific hitboxes for reasons not well understood yet.
- How did you freeze Hilda Berg?
This is a 1.0 exclusive glitch: by clearing the sagittarius/gemini phase at a specific frame window while she's going backwards to the right side of the screen, it's possible to get her frozen in that phase, which skips a later phase transition during which she'd be invincible, and saves 6-7 seconds.
We can talk about this in terms of a health range; the glitch works on approximately a 20 HP range, which is about 5 bullets. So the amount of damage that needs to be dealt needs to be very specific, down to a handful of bullets.
- How did you freeze Djimmi The Great?
Yet another 1.0 exclusive glitch. It's no wonder this is such a fast version for a speedrun. Anyway, this is simply caused by dishing out the required amount of damage to clear the sarcophagus phase before it's even supposed to begin, which leads to the fight progress never getting past that phase and making it possible to defeat Djimmi inside of it and skip two phase transitions. This is aided by the existence of an offscreen hitbox down in the center, which can be hit with minibombs. The reason why this hitbox exists is because it's used in phase 4, so as soon as that would start it'd get teleported from there to the visible screen.
- How did you freeze Beppi The Clown?
This works with the same exact mechanism that makes the Djimmi freeze work, it's simply a matter of overdamaging Beppi so that phase 2 gets cleared before he jumps off his kart in phase 1. Interestingly enough, this glitch still works in the lastest version of the game (as of the time of this writing, 1.2), thouch much much more difficult to trigger without WSG.
- How did you freeze Grim Matchstick?
Same thing, read above.
- How did you end Dr. Kahl's Robot's fight in phase 1?
1.0 exclusive glitch yet again. By finishing off the heart with simultaneous damage sources (in this case a bomb Ex which spawns 6 magnets at the same time) when it's at a low enough health range, the fight simply ends in phase 1. It most likely has to do with how the damage calculation worked in 1.0 for this fight, which is different with how it's handled in later versions.
- How did you skip the monkey miniboss in King Dice's gauntlet?
Another 1.0 exclusive. Parrying a pair of cards so the monkey stops at one of the edges of the screen, then scrolling the screen in the opposite direction, makes the miniboss go out of bounds and ends the fight immediately.
- Why did you pause buffer on The Devil?
This regains control of Cuphead sooner.
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: Left Trigger
Ex Shoot: A
Switch Weapon: X
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y
Twitch channel: twitch.tv/sbdwolf
Featuring Sublime's crazy Super Skip setup on Ribby and Croaks. Good run!
FAQ:
- Why is the timer pausing every once in a while?
This run is timed without loading times with an automatic program that accurately pauses the timer only during loading screens. This is because different people have different loading times due to differences in their PC's specs, so the official leaderboards on speedrun.com use this method of timing to even out the playing field.
- How are you still using the Weapon Swap Glitch?
For the uninitiated, the Weapon Swap Glitch (WSG for short) is an exploit present in the 1.0 version of the game only. In this release the cooldown of Cuphead's inactive weapon is still going down even while the other weapon is currently being used, so by rapidly swapping active weapons it's possible to essentially make use of both weapons at the same time.
This exploit was fixed in version 1.1 and beyond, but version 1.0 remains available for use in the steam beta branches and rolling back to that build is fairly trivial. Obviously for this run I used version 1.0. That's what "Legacy" means as a matter of fact, it's just the name that the community decided to give the 1.0 category.
For detailed instructions about how to install old versions give this a read (section 5.2): docs.google.com/document/d/1ucyANIrtNijyi0NJc0foCTJ8V16hefsZORM4Nin2oIA/edit?usp=sharing
- How did you clip through the ledge in Forest Follies?
This is a 1.0 and 1.1 exclusive glitch. Simply approaching ledges from specific heights and dashing at a frame perfect timing next to them will clip Cuphead through. In this spot it allows to skip the fight with the acorn maker, which saves 4 seconds.
- Why are you missing your lobber Ex moves?
-Because I suck and I can't aim properly- Another 1.0 and 1.1 exclusive glitch. Making a lobber Ex move impact with the floor makes it explode twice, meaning that the cloud's hitbox will deal double the damage compared to its direct impact counterpart. It's possible to even deal triple the damage at times by hitting a precise unit position in-between an entity and the floor, dealing direct impact damage in addition to the glitched double damage. Other times it's possible to hit for 4x and 5x damage on specific hitboxes for reasons not well understood yet.
- How did you freeze Hilda Berg?
This is a 1.0 exclusive glitch: by clearing the sagittarius/gemini phase at a specific frame window while she's going backwards to the right side of the screen, it's possible to get her frozen in that phase, which skips a later phase transition during which she'd be invincible, and saves 6-7 seconds.
We can talk about this in terms of a health range; the glitch works on approximately a 20 HP range, which is about 5 bullets. So the amount of damage that needs to be dealt needs to be very specific, down to a handful of bullets.
- How did you freeze Djimmi The Great?
Yet another 1.0 exclusive glitch. It's no wonder this is such a fast version for a speedrun. Anyway, this is simply caused by dishing out the required amount of damage to clear the sarcophagus phase before it's even supposed to begin, which leads to the fight progress never getting past that phase and making it possible to defeat Djimmi inside of it and skip two phase transitions. This is aided by the existence of an offscreen hitbox down in the center, which can be hit with minibombs. The reason why this hitbox exists is because it's used in phase 4, so as soon as that would start it'd get teleported from there to the visible screen.
- How did you freeze Beppi The Clown?
This works with the same exact mechanism that makes the Djimmi freeze work, it's simply a matter of overdamaging Beppi so that phase 2 gets cleared before he jumps off his kart in phase 1. Interestingly enough, this glitch still works in the lastest version of the game (as of the time of this writing, 1.2), thouch much much more difficult to trigger without WSG.
- How did you freeze Grim Matchstick?
Same thing, read above.
- How did you end Dr. Kahl's Robot's fight in phase 1?
1.0 exclusive glitch yet again. By finishing off the heart with simultaneous damage sources (in this case a bomb Ex which spawns 6 magnets at the same time) when it's at a low enough health range, the fight simply ends in phase 1. It most likely has to do with how the damage calculation worked in 1.0 for this fight, which is different with how it's handled in later versions.
- How did you skip the monkey miniboss in King Dice's gauntlet?
Another 1.0 exclusive. Parrying a pair of cards so the monkey stops at one of the edges of the screen, then scrolling the screen in the opposite direction, makes the miniboss go out of bounds and ends the fight immediately.
- Why did you pause buffer on The Devil?
This regains control of Cuphead sooner.
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: Left Trigger
Ex Shoot: A
Switch Weapon: X
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y
Twitch channel: twitch.tv/sbdwolf


![[Former World Record] All Bosses Speedrun - 30:41 - Current Patch, Regular, Solo - Cuphead
Was a record set on the 27th of August 2018 for a few hours before I got my 30:29.
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: Left Trigger
Ex Shoot: A
Switch Weapon: X
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y [Former World Record] All Bosses Speedrun - 30:41 - Current Patch, Regular, Solo - Cuphead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fPgVB1D1TXQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Former World Record] Low% Speedrun - 36:16 - Current Patch, Expert, Solo - Cuphead
Deathless. Solid
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: X
Ex Shoot: Left Trigger
Switch Weapon: A
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y [Former World Record] Low% Speedrun - 36:16 - Current Patch, Expert, Solo - Cuphead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fjS6O6Mb5jg/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Former World Record] All Flags Speedrun - 41:14 - Current Patch, Expert, Solo - Cuphead
Deathless, not bad. Though its not by any means optimal.
I had my mic muted for the first part of the run. Apologies
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: Left Trigger
Ex Shoot: A
Switch Weapon: X
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y [Former World Record] All Flags Speedrun - 41:14 - Current Patch, Expert, Solo - Cuphead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gLHXSGRD4OQ/mqdefault.jpg)

![[Former World Record] Any% - 29:10 - Current Patch, Solo - Cuphead
If youve never seen a Cuphead speedrun before, Id highly recommend you to watch an All Bosses run instead. The Any% category allows the use of the Menu Glitch, which means that the pause menu is going to cover the screen most of the time. This glitch is banned in all other categories.
About the run itself, I had a death, on top of missing the Menu Glitch on 3 fights, so the time could be more than a minute lower. But somehow I dont feel like I want to run this category again in the near future :P
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: X
Ex Shoot: Left Trigger
Switch Weapon: Right Trigger
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y [Former World Record] Any% - 29:10 - Current Patch, Solo - Cuphead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gm15TJnM42Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Former World Record] All Flags Speedrun - 27:15 - Current Patch, Simple, Solo - Cuphead
Kind of an okay run. Improvable for sure but Ill take it considering how niche of a category this is.
Watch live at https://www.twitch.tv/sbdwolf
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: Left Trigger
Ex Shoot: A
Switch Weapon: X
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y [Former World Record] All Flags Speedrun - 27:15 - Current Patch, Simple, Solo - Cuphead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/guc1Cddu9lg/mqdefault.jpg)
![(Former WR) The Lion King Any% (Easy, SNES) Speedrun in 12:08 [Live Recording]
Apologies for the doubled audio in the first half of the run, check further down into the description for a gameplay only version if its too bothersome. Or for any other reasons. Its there.
Good run overall, but had some bad stages both in the early and late game. I will keep running this game to attempt a Sub 12 minutes time!
This run was broadcast live on my Twitch channel.
Run FAQ: https://pastebin.com/GUhxe3Ts
For a gameplay only version click here: https://youtu.be/GSoJl_PGJG8
Twitch channel: https://www.twitch.tv/sbdwolf (Former WR) The Lion King Any% (Easy, SNES) Speedrun in 12:08 [Live Recording]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/h7eKGHLOdHM/mqdefault.jpg)
![[Former World Record] All Bosses - 35:42 - Current Patch, Expert, Solo - Cuphead
Finally got a good deathless run! It took me a lot of attempts to get one, and Im really proud of the final time.
Expert mode is really difficult: some bosses just get a health buff and minor tweaks here and there, but others like Wally become considerably tougher. Overall this speedrun is really fun if you feel like challenging yourself.
About the route I used: the Regular mode equivalent of this run gets 4 coins form the tutorial and from talking to Apple Man to buy the Spreadshot. By using the Spreadshot and the Peashooter efficiently, you can beat all bosses with very competitive times, and theres no need to buy anything else.
For Expert mode, thats not the case. A lot of bosses require a lot more dodging in general such as Cagney, Grim and Brineybeard, so for these situations its good to have the Charge Shot. Unfortunately it costs 12 coins, which means that doing the two Run & Gun stages in Isle 1 is required in order to be able to afford it. But Im pretty sure that having the Charge Shot saves enough time to make up for that.
Another option couldve been to only do Forest Follies and use the Roundabout and the Spreadshot. The Roundabout is a great option offering great range and trap possibilities, but it doesnt quite provide the same freedom in movement as the Charge, so I figured it would be slower and more inconsistent.
Also I want to mention that since expert mode is not unlocked on a file until beating the game on that specific save, the way people do an expert run is by using the Fresh Expert Glitch. It requires loading a pre-existing save file and simply selecting expert there. From that point on up until the game window is closed expert mode is selectable even in new files that shouldnt have access to it.
My controls:
Jump: Right Bumper
Shoot: X
Ex Shoot: Left Trigger
Switch Weapon: A
Lock: Left Bumper
Dash: Y [Former World Record] All Bosses - 35:42 - Current Patch, Expert, Solo - Cuphead](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hAbWKjKectA/mqdefault.jpg)
