The Devil (Cuphead)

The Devil is a character in Cuphead who serves as both the main antagonist of the game and the final boss. He is also specified to be the ruler of Inkwell Hell.

Why He Sucks

Before the battle, The Devil will greet the player in a cutscene, and ask him to handle the contracts. However, if done so, not only you skip the fight, but you get the villain ending, as Cuphead and Mugman get corrupted by The Devil and become his minions. Granted that it's not like other actions done by other villains such as Lucien, Brevon or Herex, but that's still scary.
1. This means, that if you want to get the hero ending, you have no choice but to fight him.
The Devil has a random pattern of attacks, and will randomly use one of these.
Other than The Devil, you will see also purple devils. If you think that they're part of the background, think again, they can damage you on contact.
Being the final boss, he has a lot of hitpoints. At his first phase, he has 665/735 health, followed by 570/630, 475/525 and 190/210 on his other phases, with a grand total of 1900/2100 health.
During his second phase and onwards, Cuphead has to fight on five platforms. As soon as a new phase begins, the platforms will go down, leaving him with three, and then with one platform, limiting your space. It doesn't help that you have to avoid falling flaming poker chips too.
His fourth phase is an unfair and a cheap trick. In fact, other than avoiding the poker chips that fall on the last standing platform, you have to avoid The Devil's tears.
Most of the pink bullets are difficult to dodge.
After the end of his serpent transformation attack, there will be a lingering hit-box in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, hitting the player should they hide in the corner, thus taking a cheap hit from an unknown invisible object.
1. And don't forget about those purple devils too.
Him and King Dice are the only bosses that can't be fought on Simple difficulty.
Even though he's the final boss, The Devil on expert mode has only 2100 hitpoints. This is a problem, because Hilda Berg, Djimmi the Great and Cala Maria, three bosses that Cuphead fights before the devil, have a grand total of 3000 health on Expert mode, with Dr. Kahl following with 2640 hitpoints. May we remind you that four bosses that the player fight before the final boss have more health on an harder difficulty than him?

Redeeming Qualities

Despite his frustrating battle, The Devil is actually a decent character.
His design is good.
His first and second phase themes are fantastic.
The first phase is possible to easily defeat.
He can be defeated in under 20 minutes.
Unlike the other bosses, Cuphead and Mugman will have a surprised reaction upon The Devil's boss introduction.
The villain ending is an homage to Contra: Hard Corps's villain ending, where Colonel Bahamut invites the player to join him.