"Fault, scratch and choke -- are you trying to hustle me?"
—Mangosteen, Death Screen
Mangosteen is a mini boss that appears in the boss fight with King Dice when landing on Space 8.
Description[]
Appearance[]
Mangosteen is a round, black 8-ball with two rows of teeth acting as a mouth and two eyeballs situated at each end of the mouth.
Personality[]
Mangosteen seems to be quick to jump to conclusions, possibly sometimes not realizing that said conclusions he makes are false, considering his accusation of how Cuphead and Mugman tried to "hustle" him (as shown in his death screen where he also makes a pun on some Pool errors), when in fact they just want him out of the way. Mangosteen also appears to have a weak stomach (if he even has one), as evidenced by his death animation showing him vomiting a black liquid.
Intro[]
Before the battle starts, Mangosteen appears as a faceless, floating 8-ball. His eyes and teeth slide out from behind him to the front of his face.
Battle[]
Mangosteen has only one known attack, which is shooting color spectrum orbs from his mouth that aim at the player's position, which can be easily avoided.
Mangosteen is also accompanied by billiard chalks, dropping from the sky in an attempt to crush the player(s). The chalks will try again by jumping in an arc and slamming down on them, the green one jumps the highest, then violet, and the lowest is orange, but this is also easy to avoid. Usually there will only be two different color chalks on screen. In Expert mode, all three chalks can be on screen at the same time as they drop down at a more rapid rate and they jump around quicker.
After enough damage, Mangosteen's body will start melting and ink will spill out from his mouth, making him appear to be vomiting as his eyes spin around. Hitpoints = 600/750
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The background of the battle with Mangosteen looks very similar to the background that appears when you get further into the Run 'n Gun level Funhouse Frazzle.
- In the sense that Mangosteen is using it in his death line, the term "hustle" refers to secretly robbing an individual of their money, referring to the fact that many casino games are rigged.
- It can also be referring to the technique of a pool player tricking inexperienced players into losing a game and their money by pretending to be worse than them before the player reveals their actual level of skill. This probably means that Mangosteen thought that Cuphead and Mugman lost to him on purpose.
- Mangosteen's first three words in his death quote refers to types of errors in pool billiards.
- In the unused Simple Mode, Mangosteen would just look around and never attack, and the billiard chalks would never appear. He would only have the default 100 health. In later version like 1.1.3, the Simple Mode differences have been removed and would play like Regular Mode instead.
- Mangosteen can be seen on a poster on the Devil's fake carnival setup in The Cuphead Show! Season 1 Episode 8, "Sweater Off Dead". His mouth now appears connected to his body.
Inspirations and similarities[]
- Mangosteens, the tropical fruit Mangosteen is named for, are dark purple lychee-like fruit that grow in lands surrounding the Indian Ocean. Mangosteen's small, spherical size and dark color make him not unlike an 8-ball.
- Mangosteen's design is based on Melon Bread from Gunstar Heroes, a game that served as one of the main inspirations for Cuphead.
- This may be the reason of his name being fruit-related as well.