The Devil vs The Snatcher (Cuphead vs A Hat in Time) VS Prediction Blog
“Let’s make a deal, Bill. See which one of us is the stronger one.” - Discord
The Devil, the demonic dealer from Inkwell Hell
The Snatcher, the ghastly master of Subcon Forest
Making a deal with a devil is not something that’s advised, as giving your soul over to someone who has no reason to not screw you over is generally not a good idea in the long run. Good thing for these two that their worlds seem to not have this as common knowledge, given the wide amounts of souls they’ve claimed thanks to their contracts and manipulation. They were even able to take the souls of their game’s kid protagonists, whom they forced to do their dirty work before attempting to end their lives when they outlived their usefulness. And while they can come off as silly and ineffectual due to their losses to these kids, they are fully capable of dropping the front and getting sadistically serious when it’s time to collect their debts. So, which of these deal makers will come out of this with yet another soul in their collection? Let’s see.
Before We Begin
For this match, both characters will be getting all their official media. For Devil, that includes the original game, its DLC, the comics, and the Netflix cartoon. For Snatcher, that includes his own game and its DLC. Both will also be given supplemental material from things like manuals, art books, and other official media that’s in line with their canon. This of course has the exception of crossovers, so no weird stuff like Geico or Among Us scaling will be on here.
Background
The Devil
Welcome to the Inkwell Isles. This kooky place is full of all sorts of cartoony denizens, whether that be a living giant flower, a clown that can transform into a circus, or a genius rat making war machines out of scrap. But things are not all sunshine and rainbows here. On the wrong side of the tracks, there was a casino run by a man with a dice for a head, which seemed to attract all kinds of shady folk. But perhaps the shadiest person in the casino was its boss, a demonic master who wished to take control of the very souls of everyone, and was willing to stoop to whatever means needed to do it. A man whose presence alone is enough to bring fear to the general populace. This being the King of the Underworld both figurative and literal, The Devil.
Not too much is known of his origins, besides the fact he seems to have been working out of hell for thousands of years. But what we do know is that he is incredibly dangerous to deal with, which is something that came to a head when Cuphead and his pal Mugman ended up in the halls of his casino. Cuphead ended up on a hot streak at the poker tables, but after the Devil himself stepped in, his hot streak ended, leaving him and his brother with their souls in the Devil’s possession. The Devil then put them to work, making them seek out the other denizens of Inkwell Island whose souls were under his control to get them back by defeating them, which was definitely easier said than done. Though as they beat up these bosses, the brothers would end up growing in power, eventually to the point where they were able to take on the Devil himself, ultimately defeating him and freeing all those who had lost their souls to him by burning all his contracts. The Devil could do nothing but stew in his defeat.
It does seem like this wasn’t the first time he had control over the brother’s souls, as in the cartoon, he initially was able to get ownership after Cuphead lost at a carnival game he rigged. Though Cuphead managed to avoid his grasp, the Devil wouldn’t relent, making numerous more attempts to take his soul, but he ended up constantly thwarted. Eventually, after his claim expired, he ended up kidnapping Mugman to try and get back at him, but was ultimately forced to relent when Cuphead came down. He later attempted to use the soul of a dancer named Ms Chalice to manipulate Cuphead’s soul into being his, but that ultimately ended with the Devil again losing, this time due to a dominating 6-0 loss in Rock Paper Scissors. The ending of Season 3 of the cartoon does kind of imply the series was a prequel to a game, though at the moment it’s not very clear and these could be separate continuities entirely.
While the Devil hasn’t had the best luck taking down the Mug Brothers, he’s still clearly not a foe you should underestimate. So don’t deal with this devil, kids, because when he makes you pay the price, he’s likely to fill your journey with dread and take your head.
The Snatcher
A long time ago, in a village in the woods, there lived Princess Vanessa. She had a loving relationship with the prince of the land, with the surrounding village prospering under their rule. However, one night she mistakenly believed that her boyfriend had cheated on her with a girl he was simply buying flowers from. This caused her to descend into madness, locking the prince away in a dungeon forever and turning into a shadowy mistress who proceeded to freeze the village, leaving the inhabitants of the village as restless spirits. In the years that followed, the forest would become haunted by the restless spirits left by this act. Among them was their most powerful, the spirit of the prince who was now known as the Snatcher.
The Snatcher, having been embittered by the act, would quickly end up making a name for himself in the forest, using his various contracts to bring the inhabitants under his control and grant them more physical bodies again. The woods, now turned into the Subcon Forest, would become a more spooky place, with fox fire spirits attempting to kill themselves and living nooses wishing for people to hang in them. Any wayward souls who stumbled into the forest would quickly find themself accosted by his traps, with him stealing their souls by locking them into contracts. This was especially unfortunate when a young alien kid with a hat would end up stumbling into the forest, looking for Time Pieces from her space ship which had landed in the forest.
The Snatcher, in possession of these, would end up taking this Hat Kid’s soul and have her complete various tasks in exchange for the Time Pieces. After this was done, he attempted to take her soul and keep the Time Pieces for himself, but she managed to defeat him in combat. He’d then attempt to get her to sign a contract forcing her to leave, but due to preemptively giving it a stamp of approval, he'd inadvertently now end up having to be contractually obligated to be her BFF due to her adjusting the contract before signing it. And as much as the Snatcher tried to get rid of her, she was fully willing to enforce his new contractual obligations. The Snatcher would be tied up in some of her adventures, giving her further tasks such as attempting to steal crowns from his former girlfriend’s estate and putting her through really hard challenges based on her other adventures. But it did seem that, as much as he’d hate to admit it, he did grow to care for her deep down. After helping her reclaim all the time pieces by making some British girl get lost, he’d end up trying to get her to stay as she flew off into space back home. Perhaps some part of the kindly prince he once was is still in there somewhere.
But this not so friendly ghost has shown his kindness is not something he extends to just anyone. So, kids, stay on the lookout the next time you’re alone in the dark woods, because if you’re foolish, you could end up losing your lost soul to the grasp of the Snatcher.
Intelligence & Skill
The Devil
The Devil has been taking souls for at least 3000 years, and he’s shown a lot of skill in taking them, as he has over 6 billion souls under his control. He tends to do this by tricking people into playing games with their souls on the line, with him getting control if they lose, and he’s rather multifaceted, being able to create machines that help him do it and winning many of these games himself. Beyond that, he’s a fairly skilled fighter, able to stand up to Cuphead and Mugman as the final boss of their game and after the two had taken on many other bosses over the course of the game.
The Snatcher
The Snatcher is a fairly intelligent specter. Before becoming a spirit, he was once an up and coming law school student, which gave him a good amount of knowledge on legal issues and contracts that would shape his later tendency to make them. He’s also been shown to be fairly manipulative, managing to get people to sign his contracts to give away their souls, of which he's claimed to have taken hundreds over the years. He can be rather crafty when manipulating, such as when he was able to pretend he had beaten until to pop up for a jumpscare, and even after being forced to be her BFF, the Snatcher was able to still take out some anger on her by “playing” with her through the difficult Death Wish missions. When fighting, his main strategy seems to be based around disorienting foes, both teleporting around to keep his movements unpredictable, and creating massive amounts of projectiles to ensure you stay on the move. He also is fairly pragmatic, stealing Hat Kid’s hat before the fight to make sure she can’t use her hat abilities in the fight.
Equipment
The Devil
Pitchfork
The Devil’s main weapon of choice is this, befitting his role as a satan stand-in. He is able to use it to stab things, as well as channel various projectiles into launching from it. The show reveals that this is the source of some of his abilities, and if he loses it then he’ll lose access to them.
Contracts
Naturally, he’s been shown to be able to create contracts, which will give him ownership of your soul if you sign them. Though he doesn’t seem to have much control over his contractees before their souls are dead, as the entire game is based around the bosses skimping out of their obligations.
Hellfire Water
In a What If story in the comic, he was shown to be able to create beer bottles, which are cursed to suck your soul into the bottle if you attempt to drink it. Though Evil Cuphead and Mugman did proceed to wreck this plan, so we only have his word to take here.
Old Scratch Cigars
In said story, the Devil was also shown to manufacture these cigars, which can instantly kill you if you try to smoke them. Though Evil Cuphead and Mugman did proceed to wreck this plan as well, so we never get to see them in action
Purgatorial Playing Cards
Also in said story, he also is shown to be able to create playing cards which could lock people into purgatory if they play a game with them. Though how they function beyond that description is hard to guess at given, again, Evil Cuphead and Mugman wrecked this plan.
The Snatcher
Blue Flasks
The Snatcher’s main projectile of choice are these, which are flasks that explode on contact. He can create and launch up to a thousand of them at once, and they’re also able to negate powers to an extent, given one was able to make his intangibility ineffective when Hat Kid tossed it back at him.
Contracts
Snatcher is also capable of creating contracts, which can let him take your soul if you sign them. These contracts do seem to be somewhat binding, given how he was forced to become Hat Kid’s friend after she messed with one that he preemptively stamped (which yes it how contracts work).
Mailman Hat
Look at his silly hat.
Abilities
The Devil
Toon Force
Given the classic cartoon roots of his series, The Devil has naturally shown a level of toon force. He can pull items out of nowhere, stretch his body however he wants, and can pop back up from any kind of pain with no issue.
Soul Manipulation
The Devil is able to manipulate souls. His most common method is in gambling, taking your soul if you lose. Though he doesn’t need to be present to do this, as he has made machines which are able to suck up souls if you lose at them. He’s also able to personally interact with souls, and in a What If? Story in the comics he was able to make beer bottles that suck your soul out if you drink it.
Fire Manipulation
Naturally no devil stand-in is complete without control over fire. He can cast fireballs or bursts of fire, create explosions, and create walls of flame to give foes less breathing room. It seems this particular ability is somewhat tied to his emotions, given that if he gets mad, massive blasts of fire come off him involuntarily.
Energy Projection
He’s been able to create various energy attacks, which include a ring of blasts that home in foes or floating spheres that bounce around the room.
Electricity Manipulation
He has been shown to create electric blasts with his powers, which Cuphead was able to do after taking his pitchfork. He’s also been able to mess with electronics, such as when he made a street light show green on all sides to cause a car accident.
Blood Manipulation
He’s also able to cry tears of blood that hurt on contact.
Telekinesis
He’s been shown to be able to lift foes with his mind, as well as other objects.
Resurrection
The Devil has been able to bring people back to life, like he did for Ms Chalice in order to make her his puppet. He has shown that bringing lost souls to life can be as simple as snapping his fingers…
Death Manipulation
…though he’s naturally just as capable of taking that life away, temporarily killing her by creating smoke that made her rapidly decay to dust to demonstrate what would happen if she backed down from their deal. Rather unnecessarily graphic.
Transformation
The Devil has shown the ability to freely morph his body however he wishes, whether that be by extending his arms, stretching his neck, growing arms and detaching his head, merging his eyes, poking things with his tail, or running around as a skeleton. He’s also able to transform into a goat, a spider, a dragon, a bull, a pterodactyl, an octopus, a gorilla, a saber toothed tiger, a carnie, a hot dog stand, and a pond.
Size Manipulation
He’s also shown the ability to grow himself in size, most notably in his final boss fight where he grows giant. He can also freely shrink his size as well.
Teleportation
He’s shown the ability to freely teleport himself wherever he wishes in a puff of smoke. He was also able to transport either the inhabitants of a casino away or himself at the cup brothers to a new location, and was able to teleport a lot of people to act as spectators to a showdown between him and Ms Chalice.
Flight
He’s also shown the ability to fly around, both in transformed states and in his more humanoid self.
Corruption
In the bad ending of the game where Cuphead decides to join his side, he shows the ability to seemingly transform them into more evil forms. He was also able to turn a couple pigeons into a big one that ate an old lady.
Fear Inducement
<insert person you don’t like here>
Throughout the series, it’s been shown that his presence alone is enough to make people run away in fear, which has even been true of Cuphead and Mugman. Though as they show, it does seem like it’s not effective on people who can swallow their fear to fight him.
Summoning
He’s shown the capability to summon his minions to fight alongside him, ranging from tiny guys that come out behind his throne, bigger guys he just drags over, small flying demons which come out of his pores (ew), and floating bombs that come out of his ears. He’s also teleported backup dancers to his side.
Creation
The Devil has shown he can simply create whatever objects he wants, which can include fiery poker chips to drop on people, axes that home in one foes, reading glasses, money, a carnival tent, and a snazzy suit.
Reality Warping
He’s shown to be able to manipulate his surroundings at will. As seen above, he was able to turn a carnival fun house into a deadly one with several traps, as well as change gravity within it. He was able to turn a carnival horse intro a moving skeletal one, change a control room into a party, and he was able to morph part of a city into a stage full of rocks.
Illusion Creation
He’s also shown the ability to change less physical images, such as changing reflections in a mirror and making an image in water while transformed into a pond.
Weather Manipulation
In the show, he was seemingly able to cause a storm to appear as he made his appearance. He was also able to create a storm when he morphed the island.
Broadway Force
He has shown the ability to spontaneously burst into musical numbers, which is something plenty of other characters have done within the show.
Resistances
Fire - He’s regularly been shown to be fine being around his own bursts of flame.
Electricity - Survived electric blasts from his own pitchfork, as well as getting shocked hard enough to expose his skeleton
The Snatcher
Spirit Physiology
Due to being dead, The Snatcher appears to now be a spirit-like being. He’s naturally able to float around, and he’s incorporeal, able to phase through attacks and come up through the ground. He also likely doesn’t have any biological functions to upkeep, being able to breathe in space just fine.
Soul Manipulation
The Snatcher, of course, has the ability to take control of souls. If he makes you sign a contract, he’ll get ownership of it, depriving you of it and making you do his bidding. As seen above, he is also able to interact with them and place them within bodies himself, granting Dwellers a more physical form in his humanoid minions. It’s worth noting that he has claimed he can affect souls even without needing them to sign contracts, though whether that’s an accurate claim or simply something he said to get Hat Kid to sign the contract is questionable.
Energy Projection
Snatcher has shown to be able to make blasts of energy. His main attack of choice is causing massive energy geysers, which he can spawn anywhere around him, fire multiple at once, and even make them move around while firing them.
Fire Manipulation
The Snatcher has been shown to create and utilize fire, creating blasts in the background and more personally to burn photographs. Similar spirits to him have shown the ability to prime explosive fruits and create barriers of flames, so he should likely be able to do the same.
Darkness Manipulation
The Snatcher has been shown to be able to create darkness, making the areas around him darker. He’s also been shown to create dark voids.
Plant Manipulation
He’s shown the ability to create walls of ghostly thorns to trap foes in an area.
Electricity Manipulation
He’s also shown the ability to mess with electricity, both to cause thunder in dramatic storms and to create an electric blast that removed Hat Kid’s soul.
Heat Manipulation
He’s also able to affect heat in general, as he was able to make a lake of lava far hotter to the point where Hat Kid needed to regularly go to water to not burn up.
Death Manipulation
If Hat Kid attempts to decline his offer of a contract, he’ll just kill her. He’s also been able to make her instantly die if she fails to complete certain requirements of the Death Wish contracts, as well as killing her if you, the player, attempt to use console commands to cheat.
Resurrection
The Snatcher is also able to bring people back to life, as seen in how the Death Wish mode features him bringing her back to life if Hat Kid falls.
Shockwave Creation
He’s been shown to be able to shake the earth and create damaging shockwaves along the ground.
Telekinesis
Snatcher is able to move around objects telekinetically, which he uses mainly to toss his potions around.
Shapeshifting
He’s shown the ability to adjust his own body, transforming into a bunch of shadowy duplicates of Hat Kid that proceeded to mock her. Rude.
Duplication
Speaking of which, he is able to make multiple versions of himself. Not just in the above instance, but he also created an intangible clone to try and catch foes off guard.
Size Manipulation
Snatcher has shown he can shrink his size down, both to a size that’s easier to sit in and to a far smaller size as well. He also can seemingly grow far larger, though that might be a case of perspective.
Possible Body Puppetry
In this official art, Snatcher seemingly shows the ability to puppet the bodies of those whose souls are his. Though whether this is a literal ability or if it’s just a way of representing his contractual control of them is unclear.
Summoning
He’s shown the ability to summon his minions, with them acting as spectators for his boss fight, as well as being able to be brought to his side to make them run around as an attack.
Creation
He’s also been shown creating objects for his use, which includes his contracts, a bench, a present box with a badge inside, explosive fruits, sawblades, mafia goon dummies, and a wooden cut out of himself to fake foes out.
Reality Warping
Not only was it implied he was able to passively corrupt the Subcon Forest into the spooky woods it is now, he’s also shown the ability to create pocket dimensions, both to communicate with potential contractors and to do battle in. He also is shown to create voids of darkness to disorient foes. And of course, the various Death Wish levels are all more difficult thanks to him affecting them.
Weather Manipulation
Given he has control over these pocket dimensions, it also seems he has control over weather, given the dramatic storm in the background of his personal pocket dimensions.
Telepathy
During both the Death Wish and Vanessa’s Curse DLCs, he’s shown the ability to communicate with the Hat Kid despite being in different locations. He can also seemingly tell what’s going on with them during these, implying he’s also aware of their current actions.
Teleportation
He’s been shown to be able to teleport himself around, both in battle and in more casual situations. He also has shown to be able to forcibly teleport others.
Empowerment
He’s also been shown to be able to empower his contractees, as seen in the upgraded boss fights throughout the Death Wish DLC. In the Vanessa's Curse DLC, he also shows the ability to temporarily upgrade his team if they're losing, though I wasn’t able to find an exact list of his abilities when doing this.
4th Wall Awareness
The Snatcher has shown a great amount of awareness to the 4th wall. He can add buttons to the menu, point out objective markers, get right up in the face of the camera, punish you for trying to cheat with console commands, and he has made several fourth wall breaking jokes. This is fairly common in the AHIT world, as other characters have also done stuff like mess with the loading screen, and even the instruction manual is written from Hat Kid’s perspective.
Resistances
Acid Manipulation - Spends most of his boss fight chilling in an acid pit with no ill effect
Cosmic Radiation - Survived in the vacuum of space
Biological, Organic, Blood, and Bone Manipulation - As he is a spiritual being, he lacks many of these, meaning messing with them would likely be ineffective.
Time Manipulation - After Mustache Girl rewrote time, he was unaffected by it, still remembering Hat Kid and acknowledging the fact they’re in an alternate reality.
Forms
The Devil
Giant
His original final form from the game, in which he grows giant. This form does have some unique capabilities, though given it is just him but bigger, it’s likely that he’d be fully capable of doing them at a smaller size. I just felt I had to include this section here.
Santa
In one episode, due to wanting to get off the naughty list, Santa decided to turn the Devil into a form resembling him and make him run around the world. This form was, well, fat, but didn’t seem to change much about his physicality. While this form did require a specific ritual to be performed to do it and went away after Christmas was done, his own normal physical capabilities should likely scale to stuff he did in it.
The Snatcher
Snatcher EX
The Death Wish mode features several boss fights against upgraded bosses, and of course Snatcher was able to make himself stronger. This form adds a couple new attacks, such as making his energy geyser attack create shockwaves, and making his Hat Kid clone swarm attack you, but the main difficulty in this fight is his heightened aggression, being more relentless with attacks and mixing them together to try and ensure you do not evade.
Ultra Snatcher
And of course, he made himself the final boss of the mode as well. This form carries over the new attacks of the last form, but it also adds several new attacks, including making his geysers shoot electricity, creating buzzsaws that shoot along the ground at you, and dropping stage lights and shadowy Time Pieces down to really put the “hell” in “bullet hell”. He also has even higher aggression, making this a really hard fight.
Also no, the repetition of the image was not a mistake, both of his forms literally look the same.
Feats
The Devil
Overall
Ruler of Inkwell Hell
Took billions of souls, including Cuphead and Mugman
Widely feared by the general populace
Was able to take on Cuphead and Mugman, and in an alternate reality corrupted them to his side
Power
Speed
Caught up to Cuphead and Mugman after they boarded a roller coaster
Regularly able to run after them as well
Was able to take over the job of Santa Claus, delivering presents around the world (Mach 8667.638 - 0.04 c)
Durability
Taken hits from Cuphead and Mugman
The Snatcher
Overall
Ruler of the Subcon Forest
Took hundreds of souls, including Hat Kid’s
Helped Hat Kid take down Mustache Girl
Put Hat Kid through a lot of hellishly difficult challenges in the Death Wish mode
Power
Speed
Can move fast enough to keep up with Hat Kid’s scooter
Durability
Can take hits from the Hat Kid, and seemed relatively unfazed after his defeat
Scaling
The Devil
Cuphead and Mugman
Now Cuphead and his pal Mugman are the main rivals to the Devil’s power, with the series focusing on them attempting to bring down his various plots and having numerous confrontations with him. As such, it makes sense to assume he scales to them.
They also survived an explosion that completely destroyed their house
They survived being on Brineybeard’s ship exploding (0.6337 Tons)
They can dodge possible lasers from Dr Kahl’s Robot and the Howling Aces’ Dog Chinook
Cuphead survived being in a lake as Glumstone The Giant dived into it
Cuphead was able to move the moon after throwing a rope to it (378 Yottatons, 5.3475 c) (See Before the Verdict)
Base Game Bosses
Given the central plot of the game is that Cuphead has to beat up a bunch of guys who had their souls taken by the Devil, it does make sense to assume the Devil should scale above all the main bosses of the base game.
Ribby and Croaks can punch fast enough to create afterimages
Grim Matchstick was able to possibly make a storm (35 Kilotons)
Hilda Berg is seemingly able to summon constellations, as well as weaponise stars (See Before the Verdict)
Djimmi The Great possibly made a mini realm full of stars inside his sarcophagus (See Before the Verdict)
DLC Bosses
The various foes of the Delicious Last Course (get it?), whom Cuphead and Mugman beat up in their time trying to bake the wonder tart. While they are fought after defeating the Devil, it is directly stated that the brothers should have no trouble beating the foes of the DLC if they already beat the Devil, implying he should be superior to these bosses as well.
Glumstone the Giant is a giant the size of a mountain (1.356 Megatons)
Chef Saltbaker was able to wreck his basement and the surrounding area while covering it in salt (0.921 - 100.831 tons)
Chef Saltbaker claimed he would have been able to take control over the Astral Plane in its entirety if he had made the Wondertart (See Before the Verdict)
Esther Winchester doesn’t really do anything, I just needed a third person for the image because symmetry.
The Snatcher
Hat Kid
The main cute as peck lass with a hat, who ultimately manages to become contractually obligated BFFs with him after getting her soul back. Snatcher was able to take hits from her and was able to empower other bosses to keep up with her at the point where she’d be at endgame, which solidly shows he should be comparable to her stats.
Mustache Girl
The main villain of the game, who utilized the power of the TIme Pieces in order to take out all the bad guys. Hat Kid was ultimately able to make her get lost, with Snatcher helping by creating explosive fruits strong enough to bust her barriers. It’s also worth noting that Hat Kid herself was fully capable of physically taking Mustache Girl down at her peak, with her assistance mainly consisting of getting a way to hit her through defenses and healing rather than any specific boost in power, suggesting this level of power is something they can keep up with.
Using the time pieces, she was able to rewrite the world into a new reality
She was able to create a dimension filled with numerous swirling stars and nebulas
Other Characters
The other characters Hat Kid met along the way through her adventures. Not only has she been able to beat them all up, but during the Death Wish mode Snatcher was able to upgrade many of them to be able to prove to be a threat to Hat Kid when she was at endgame, implying he has a general level of superiority over all of them.
A Mafia Goon was able to punch through the window of Hat Kid’s spaceship, which is designed to be comet proof (130.81 tons)
The Conductor & DJ Grooves can stab fast enough to create afterimages
DJ Grooves’ parade actors can directly keep up with Hat Kid’s movements
The Lazy Paw Gang have good character design
Weaknesses
The Devil
While the Devil is a dangerous foe, he’s hardly without fault. First off, he is rather arrogant and overconfident in his own abilities, as seen in the original game where he dismisses King Dice’s concern over the idea that Cuphead and Mugman could grow to be stronger than him. He has also been shown to have issues with his anger, often blowing up and letting it cloud his judgment. His magic is able to be repelled by brotherly love, with an invisible sweater powered by it preventing him from even touching the wearer, and some of his powers are tied to his pitchfork, with him losing them if it’s taken from him. Finally, while he is able to gain ownership of souls with his contracts, he can lose his control over them if he takes too long to collect them or if the physical contracts are destroyed.
The Snatcher
The Snatcher does have a few notable flaws. First off, while he is normally able to phase through any attacks made on him, hitting him with his own flasks can turn him blue forcibly, allowing him to be damaged. He also can be rather overconfident, and his short temper can cause him to make mistakes, such as how his hasty sealing of a contract allowed Hat Kid to change the contract itself to be one for them to be friends. Finally, he does tend to prefer letting others do his dirty work for him, remaining in the shadows while they do the actually dangerous stuff.
Before the Verdict
The Obligatory Part About The Moon
(Featuring Other Questionable Cosmic Level Cuphead Feats)
If you know anything about Cuphead scaling, you already know the big contentious point people have had with the series’ scaling. In one episode of the show, Cuphead is able to budge the moon a bit, as seen above. This feat, taken at face value, is small planet level. You could argue it’s stronger by calculating the strength needed to move the sun as well, but that would involve applying Kinetic Energy to something moving faster than light, which is physically impossible, so I won’t. Now there are a couple arguments I’ve seen against the validity of this feat, some of which I find more compelling than others.
To get the less compelling argument out of the way first, I don’t really think “uhm he’s clearly just as big as the moon so he’s not moving a full sized moon” is a good argument against this. Not only is there not really anything else suggesting this is not a full sized moon, this kind of presentation is nothing new when it comes to more cartoony feats of this nature, but I don’t see anyone bring up those kinds of issues when it comes to, say, Marvin and Yosemite Sam tossing around black holes and stars or Goofy causing the sun to shatter with a baseball. It feels like a weird double standard to only bring up that issue with this feat, especially since Cuphead as a series is very blatantly taking after cartoons like those. Also, yes he is visibly struggling to move the whole thing, but he is also blatantly still capable of moving it slightly, which is still impressive. Though the other point against this is that it is a massive outlier, and yeah that’s certainly not something I have a good counter argument for. Most of the other big feats for the series only get around city level at best, and the only feats that are also cosmic level also have issues, as I will go into in a moment. So I do think it is more fair to write it off with the “gag outlier” label. I just personally believe that’s really the only issue this feat has.
Then of course there’s the other cosmic level arguments. First off, Hilda Berg is seemingly able to summon constellations. However, she’s not seen actively absorbing these stars, as these are instead in the foreground in front of everyone, so these are likely just a visual effect to indicate what attack is coming, as her transformations are based on the shapes these constellations have. Some have also brought up a Contra boss that was used as inspiration for this attack being described as turning stars into constellations as an example of the intent of this being literal star power, but not only does that not really change the issues with the feat’s validity, the original Contra boss in question is also not meant to be fighting with literal constellations, as they are very blatantly fought within a virtual reality machine. Also there’s absolutely nothing indicating the smaller star projectiles are meant to be literal stars either. There is also Chef Saltbaker’s claim that the Wondertart could let him take over the Astral Plane. While there is the argument this can be a valid cosmic feat on its own merits, as due to Cuphead and co beating him up before he has the chance to actually finish the tart, the exact capabilities of it are hard to gauge, the bigger issue is that this is not something anyone but Saltbaker should scale to, as it’s something he’s only able to do by baking the Wondertart in the first place.
Finally, there’s Djimmi’s pocket dimension of stars. The big issue here is that there’s not really a good way of judging how big the space actually is, as that could simply be an effect showing its mystical nature. There’s also this page from the comic which some have suggested is meant to show him turning these stars into minions, but to me that more seems to be him summoning them from within the pocket dimension, as there’s not really anything to visually signify them originally being stars. That panel does at least strengthen the idea that they're meant to be stars inside there, which could at least give him the value needed to create a pocket dimension with a starry sky. But the issue with this is that we only see a small portion of the space from the outside, so it’s still a bit questionable to assume it’s a full sized space with stars and not just a smaller cluster of them. And of course there is the aforementioned issue with it being an outlier, which yeah, if you think Cuphead just being Small Planet level is a jump, then you would certainly think this is an outlier as well.
TLDR: While there are some arguments for certain cosmic level Cuphead feats being valid, the big issue with them is a matter of consistency, as the other major feats of the series are far below it, meaning they can be written off as outliers. There’s additionally other issues with the feats in question beyond that which makes their reliability questionable. I will still bring up these feats for the sake of the argument, but I will acknowledge that there are valid reasons to disregard them.
Queen Vanessa Scaling
There are a couple notable feats for Snatcher’s former girlfriend, most notably being the fact that she was able to freeze an entire village. While this would likely get impressive numbers, the issue is that there’s not really a solid argument that Snatcher should be scaling to her. For starters, Hat Kid never ends up in a physical fight with her, as the entire mission inside her mansion is a stealth one where you instantly die if she catches you, so there’s not really an argument that she should scale. As for the Snatcher himself, he also is never really implied to have physically confronted her in the past. Even in the Vanessa’s Curse DLC, which directly has them go head to head, the Snatcher himself never ends up fighting Vanessa. In fact, he has several comments where he is shown to be afraid of directly fighting her. While this could simply be down to him not wishing to interact with her due to their backstory, that still pretty clearly shows it’s questionable to assume he scales to her at all.
Time Piece Scaling
Now, the Time Pieces have been cited as a rather significant potential power up for the AHIT universe, mainly thanks to the actions of Mustache Girl. Near the end of the main story, she was able to steal all of Hat Kid’s Time Pieces and used them to mess with time, creating a new world where she could judge all the bad guys. She was directly able to change the world, and Santcher himself acknowledges her new world as an “alternate reality”, though admittedly this could simply be more a feat of time travel rather than raw reality rewriting. But giving a more solid argument, during her boss fight she was able to smash one Time Piece in order to create a pocket reality full of stars to fight within. We do get a full view of the pocket reality to see it is full of stars, so we can verify it’s a whole sky, and the aforementioned statement of her creating an alternate reality does give credence to the idea that it is meant as a literal starry dimension. This would make just one of the Time Pieces multi solar system level at least.
As for the exact value, Mustache Girl will end up doing the cutscene where she steals them, and by proxy allowing you to go to the final boss, when you’ve unlocked at least 25 Time Pieces, which would be the low end of the multiplier. There’s also a total of 56 Time Pieces to collect in the game (40 without DLC), which could be seen as a more accurate number due to the weird story stuff this kind of game by its nature has by letting you play any levels in any order before fighting the final boss. Though if anything these values are rather conservative, as not only does Hat Kid’s own supply appear to be a lot more than just 56, Mustache Girl herself was shown to possess far more than even this supply, with her having so many she just throws them away as projectiles. It’s not totally clear how many of them there are or how she was able to make that many, but that still shows this can potentially be far greater.
And yes, this is a level of power she can personally scale to, as not only does stuff like the aura around her imply she’s been powered up, the void also fades away immediately after she gets defeated, implying it was her own power creating it. When she’s on the backfoot, she even directly describes this as “my powers” disappearing, not “the Time Pieces’ power” or something similar. So Hat Kid beating her up and Snatcher being able to empower her should indicate they’re capable of competing with this level of power physically. And this is hardly an outlier, as not only do the various Rift levels show Time Pieces are naturally able to make pocket dimensions, Snatcher himself was able to create starry dimensions of his own during the Death Wish. There are also other cases of feats on this level, such as a goat that seemingly was able to turn into constellations or Hat Kid’s tech being able to collapse dimensions, but those are a lot more vague and arguable in their nature to be scaled to. Though it does at least give further credence to the idea that people within this universe are consistently able to work at this scale.
That being said, while the power of them is something he can scale to, I don’t think it’s fair to give him the Time Pieces themselves as part of his arsenal. While he did possess several of them during the story, he ultimately ends up giving them back to the Hat Kid by the time of her defeating him, so he does not have access to them. And while he was able to create shadowy versions of the Time Pieces as part of the Death Wish levels, these ones are never seen actively being used for the same time warping shenanigans as the “real” Time Pieces.
TLDR: The Time Pieces are shown to be able to affect things on a cosmic scale, with one being able to create a pocket dimension with a starry sky. Mustache Girl was able to empower herself with at least 25-56 of them, and potential hundreds more. Since Hat Kid was able to physically defeat her and Snatcher is able to empower her to be stronger than this, they should also be scaling to this value.
Verdict
Stats
So stats for these two can get pretty tricky to lock down. On the lower end, both were pretty consistently able to keep up in the building to city block range, with Devil burning a forest and Saltbaker wrecking his basement hitting similar values to the Mafia Goon punching comet proof glass. To get higher into higher levels, The Devil has been shown to be able to create storms and change the landscape of a city, with characters like Grim Matchstick and Glumstone showing similar levels of power. The Snatcher could arguably get to this level himself thanks to his own warping and storm creation, along with Hat Kid punching a guy really hard, but these were generally vaguer feats that were harder to lock down solid numbers for, so if you don’t want to get cosmic, the Devil likely holds the edge in power.
But if you do want to get cosmic, things do shift around quite a bit. The Devil can boast some arguable scaling to feats like the infamous Moon pull, Hilda Berg’s constellations, and Djimmi creating a pocket dimension of stars. Now as mentioned, these feats do have issues, but even if you were going to use these, the Snatcher had this beat. Not only was he able to make a more explicit pocket dimension of stars himself, he can also scale to the full capabilities of Mustache Girl. She possessed Time Pieces, which each have the potential to create their own pocket dimensions of stars, and she was able to amp her own power many of them. Even being generous by assuming Djimmi can make a full pocket dimension of stars, Mustache Girl should be at least 25 times stronger than this, and this number can get even higher if you account for her literal piles of Time Pieces. Even assuming the Devil upscales from Djimmi, there just simply was no reason to assume he could compete with the Snatcher’s full power at his peak, as he was arguably hundreds of times stronger and had his own upscaling argument due to being able to further amp Mustache Girl’s power. So the power and durability category is very solidly on the side of The Snatcher.
As for speed, that was a bit more even. Both have decent travel speeds and can scale to dodging electric based attacks, and at their peaks both were potentially relativistic. For Snatcher, he can scale to Hat Kid being able to slightly outpace electric wires, which get her to about 0.9 c. And given characters are able to directly trail her movement speed, this was fairly consistent. This is above the Devil’s best direct feat, that being his recreation of Santa’s flight around the world, which can hit 0.04 c, making Snatcher about 22.5 times faster. The Devil does have some arguments for better speed thanks to scaling to Cuphead, who could dodge possible laser attacks, though these are shaky due to never being referred to as lasers. There was also Cuphead’s feat of throwing a rope to the moon, which gets to 5.35 times the speed of light, and could give the Devil about 5.94 times faster speeds. However, while I don’t have issues with the feat power wise, I don’t really see why Cuphead should scale to the speed of the rope, as he doesn’t actually react at the speed of it, just pulls it after it lands around the moon. He’s not even looking at it when he does pull it. So the Snatcher was likely reliably faster.
So overall, while The Devil was likely stronger without cosmic level feats and could arguably take the edge in speed, The Snatcher had far superior strength with cosmic level feats and claimed the better consistent speeds.
Arsenal & Abilities
Now both of these two had a wide swath of abilities they could utilize, many of which they happened to share. For instance, both were able to create fire, shoot electric based attacks, create more vague energy attacks, can telekinetically toss objects, can bring others back to life, teleport themselves and others, fly, change their body’s shape and size, create objects, summon and empower minions, warp the world around them, change the weather, cause instant death, and of course steal souls with contracts. The Devil did boast superior capabilities with several of these, as he had the more versatile pyrokinesis, had a greater variety with his transformations, and had the more combat ready and versatile sets of minions. His ability to directly interact with souls also meant he likely didn’t need to turn Snatcher blue to hurt him, which bypassed the Snatcher’s main method of defense.
Though the Snatcher also had a variety of his own advantages. For starters, his method of causing instant death was superior, as he was able to just do it with a thought, as opposed to charging up a gas attack. He also had the superior energy attacks, as his massive geysers had way better AOE and could be used far faster than the Devil’s slower attacks, and he generally had a better track record with reality warping, as the Devil has only a few cases of making actively harmful terrain, whereas The Snatcher has an entire DLC all about him making them. He also had free access to all his powers whenever, as opposed to the Devil, who could potentially lose a lot of his kit should his Pitchfork be done away with. His Ultra form would also be very useful, being able to create a far greater spam of projectiles to attack with. Finally, in terms of powers they didn’t share, the Snatcher generally had more useful options. He could spread darkness to help keep his movements hard to track, create thorns to block The Devil’s movements, or use telepathy to read his mind. Meanwhile, The Devil’s unique options weren’t quite as useful, as Snatcher lacked any electronics he could hijack, was unlikely to be deterred by his fear inducement, and was unlikely to be more than mildly confused by him suddenly breaking out into song.
Though of course, these options didn’t mean as much when they had to figure out a way to take each other out. First off, it was pretty unlikely either could successfully convince the other to sign a contract to hand over their soul, since that is both of their main schtick. But on the other hand, surprisingly neither had anything that confirmed them to be immortal and unkillable by normal means or much in terms of an explicit healing factor, so neither really needed to get some kind of special way to take the other out. As such, it would be fully possible for either to either blow each other away with their raw power, though obviously given the Snatcher’s strength edge, he was more likely to do this. He also had more haxy ways to try and take him out, either with the aforementioned death manipulation, or by sealing him inside a pocket dimension forever. The latter would almost certainly work, as nor only has the Devil has never shown the ability to cross dimensions with the teleportation, due to Inkwell Hell being portrayed as a physical location within Inkwell, said teleportation is also one of the powers tied to his Pitchfork, so if he lost that and then ended up sealed, he’d have no way of escaping.
Now the Devil does have an arguable speed edge and more than enough mobility to get around a lot of the Snatcher’s attacks, which did mean he could hypothetically dodge these attacks and try to use one of his own haxier methods of taking Snatcher out. But, well, they weren’t likely to end up working on the Snatcher. His method of death inducement was specifically based around decaying a target’s physical body. But due to being a spirit, Snatcher did not have a physical body to decay in the first place, meaning this likely would not be able to take him out. The Devil also had his beer, cigars, and playing cards, which could trap souls, cause instant death, and trap targets in purgatory respectively. However, not only is it a bit questionable to give him these, as they are unique to an explicit “what if” story, they also weren’t likely to be able to deal with the Snatcher. He wouldn’t try to drink a beer due to lacking biological needs, he doesn’t have lungs so he can’t smoke, and for all three it was unlikely for him to decide to use them when they’d be coming from the guy he is actively attempting to kill. Perhaps the cards could work if Devil managed to convince Snatcher to play a card game with him to end the fight, but even if that worked he’d just send himself to purgatory with him, therefore making it a draw.
So overall, while they both boasted a wide variety of abilities and counters for each other, The Snatcher’s capabilities were ultimately superior where it counted, giving him more solid win conditions over The Devil.
Tertiary Factors
When it came to raw experience, the Devil pretty clearly had an overall edge. He’s been active for at least 3000 years, and while we don’t know the exact length of time the Snatcher has been floating around, there’s not really anything suggesting he’s been around for that long. This is even seen where their counts of souls, as while the Snatcher boasted he has hundreds under his control, the Devil has been shown to possess billions under his own control. The Snatcher, on the other hand, likely had the better intelligence. Not only is he a former law student, while the Devil has no known schooling, he’s also generally had a better track record when it comes to his plotting. Both have had plenty of embarrassing moments, especially when it comes to their respective kid protagonists, but the Snatcher was generally shown to be more in control of the situation, whereas the Devil spends most of the Cuphead show on the backfoot.
This leads into general weaknesses, and while both do have similar issues of being egotistical and quick to anger, generally that was more of an active hindrance for The Devil, as The Snatcher has more consistently shown the ability to get serious when needed. And the Snatcher did not have as big a weakness as the Devil needing to keep his Pitchfork on hand for several of his more notable powers, with that being a factor that could easily screw over the Devil’s chances should he be disarmed. And this is something Snatcher was likely to do, as not only has he naturally done this on foes, as seen with him depriving Hat Kid of their hat, his telepathy could mean he could simply read the Devil's mind to tell that was a weakness which could be exploited.
Conclusion
Advantages:
Likely stronger without cosmic tier scaling
Arguably faster with a more questionable end
Shared many abilities overall, some of which he had better capabilities with…
Could harm Snatcher without needing to turn him blue
Had arguable methods of taking Snatcher out…
Far greater experience
Is actually the main villain of his series
Luke Millington-Drake’s voice acting
Disadvantages:
Far weaker with cosmic scaling
Slower with more reliable ends
…though Snatcher also had superior abilities himself
Less useful selection of unique abilities
…but Snatcher’s wincons were more likely to work
Not as competent and has more glaring weaknesses
Has far more questionable fanart
“Time you saw what I'm really capable of, kid. Say goodbye to that little head of yours!”
Advantages:
Far stronger with cosmic tier scaling
Faster with more reliable ends
Shared many abilities overall, some of which he had better capabilities with…
Better selection of more unique abilities
Had the more effective and likely win conditions
More competent and has less exploitable weaknesses
Has the better boss theme
Yungtown’s voice acting
Disadvantages:
Weaker without cosmic tier scaling
Slower if you include more questionable scaling
…though Devil also had superior abilities himself
Devil could interact with spirits, meaning he didn’t need to turn blue to be able to get hurt
Far lower experience
Landed a yandere GF and paid the price
Death Wish almost gave me Carpal Tunnel Syndrome one time
Both of these masters of souls would certainly be able to give each other pause, as their wide spreads of abilities and skills were enough to make them feared in their own world. However, between his greater power, superior abilities, and better cunning, the Snatcher had everything he needed to give the Devil One Hell Of A Time, Sealing the Deal on his chances of victory.
The winner is The Snatcher.
Next Time
The Batman Who Laughs vs Dreadpool
(DC vs Marvel)
Sourcelist:
VS Battles Wiki
Chef Saltbaker VS Jack Horner Prediction Blog by Saul’s VS Blogs
Cuphead vs Hat Kid Prediction Blog by Loka’s Prediction Blogs
Comments
Post a Comment