The Cuphead Baroness Von Bon Bon boss has been giving people a lot of trouble once they reach Sugarland Shimmy in Inkwell Isle Two. This article covers how to defeat Baroness Von Bon Bon in Cuphead, and even secure an A+ score during the Sugarland Shimmy boss fight. While Baroness Von Bon Bon isn’t the hardest boss fight you’ll encounter in Cuphead World 2, the candy boss can be a difficult fight with a lot of elements that may seem random. However, there are some definitive strategies that can help you defeat Baroness Von Bon Bon in and move on to the next boss in Cuphead.
Defeat Baroness Von Bon Bon
As with most other bosses in Cuphead, the battle against Baroness Von Bon Bon is broken up into multiple phases. This particular fight consists of only two phases, but there are a lot of elements that go into the first phase and can definitely throw a wrench in your plans to take down the boss.
Baroness Von Bon Bon’s first phases consists of five different enemy encounters. During this phase you will only encounter three of these enemies, but which three you get, and the order in which you fight them is completely random. In addition, the second and third encounters will be accompanied by small jellybean soldiers walking slowly across the screen. One of these is pink and can be parried, but if you’re going for a 3/3 parry score, you can get that later, so don’t worry too much about parrying the pink jellybean, instead just make sure you get rid of it so it’s not in the way and avoid standing on the far right side by the castle because you won’t be able to see them coming before they hit you.
The third enemy encounter also features Baroness Von Bon Bon shooting candy-colored smoke clouds. The four smoke clouds can each be taken down in a single hit, but since they’re coming from the top of the castle, the angle can be awkward. It’s best to jump or angle your shots to hit these shots as quickly as possible.
So let’s take a look at each of the enemies you can face during phase one, and how you should face off against them.
Phase One – Candy Corn
The Candy Corn enemy can be difficult to beat because it’s generally more random than the other enemies. It moves across the screen in a square pattern, but when it moves up and down, and which direction it moves can be difficult to determine. In addition, it spawns several smaller candy corn enemies that float up and can cause some frustration if they’re in your way.
Watch for the Candy Corn to growl and open its mouth while it’s on the ground. When this happens it generally indicates it’s about to float into the air. While this doesn’t always happen before the Candy Corn moves into the air, it’s usually a pretty good way to determine if it’s safe to jump over the enemy or not. If it’s moving toward you and you need to get to the other side, you’re usually safe to jump if it hasn’t growled.
Stay to the far left when the Candy Corn first appears. If it moves into the air dash under it and stay around the middle of the stage, but far enough away that you can react if you need to jump over it or move back. Never get trapped in the corner with the Candy Corn close to you. If it’s getting close move out of the corner before it reaches you, especially if it hasn’t grunted yet.
Phase One – Cupcake
The Cupcake is generally easy than the other phase one enemies. All it does is jump around the stage, splatting on the ground and sending out a small shockwave of icing. All you need to do is make sure you’re far enough away from the Cupcake that the icing shockwave won’t hit you. If you’re about half a screen length away from the Cupcake you won’t have an issue. However, if you find yourself too close, don’t try to attack, just jump onto the floating platform and get away from the Cupcake before it jumps into the air again.
When the Cupcake jumps, this is your chance to quickly dash under it. The location it jumps to is random, but you don’t want to be close to the landing point. If you are, you need back up so you can avoid the icing along the ground, or simply jump to the floating platform so you can quickly move to the other side of the screen.
Phase One – Gumball Machine
Fighting against the Gumball Machine, it’s usually a good idea to just wait in the corner. You can inflict a lot of damage to the Gumball Machine before it moves closer to you, making this fight considerably shorter. Once the Gumball Machine gets close, watch the trajectory of the gumballs it launches into the air. They aren’t all targeted at your character and many of them will miss without the need to move. If you see one coming toward you, only move far enough to avoid that one gumball, then remain stationary until another gumball heads toward you.
Another way to fight against the Gumball Machine is to stay as close to it as you can. Once again, most of the gumballs it launches into the air will not hit your character if you remain stationary. Sticking close to the Gumball Machine will limit the number of gumballs you need to dodge.
Phase One – Jawbreaker
One of the easier enemies to fight against is the Jawbreaker. It has a smaller jawbreaker following it around, but it cannot be attacked, so focus on the larger, red Jawbreaker. The Jawbreaker moves slowly toward your character, following whatever trajectory you set for it. This means you can jump on the floating platform, then jump high into the air and the Jawbreaker will move high into the air as well.
Use this jumping strategy to get the Jawbreaker to move into the air and give you plenty of time to hit it, or just move to a better position on the ground. The idea is to make broad movements so it takes the Jawbreaker more time to reach you. This gives you more time to shoot it and end this portion of the fight as quickly as possible. If you’re continually moving in small circles, just trying to evade the Jawbreaker, you won’t have much time to shoot it. Run all the way across the screen or jump high into the air to give yourself plenty of time to attack the Jawbreaker while it slowly tries to catch up.
Phase One – Waffle
The Waffle flies around the stage randomly until it stops and squeezes itself. Right after this happens, the Waffle splits into eight smaller squares that shoot out straight up, down, left, right and diagonally in all directions. If you’re on the far side of the screen, the smaller squares will not reach you. However, if you’re too close to the Waffle, you need to position your character so that the squares won’t hit you.
Stand below the Waffle just slightly left or right of the center of the enemy. You want to be off center enough to avoid the square that shoots straight down, but not so far away that the squares that shoot diagonally hit you. If the Waffle is on the ground and you can’t get under it, try quickly jumping and air dashing to the other side so you have more room to get away from the attack. Time your jump and dash so you don’t cross above the center of the waffle when the squares shoot out.
Phase Two
Once you have cleared three enemies in the first phase, Baroness Von Bon Bon appears at the top of the castle and the entire castle begins to move to the left. During this phase the Baroness throws her head at you. This is the main obstacle you need to avoid, but it’s not the only one. A giant peppermint candy also rolls across the screen periodically.
Let’s start with the head you need to avoid. The head homes in on the location of your character, then stops for one second before moving again. It stops at the spot your character was at when it first started to move. To avoid the head you need to make sure that you’re not standing in the same spot when it starts to move.
You should deliberately move to a location away from the floating platform so that you can jump to the platform when the head moves to your previous location. Generally speaking you want to move between the ground, the peppermint, and the floating platform. As long as you move every time the head starts to move, it won’t hit you.
The floating platform is safe to land on, and the ground is safe to land on. The peppermint you can parry. Use this to get your three parries if you’re shooting for a higher grade, but this also gives you a third “safe” place you can move to avoid the head. When you parry the peppermint you bounces back into the air and can easily air dash back to the platform or to the ground to avoid the head. The air dash is a very important tool to use to avoid the head.
During this phase you should continually move between those three points (the platform, the ground and the peppermint) every time the head moves. Try to move in sync with the head so that it’s always one step behind you. If you have a weapon that auto-targets the Baroness, you don’t have to worry about aiming and can just shoot continuously while you move. If you don’t have an auto-aiming weapon, you should be shooting at the Baroness every time you land on the platform or jump into the air.
You can check out our perfect run video of the Baroness Von Bon Bon boss battle above, or head over to our Cuphead game hub for more strategies and advice!
