Cuphead: How To Beat Dr. Kahl’s Robot

Take on Dr. Kahl and his massive robot friend in Cuphead

Cuphead has arrived for the Nintendo Switch, and with it, plenty of headaches as players attempt to face the hordes of bosses awaiting them to test their skills. One of the more notorious boss fights is against Dr. Kahl and his Robot. It’s broken up into a three-stage battle, where the first two are relatively straightforward, with the final part of it proving a bit of a challenge. We’re going to break down the best way to approach each section of this fight, to ensure you make it through in one piece.

How To Beat Dr. Kahl’s Robot

First Phase

The first phase of this fight you start in a plane where you’re first going to see Dr. Kahl before he scurries away into his robot to do battle with you. There are three weak points you can hurt during this stage of the fight: The head laser, chest, and stomach. You need to destroy each of the parts, but they also come with an attack.

• Head Laser: During your fight the head laser won’t have anything shooting out of it, making it vulnerable. However, when it shines out a yellow beam, it’s getting ready to fire. When you see this yellow light, you want to get out of the way and start hitting one of the other targets.
• Chest: The robot’s chest occasional fires out a small drone that scrolls across the screen, with electricity firing above and below it. It’s pink, so you need to parry it, shutting the electricity wall down when the chest is open, fire at it to destroy the gap.
• Stomach: At the robot’s stomach, it fires out small ships that go in a wavy ‘S’ formation to the top of the screen. You’re probably going to avoid them until they reach you, somewhere in the middle. They’re pretty easy to dodge and easy to destroy.

When you’ve destroyed all three of the robot’s parts, a red heart springs out from the gap in its chest. You need to destroy this to advance to the next phase. Also, after you’ve taken out a body part, the robot gains a new attack. When you the head laser goes down, the robot opens its mouth to fire out a spray of golden nuts and bolts. When you destroy the chest, the robot’s arms stretch out and behind you to use a magnet to draw you in from behind. After you decimate the stomach section, it starts to fire out deadly missiles that follow. When you destroy them, they explode into an electrifying cloud imprinted to look like Dr. Kahl. You don’t want to be close to the bombs when you blow them up.

Second Phase

After you’ve destroyed the robot’s body, the head is going to eject off and start flying back and forth across the screen. It’ll jet across the top section, go off screen, and then appear on the lower part going the other direction. You’ll need to hit it when it goes across the screen, all the while those black bombs the robot was firing out from its stomach are going to continue coming after you. Make sure to avoid these, and when you do blow them up, you’re not close to them.

This section of the fight is exceptionally straightforward.

Final Phase

After you’ve fired at the head a few times, it should return to the center of the screen, and you’ll see Dr. Kahl standing out from the top of it. You’ll want to fire at him to beat this part of the game. Now, an arm is coming out of the robot’s head holding a beautiful jewel, which is firing destructive forces at you. The gems change colors, but they have the same outstretching attack patterns as Dr. Kahl floats up and down on the screen. During this fight, you’ll also need to avoid the panels of electricity that slowly drift across the screen. They start at the upper right and lower right sections, working their way diagonally across the screen.

Between the gem attacks and the electrical panels, this section is tedious more than anything. It’s a great idea to use your ultimate at some point during this encounter to make this final part easier.