Mortimer Freeze
Mortimer Freeze is one of the new bosses featured in The Delicious Last Course. He is fought during Snow Cult Scuffle, and his battle takes place in an ice palace, although damaging him enough shifts his fight to above his ice palace. He is the keeper of the Icy Sugar Cubes.
Description
Appearance
Mortimer Freeze is a plump old man with pale blue skin that looks frozen and an icy beard and eyebrows that looks a bit melted, has a long, pointy nose, and large ears. He wears a purple wizard hat with a band. His robe is also purple and looks ragged with patches on the arms, it is held up by yellow buttons. His pants are lavender also with some patches and he has yellow shoes.
The Snow Monster is snowman with a rather round body shape, with three yellow buttons on its belly. It seems to have a beard and the inside its mouth (which resembles a cage) and its eyes are hollow. It wears an orange bucket as a hat and wears broken handcuffs on their wrists.
In his final form, Mortimer Freeze is a large flat snowflake (albeit eight-sided) made of ice with two glowing eyes, a pointy nose, and a large mouth. He can turn his points into either an arm or a hand crank.
Personality
He is a cult leader where the cult members may be his audience. He seems rather jolly most of the time even in his other forms. He also seems to be a bit of a nepotist as evident by one of his death screen quotes. As evident by his tarot card attack, he is implied to be a deceiver who recruits others into his cult with the promise of happiness. He is also shown to be a charismatic leader as evident by the audience watching the fight.
Battle
Intro
Mortimer Freeze is first seen sitting on his throne before he flies under an arc into the arena. His hat gets knocked off when he flies through the ice gate, so he swoops down and ice skates his way to grab his hat before he extends his legs up, puts his hat on, and flies up.
Phase 1
"It'll be a hot December before I let you be a member."
—Mortimer Freeze, Phase 1 Death Screen
As the battle commences, Mortimer will use three attacks at random:
- Mortimer extends his cape to summon four living icicles that protrude from the ground before running around the battlefield. They can be shot and defeated. In Simple Mode, they fall down much slower. In Expert Mode, they fall down faster.
- Mortimer summons a giant orange whale with constellations on its back from his hat to smash the player. This attack can crush the icicles and they will be flung to the foreground. In Simple Mode, he takes longer to strike the whale down.
- Mortimer pulls out his magic crystal ball and shoots tarot cards at the player. Some tarot cards can be parried.
For the entirety of this phase, he constantly moves side to side while airborne, requiring the player to shoot upwards. After taking enough hits, Mortimer eventually stops, pulls out his bell and rings it to lower the snow monster on him. The snow monster's stomach closes in on Mortimer, possibly to fuse the two together, as it breaks free of its chains to drop down into the arena. This causes all the remaining icicles to be flung to the foreground. Hitpoints = 230/248/278
Phase 2
"ICED ALREADY? WHERE PUNY CUPS GO?"
—Snow Monster, Phase 2 Death Screen
In this phase, Mortimer will operate a Snow Monster and uses three moves:
- He slams his hands down to cause a snow shockwave as a distraction before four spikes protrude from the ground. In Expert Mode, seven spikes protrude out in at a faster rate. In Simple Mode, this attack is not used.
- He transforms into a refrigerator and shoot out two to three ice cubes of medium or large sizes in arcs. These ice cubes break into smaller ice cubes which bounce to both sides, and the larger one can be broken twice. In Expert Mode, he shoots one to two ice cubes with random sizes. After the ice cube attack ends, the freezer opens up and releases four popsicles with bat wings into the air that gradually swoop down towards the player one at a time. The player can shoot at the popsicles as they swoop down. Some popsicles can be parried. In Expert Mode, it spawns six and the popsicles swoop down much faster.
- He rolls to the other side of the arena at high speeds. Occasionally, he can roll back at forth and even bounce up to the other side. In Simple Mode, he rolls around much slower and has more startup time. In Expert Mode, he rolls around much faster and has less startup time.
In Simple Mode, Mortimer will immediately turn into a refrigerator. It can shoot out the small ice cubes that do not break apart and occasionally shoot out the medium or large ones. He continues to attack this way until this sub-phase ends and releases popsicles as usual. Hitpoints = 580 In the second sub-phase, Mortimer will only use his rolling and bouncing attacks. Hitpoints = 540
After taking enough damage, the Snow Monster holds his stomach, becomes bloated, and forms something inside that stretches him into something with 8 points. His top half bursts apart, releasing Mortimer in his final form. As five platforms form for the player to head towards the next phase, the bottom half runs across the screen to encourage the player to jump up. The Snow Monster's bucket can be seen falling from the top. In Simple Mode, the fight simply ends with the Snow Monster holding his stomach and shivering. Hitpoints = 693/777
Phase 3
"It’s Aurora Borea-all over for you!"
—Mortimer Freeze, Phase 3 death screen
During the phase, the battlefield completely changes into five platforms revolve around the center as the player climbs up to them. In Expert Mode, they revolve around faster. Mortimer, who is transformed as an 8-point snowflake, falls like one in the background, licks his fingers as if he is sharpening them, and proceeds to fight. Interestingly, his snowflake form does not have a hurtbox and the player can be on top of him.
During this phase, Mortimer Freeze is capable of moving to the other side of the battlefield through the background, foreground and sometimes flipping himself over, which changes how most of his attacks come out. He has three attacks:
- Mortimer rolls up his mouth with a crank, before popping one of his eyes out. The eye periodically fires a vertical laser beam three times, and curves back towards Mortimer’s mouth. In Expert Mode, it fires five times.
- Mortimer "opens" up his snowflake form to reveal his hands and creates buckets that split into three moon projectiles as they hit the edge of the screen. This attack is aimed at three angles. One of the buckets can be parried. In Expert Mode, he creates the buckets more rapidly.
- Mortimer Freeze turns his mouth into an ice cream stand and cycles around the platform once as an ice cream vendor spirit. This attack creates four snow cones that are aimed inwards. Mortimer's spirit cannot actually do damage. In Expert Mode, he creates five snow cones.
After taking enough damage, the snowflake form melts, revealing a shivering and defeated Mortimer. Mortimer has a thermometer in his mouth and a cold compress on his head and is sitting on his hat. If he is upside-down, he will turn right side up before melting. Hitpoints = 709/795
Gallery
Mortimer slams his Winter Whale into the ground
The Snow Monster slamming the ground
The Snow Monster's rolling attack.
Phase 3
Mortimer shooting tarot cards
Crystal ball table
Sun Arcana
Moon Arcana
Three of Swords Arcana
Tarot card back
Mortimer summoning icicles
Mortimer summoning white whale from his hat
Mortimer slamming down winter whale
Phase 1 transition
Snow Monster scaring the player
Snow Monster using his refrigerator attack
Large ice cubes
Medium ice cubes
Small ice cubes
Snow Monster spawning twin popsicle bats
Snow Monster pulling up
Snow Monster pulling back
Snow Monster rolling
Snow Monster slamming both of his fists down
Phase 2 transition
Snow Monster exploding
Snowflake shooting up
Snow Monster's bucket hat
Mortimer sharpens his hands to prepare for the fight
Mortimer open his mouth as an ice cream stand
Mortimer's spirit as a ice cream vendor
Ice cream
Mortimer launches one of his eyes.
Eye attack idle
Mortimer eating his eye back
Mortimer opens up a hatch
Mortimer's arms summoning buckets
Buckets
Moon pieces
Mortimer's knockout
Mortimer's knockout upside down
Mortimer defeated
Mortimer's whale slam (pencil test)
Snow Monster idle (pencil test)
Slam attack (pencil test)
Slam attack smear frame
Overworld Icon
Saltbaker brushing Mortimer's winter whale's teeth during the epilogue
Mortimer (top left) at the end of the credits
The Snow Monster fighting Cuphead the 1.3.4 Patch Update image
Walkthrough
| Regular Mode | Expert Mode |
|---|---|
| File:How To Beat Mortimer Freeze NO DAMAGE (A+ Rank) - Cuphead DLC | File:How To Beat Mortimer Freeze on EXPERT MODE (S-Rank) - Cuphead DLC |
Trivia
- Mortimer Freeze was first revealed in the teaser trailer, though in his second phase as the Snow Monster. In the third trailer, his last phase reveals to be in a giant snowflake.
- There was an animation error of the Snow Monster's bucket suddenly appearing out of the middle left/right of the screen (depends on which side he is defeated in Phase 2) instead of the off-screen during the transition to the third phase. This has been fixed in patch 1.3.4.
- There is an animation error of Mortimer's defeat animation not being removed and some melted ice can be seen at the bottom when he is defeated.
- At launch, when Mortimer Freeze was knocked out, it did not play any explosion visual or sound effects. This was rectified in a later game update.
- His ice cube attack splitting into smaller pieces and bouncing to both sides is very similar the unused Shuriken Bomb attack Sally Stageplay had, even down to it being able to split twice.
- The Winter Whale's constellation is Cetus, sometimes it is called "the whale".
- The Tarot cards Mortimer conjures for his attacks are the moon and sun, which is reflected in the architecture of his castle with a sun over the middle arch and moons on the left and right arches. This could be a nod to the fact that the arctic or Antarctic circles, both similarly cold and snowy place are named nicknamed the land of the midnight sun due to the fact that the daylight and nighttime hours last for months instead of just a few hours.
- Interestingly enough, the meaning behind the moon tarot card is that someone is deceiving you and the sun card means joy and happiness, add that to the fact that Mortimer has been described as a cult leader and we can see a picture of his true character. He deceives people and promises them happiness if they join his cult. Another tarot card is the 3 of swords, which means betrayal. This may imply him to be betraying the trust the cult members give him.
- It could also be interpreted that Mortimer Freeze is giving the player characters a reading of a warning that could happen. The Sun can represent friendship and creativity which seems in line with the addition of Ms Chalice. The Moon represents mystery and hidden paths while Three of Swords can represent betrayal which could be seen as foreshadowing events in the game.
- In the teaser trailer, when Mortimer's second phase was revealed, there was no audience in the background, most likely because it wasn't animated yet.
- Another reason could have been for the audience to turn into the Snow Monster instead of Mortimer.
- He is one of the few bosses to have different defeat animations depending which conditions are present when they are defeated. In his case, Mortimer Freeze flips right-side up prior to melting and transforming back to his original form if his current position is upside-down.
- The Pilot Saluki also has a different conditional defeat animation, wringing her hat if the players drain her health by shooting her Dog Chinook's laser cannons, but if she is defeated by directly shooting her while she is attacking, the Pilot Saluki clutches her chest and panics. Her former reaction is also used for the secret phase.
- In the ending of the DLC, the Snow Monster is seen fishing in the background while Mortimer is directing how to clean the whale's teeth, meaning it can function independently without Mortimer.
- Real snowflakes have six sides, but Mortimer has eight sides in his final phase.
Inspirations and similarities
- The Snow Monster's appearance bears a resemblance to the evil snowman in Ted Eshbaugh's The Snowman (1933). He also resembles Marshmallow from Disney’s 2013 feature film Frozen.
- Its slam producing a series of daggers popping out of the ground is really similar to the attack Chireitou for Hsien-Ko in Darkstalkers. She also slams to the ground and the dagger having the exact same shape comes up in wave going forward. The only difference is the daggers doesn't have any Chinese characters on it.
- Its slam animation looks exactly like the Juggernaut's Earthquake attack in Marvel-licensed Capcom fighting games (including crossover series Marvel vs. Capcom), coincidentally also sending an earthquake and shockwave forward like the snow shockwave.
- The giant whale that Mortimer uses for his first phase resembles Monstro from Disney's Pinocchio.
- The snowflake bears a few similarities in appearance to SpongeBob SquarePants from the TV show of the same name, such as his long nose, large eyes and teeth.
- The snowflake bears some similarities to the Ice-type Cryogonal from the Pokémon series, namely their large eyes, spaced out teeth, the shape of the points on each end of the flake, and their tendency to melt when defeated. The snowflake's color palette is also the same as Cryogonal's shiny colors- light blue with yellow eyes.
- The snowflake licking finger animation is a direct reference to a ghost in the 1930 Talkartoon Swing You Sinners! (which is referenced multiple times in the game) as well as the old man of the mountains from the Betty Boop cartoon of the same name.
- Mortimer's ragged appearance, blue skin, beard and pointed nose and usage of "snow goons" for minions is similar to the Ice King from Adventure Time.
- It is also likewise similar to the Winter Warlock from Rankin-Bass' Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which the Ice King was based off of. He also resembles the Snow Miser, who was also from a Rankin-Bass film, The Year Without a Santa Claus as well as it's following special A Miser Brothers' Christmas. Another character he resembles is Old Man Winter from the 1934 ComiColor cartoon by Ub Iwerks Jack Frost.
- Mortimer's appearance may also be based off the Sandman from the 1933 Silly Symphony Lullaby Land, except he has light blue skin and his outfit is purple.
- Mortimer being a cult leader and the sentiment of "be a member" is direct reference to the 1931 Fleischer Studios Talkartoon Bimbo's Initiation.
- The ice cubes have similarities to the Clancer Blocks from the game Mischief Makers.
- The snow cult members in the background resemble the dancing ghosts in Swing You Sinners!
- His death quote in Phase 3 is a reference to Aurora Borealis, the scientific name for the northern lights.