CYGNI: All Guns Blazing review: First flight

Konami was once at the forefront of several gaming genres. It's the publisher that put out Castlevania and Contra, but younger generations may not be familiar with arcade space shooter classics like the Gradius series. While Konami isn't putting together another one of these games in-house, it is instead putting one out from new indie studio KeelWorks. KeelWorks went into CYGNI: All Guns Blazing with some ambitious goals, and while the studio falls short on creating the epic genre-changing adventure, it did put out a perfectly enjoyable arcade experience.

Shooting for the stars

The story of CYGNI: All Guns Blazing involves an extraterrestrial invasion. In the future, humanity has settled onto the remote planet of Cygni Prime. Hostile alien forces have invaded the planet and it's time to defend the remnants of humanity through the guns and attached drones of the Orca starfighter.

KeelWorks went into this game hoping to tell a deep and interesting story, one unlike any seen in any SHMUP game before it. The game's opening cutscene set the tone nicely. A jaunty pop tune introduces players to Ava. The camera pans around her barracks to briefly show that she's a second-generation pilot who studied and trained hard to get to where she is today, hoping to live up to her father's legacy.

The game, unfortunately, doesn't go any deeper than that. There are short cutscenes at the start and finish of each stage, but they don't express any sort of storytelling depth. Given that KeelWorks had previously expressed a desire to inject a more interesting narrative than one would find in a standard arcade shooter, the final result felt disappointing. The worst thing isn't even that the cutscenes are entirely unnecessary at the end of the day, but they're also unskippable. Even if, for whatever reason, a player decides to pull up a cutscene from the archives, it can't be skipped or stopped until it's over. That lack of functionality would have flown in the arcade shooter's heyday of the 1980s and 90s, but standards are a little higher in 2024.

From all directions

KeelWorks had also hoped to reinvent the arcade shooter from a gameplay standpoint, and I would say that the studio fell slightly short of those aspirations. However, that doesn't mean this isn't good. I had a blast through CYGNI's seven stages, which served as a strong reminder of how enjoyable and challenging a truly intense bullet hell SHMUP can be.

What sets CYGNI apart is its emphasis on both shooting at targets immediately in front of the Orca and also monitoring threats from the ground. The challenge comes in focusing on the immediate threat from hostiles in the air while maneuvering through shots from the ground and vice-versa. The game is designed well enough that switching between air and ground targets is seamless. Players are also allowed to approach targets in different ways, whether it's spamming homing shots or manually aiming at specific targets.

The most impressive aspect of CYGNI is the enemy AI, which can be relentless. Enemy patterns are easy enough to recognize and, at first glance, can be mistaken for something out of old-school Gradius. However, there are numerous enemy types that won't give up after making a single pass. Some will circle back around and try again while others will watch the player's movements and swing around from a different angle. More advanced ships will even try flanking or pushing players into incoming blasts from ground units.

Boss battles are designed with the same level of sophistication. Many of CYGNI's bosses have multiple attack methods, but aren't divided so much into traditional phases. They'll sometimes combine certain attacks to keep players guessing and offer a greater challenge without feeling overly cheap.

Where CYGNI falls short is with its upgrade system. Players can upgrade their Orca with drones, additional missiles, homing attacks, and... that's roughly it. There aren't many more ways to customize the Orca, which feels slightly disappointing. What's worse is that players can upgrade their ship between levels by using points they've earned over the course of the previous level. However, if a player goes through a stage and is unable to complete it, they return to the main menu with nothing. That means there's no way to upgrade the ship to be better prepared for the next outing without going back and completing a previous level. Given how difficult CYGNI can be, especially with Normal and higher difficulties only offering a single life, that feels like a rough punishment.

Flying high with high scores

As a revolutionary step forward for the arcade SHMUP, CYGNI: All Guns Blazing misses its mark. However, as a perfectly entertaining arcade romp, it does hit its target. Whether players boot it up and play a level at a time for the story or try to do it all in a single life in Arcade Mode, it hits all the right notes with engaging mechanics, fluid gameplay, challenging enemies that frequently fill the screen, and intense boss battles. CYGNI throws everything and the kitchen sink at players, sometimes to its detriment, because dozens upon dozens of enemies filling the screen did lead to occasional performance issues, even on the PlayStation 5.

For a debut effort, KeelWorks should feel proud of CYGNI. It's also a foundation to build on, because there's certainly one in place to make something even better.

This review is based on a PlayStation 5 code provided by the publisher. CYGNI: All Guns Blazing will release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on Tuesday, August 6 for $29.99 USD. The game is rated E10+.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?