Review: CYGNI: All Guns Blazing

One of my favorite things about gaming is the incredible variety of genres, difficulties, and accessibility. It’s like if Baskin Robbins wasn’t relegated to producing only ice cream and decided to get real weird with the flavors.

With the AAA bubble collapsing inward, indie studios like KeelWorks are rising up to take in disenfranchised gamers. Can this studio knock it out of the park with its debut shmup, CYGNI: All Guns Blazing, or will it succumb to the trappings plaguing the industry at large?

CYGNI: All Guns Blazing (PC [Reviewed], PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: KeelWorks
Publisher: Konami
Released: August 5, 2024
MSRP: $29.99

Reading the promotional material for CYGNI: All Guns Blazing will have you beaten over the head about how pretty the shoot ’em up is. It feels like a magician trying to distract the audience with one hand while preparing the trick with the other. While the distraction is indeed quite gorgeous, this ultimately undermines the other aspects of the performance. It quickly becomes apparent more time should have been spent making the gameplay equally beautiful.

CYGNI: All Guns Blazing has a hard time deciding its tone. The pilot is rendered in a style very reminiscent of Pixar films like Big Hero 6 and for reasons which elude me, the opening cinematic even features a gratuitous shot of her pulling her pants up over a thong-clad bottom. It’s such a weird inclusion that instantly makes this hard to recommend for a younger audience, despite there being nothing remotely sexual for the rest of the game.

Cinematics are either fully rendered affairs or illustrations with minimal movement, akin to cost-saving measures seen in titles like Destiny 2 or World of Warcraft‘s later expansions. Levels, the pilot’s ship, and enemies are otherwise rendered in a more realistic way with the bosses looking like the offspring between a chainsaw and an H. R. Geiger illustration. It’s simply all over the place and much like myself in college, is beautiful, yet confusing.

The narrative is oddly present for something riding in the back seat while visuals and gameplay sit up front. It’s clear a not-insignificant amount of time was spent creating the world of CYGNI and crafting the lore of using alien technology to bolster humanity’s own. I found the concept of these eldritch mechanical beings slumbering until humanity awoke them by harvesting their “corpses” fascinating. Unfortunately, it only exists to set up a bare-bones explanation of why we’re shooting these aliens.

In terms of gameplay, CYGNI: All Guns Blazing could have benefited from more time in the oven. There is an overwhelming amount of shallow mechanics at play. Instead of forcing the tutorial on players, this option is off to the side and ultimately sets the player up for failure. This is compounded by the fact that the first stage is arguably the most difficult and longest. It’s a trial by fire that will leave all but the most masochistic a trifle aggravated.

The biggest issue with CYGNI‘s gameplay is balancing. There’s no even progression and you’ll be punished for things you don’t know exist. With the first level feeling more like an endgame level, players aren’t able to acclimate themselves to the various systems and mechanics. Even worse, you’re going into it underpowered for what it is.

Unless you’re playing on Easy, you’ll only have one life through levels that are upwards of 20 minutes long, have no checkpoints, and will have you tackling multiple bosses. Unlike other games in the genre, there’s no point system where you can gain another life. Should you run into a barrier that appears out of nowhere and immediately die, it’s too bad.

This, in turn, has a negative impact on the upgrades, which are crucial to surviving missions. Enemies have a chance to drop Energy Points on death. These points are used to replenish shields, increase firepower, or fire missiles. They are also used to purchase upgrades. This means that you’ll be forced to walk that line between using points to survive and saving enough to actually enhance your ship. Don’t die though as all of those points disappear like a fart in the wind should you die.

Sadly, the upgrades are mostly useless. Side drones increase outgoing damage and additional homing missiles are great, but everything else is moot. For example, CYGNI has a layered approach to combat in that you’ll need to deal with foes in the air and on the ground. However, you can only attack one layer at a time and it’s incredibly rare not to be fighting both simultaneously.

Attacks against ground troops are weak, even with upgrades, and more often than not it’s better to simply ignore ground troops so as not to be completely overwhelmed by splitting your attention. Hell, giving me the option to change my ground attack to something like a carpet bomb would have been a thousand times better.

Finally, your ultimate, the Shield Blast, might as well not be a thing. This attack uses your shields to unleash a screen-wide AoE that obliterates everything. The problem is that enemy reinforcements quickly repopulate and you no longer have a shield. Should you get tagged by a stray shot before you can replenish them, that’s it. You’re done. Time to start over.

Not being a masochist, I opted to play on Easy with the intent of purchasing upgrades and then tackling harder difficulties. With a few choice upgrades, Easy became just that. Yet, attempting Medium is a fool’s errand as that core balancing issue rears its ugly head. There are simply too many enemies, too many projectiles without any meaningful evasive maneuvers, and the levels are way too long. Honestly, you could bisect each level and end it with one of the enjoyable boss fights and it would be so much better.

All of this then makes me reconsider the $30 asking price. All in all, it took me about four hours to beat the campaign, unlock all of the upgrades, and replay it a few times over. Sure, there’s a local co-op and an Arcade Mode that’s just a points-driven version of the campaign, but it’s lacking too much to ask that much money.

Perhaps if it was balanced better, had more meaningful upgrades, or strove to play as well as it looks, it might be worth it. As it stands, I’d say wait for a sale and don’t bother paying more than $15. It’s a fun way to kill an afternoon and gives you a taste of the genre, but that’s about it. Here’s hoping that developer KeelWorks can learn from its debut effort and bring its gameplay design to the same level as its visuals.