Cygni: All Guns Blazing admittedly caught me by surprise when I saw its first trailers. But upon playing it, I couldn’t have felt more at home. They might have been released before my time, but I still grew up playing arcade classics like Gradius, Galaga, R-Type and even Space Invaders, soaking up the addictive moment-to-moment gameplay.
Cygni: All Guns Blazing might not stack up to such classics for a few reasons, but it certainly gets a bunch right in the way of its core gameplay mechanics and overall feel. It’s honestly hard to describe, but it feels like something I’ve picked up and played before, in all the right ways.
While the story feels a little stitched together and rather inconsequential, the bite-sized missions and multiple upgrades make Cygni: All Guns Blazing worth playing for any fan of old-school space shoot-em-ups.
A Shot of Adrenaline
Cygni: All Guns Blazing immediately finds its groove, presenting seven missions that take around 15 minutes to beat. They’re each filled with multiple bosses and waves of enemies that come flying at you at a moment’s notice. You play as Ava, a rookie pilot in the Cygni Air Force, who is thrown into the midst of a surprise alien invasion, holding out as humanity’s last hope.
The story is relatively barebones and takes a backseat to its core gameplay, doing its best to explain and flesh out the origins and intentions behind this attack, while diving into the inner workings of the alien enemy.
That sounds interesting in theory, but the 2-3 minute cutscenes that play before and after each mission all feel a little stitched together and inconsequential. That being said, you could argue that a story in a game like this wouldn’t be doing much of the heavy lifting in the first place.
I do commend the animation style though, as the characters look like both Pixar and Overwatch combined to make these charming and polished character models. While that art style doesn’t necessarily translate to the actual gameplay, presented from a birds-eye view, it all still looks fantastic, coated in various textures and unique backdrops as you mostly fly over active battlefields and alien bases.
Non-Stop Action
It’s no word of a lie; Cygni: All Guns Blazing’s missions might only last 15 minutes, but they are packed to the brim with action. Taking control of your ship, you have access to a main gun which fires straight ahead, and a secondary beam which fires down to the battlefield below. If the number of enemies coming at you wasn’t chaotic enough, the ridiculous amount of debris and explosions that result from your itchy trigger finger are truly a sight to behold.
Enemies usually attack in patterns and waves, making it satisfying to lock into the right position as they charge into your line of fire. You’re able to strafe left and right to dodge enemy projectiles, but you’re also able to aim your main attacks slightly to the left or right, which helps greatly with the aim as you don’t have to move specifically underneath an enemy. Your secondary beam, however, can be fired downwards practically anywhere on the battlefield below.
You’ll also have access to several missiles that lock onto enemies and can even unlock various attack patterns that you can change on the fly. Another unique feature of Cygni: All Guns Blazing, is the ability to assign your resources towards your shield or attacks. Enemies will drop tokens which essentially act like energy points to bolster your shield or attack strength.
Two bars below your ship indicate a line of blocks, blue for shields and red for attacks. You can then shift between these, should you need to utilise a defensive or offensive strategy. Shiting between them is done with the left and right shoulder buttons, and is super easy to do during combat.
The real gamble is switching at the right time, as you’ll sometimes need to put more energy into your attacks to access abilities like homing missiles and various attack patterns which can help with multiple enemies. Switching energy back to your shields in the nick of time is super exciting, as you’re essentially leaving yourself momentarily open to an instant death, before giving yourself a chance to switch back.
Cygni: All Guns Blazing is also super hard. Even in the normal difficulty setting, the challenge can be enormous. The fact that the normal difficulty only gives you a single life to complete the entire mission, bringing you back to the start if you die feels true to the games of old, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t stress me out at times. Thankfully, the easy difficulty gives you an extra life, and I feel like it’s going to be the preferred setting for most casual players.
The only gripe I had at this point, was that the tutorial felt a little misleading, teaching you the controls and mechanics, but not so much how to implement them and when they’re most effective. You’re sort of just left to your own devices. For example, the game teaches you how to move and shoot, but not that you need to buff your attacking resources to be able to use missiles. If you’re looking to keep all the resources to your shields, the game doesn’t even let you fire missiles or change attack patterns until I discovered that myself.
Along the way, you can even level up your ship to a surprising degree, even if the menus can be a little tricky to understand at first. You have six weapon slots which you can essentially unlock and assign several attack patterns to, but you can stick to fewer patterns if that feels like too much.
You’ll unlock Energy Points after each mission and find that you have enough to unlock a bit of everything after your first playthrough. You can unlock the number of missiles available to you, unlock devastating special attacks and even unlock a drone which follows you for some extra help in sticky situations. It all feels worthwhile, even if you might have to grind in the easy mode to farm some points at first.
I haven’t even mentioned yet that Cygni: All Guns Blazing can be played cooperatively with another friend for some added fun, or stress. It feels like a natural inclusion, but I respect it for helping give the experience a little more depth and variety.
Look the Part
Cygni: All Guns Blazing excels visually, with plenty of gorgeous colours, details and backdrops to gawk at. That being said, it can also get chaotic. Like really chronic. Between waves of enemies, projectiles and active backdrops, some of which can also feature enemies that fire up towards you, it feels like the experience is packing as much as it possibly can. I don’t mind it so much, but I also feel like it can make the overall experience feel much more intimidating than it is.
Thankfully, the game also runs at an even clip. On the PlayStation 5, I got a smooth and consistent 60 FPS in 4K pretty much the entire way, an impressive feat given how much is going on.
Final Thoughts
Cygni: All Guns Blazing does a bunch of things right in terms of its core gameplay. It feels satisfying to play and the amount of upgrades keeps things from feeling stale.
Unfortunately, as nicely animated as the cutscenes are, they house a rather inconsequential story that fails to raise the stakes in any meaningful way. The game also features a tutorial that teaches you how to play, but not necessarily the ins and outs of its mechanics, leaving you to figure things out through trial and error. Given the toughness of even the normal difficulty setting, this can prove rather frustrating.
While I don’t think this is for everyone, I certainly recommend fans of the genre play Cygni: All Guns Blazing for its satisfying gameplay alone.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Highlights: Strong, addictive gameplay; Clean visuals; Variety of upgrades
Lowlights: Inconsequential story; Vague tutorial; Steep difficulty
Developer: KeelWorks, KeelWorks Limited
Publisher: Konami
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows PC
Available: Now
Review conducted on PlayStation 5 with a pre-release code provided by the publisher.
