Cygni: All Guns Blazing Review – Next-Gen Looks, Classic Shmup Feel

When it comes to Shmups from Konami, you normally think about Gradius, Salamander, Gyruss, and Axelay (we haven’t forgotten about Axelay). However, with the release of its newest game, Cygni: All Guns Blazing, we can add another game to Konami’s Shmup catalog. But does this new title stack up with Konami’s previous gems, and can it give Shmup fans what they’ve been craving from the Konami camp? That’s what we intend to find out in our Cygni: All Guns Blazing review.

Game Name: Cygni: All Guns Blazing 
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC (reviewed)
Developer(s): Keelworks
Publisher(s): Konami
Release Date:  August 6, 2024
Price: $29.99

Developed by KeelWorks, Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a vertical Shmup that was announced in 2020 and then seemingly disappeared off the Shmup map. After being in development limbo, I’ve finally gotten my hands on the game. Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a vertical shooter that allows full freedom of movement, letting you avoid enemies as you attempt to take them down before they do the same to you. It reminds me a lot of Gyruss in terms of being able to circle the enemies entirely, but it goes even further by letting you slip between enemy ships, bosses, and the pew-pew fire they toss at you. It’s pretty damned great, actually.

It’s also worth noting that Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a twin-stick shooter, and it felt like second nature the second I picked up a controller. Taking down enemies is standard stuff: holding down the right trigger to take down air-based enemies, the left trigger for the grounded ones, and if you have missiles at the ready, the A button. Once you start upgrading your ship, you can also set up different fire patterns that you can switch to on the fly, at the cost of some energy.

However, Cygni has some interesting gameplay mechanics. As I’ve already mentioned, the full freedom of movement is not all. As you make your way through the game, you have to juggle between making sure you have enough power to keep your shields up or distributing that power toward your missiles, giving you more firepower but less survivability. It’s an interesting system that gives players options on how to play and keeps you on your toes as you’re constantly switching back and forth while trying to beat the stage. Still, I do wish that if one system is full and you collect the power-ups, they’d automatically fill the system that is empty instead of just doing nothing.

While the game is your basic Shmup, it looks stellar. It’s an amazing-looking game compared to other Shmups. While it all screams next-gen Shmup, the bosses are a cinematic experience as they come scrolling into your view, almost as if to taunt you. The soundtrack is equally as good. At the beginning of every stage, you’re treated to a very snazzy movie that looks really good—almost Pixar and DreamWorks quality. The entire presentation of the game screams a cinematic experience, and well, that’s really cool.

Since I played the game on the PC, I do want to talk about the performance, which was stellar for the most part. The controls are responsive – perfect for this sort of game. However, I did encounter a few micro-stutters while playing. Not enough to cause an issue but you can see them. There’s no ultrawide support, uncapped framerate, or any upscaling available before anyone asks about any of these. Yes, you can play this on your Steam Deck or Asus ROG Ally. However, the text and the ships may be a bit too small for some eyes.

So far the game seems great. Yet, Cygni: All Guns Blazing has some disappointing qualities that really hurt the game, in my opinion. For starters, stages can take up to eight minutes or more to complete. The first stage alone takes a staggering 15 minutes, and that’s simply unheard of for a Shmup. It would have been better if the developer had separated the stages into acts, especially since the game does save your progress after beating a stage.

Then there’s the difficulty, not that I’m complaining too much. On easy, you get three lives; on medium and hard, you get one. Now, I may not have played a Shmup in a while, but I do recall that most of them still give you a certain number of lives regardless of difficulty, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to try and one-life the stage or the entire game. Going back to easy, it may start as such, but even then the difficulty spikes at multiple points, making you wonder if you selected a higher difficulty by accident.

Compounding that, the items you pick up that add shields and missiles also double as your in-game currency to upgrade your weapons and purchase other helpful things such as drones or a super powerful bomb. Except, when you die on easy, you lose it all. On medium and hard, since you have one life, it doesn’t matter. Still, when you’re trying to level up and die when the difficulty spikes, it does get frustrating.

While I know this is probably silly on my part, at times there’s just way too much happening on the screen. I love a good bullet hell as much as the next person, but c’mon. There were times when there were more enemies and bullets on the screen than there were ways to get around them. I’ve screenshotted some of the points to look at them later and was like, “There’s no way I could have avoided that.” Of course, someone will eventually come and 1cc the game and prove me wrong. Thank goodness for shields.

Finally, there’s the upgrade system that the game fails to explain, leaving you to figure out how exactly it works. Why are upgrades locked until you beat specific stages? Thankfully, it’s not hard to figure out, but that’s not the point. What is this? The Dark Souls of Shmups? I’m sorry I even said that.

All in all, Cygni: All Guns Blazing is a traditional Shmup with some cool ideas, wrapped in a fantastic presentation. It’s not game-changing, and some of the ideas puzzle me, but it’s not bad either. If you’re looking for a Shmup that attempts to do something different, maybe give Cygni: All Guns Blazing a try. Who knows, maybe if this does well, we’ll finally get that damned Axelay sequel. No, we haven’t forgotten, Konami.

Cygni: All Guns Blazing releases on August 6, 2024, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Review Disclosure Statement: Cygni: All Guns Blazing was provided to us by Konami for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy.

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