CYGNI: All Guns Blazing Review: Beautifully Sci-Fi, But A Troublesome Grind

I don’t claim to be the biggest shoot ‘em up fan in the world. In fact, it’s a genre I only really dabble in from time to time. That said, there’s always something alluring about modern takes on one of gaming's most classic categories. Development studio KeelWorks have set out to do just that, with their spin on the genre through CYGNI: All Guns Blazing. Published by Konami, CYGNI brings to the table some truly magnificent visuals that alone help it to stand out against its counterparts. But, a few frustrating mechanics and an unsatisfying grind leaves CYGNI feeling clunky. 

Resistance is Futile

CYGNI operates as a vertical side-scroller. You’ll move around the screen and advance at a pace dictated by the sequence of enemies, all of whom are relentlessly firing their weapons at you. As a combat ship, you’re equipped with guns, missiles, and a shield. Your guns are available to use at will, and infinitely, whereas your shields and missiles are a limited resource. Each hit you take will deplete a bar of your shields, which you can refuel through energy pick-ups that drop from fallen enemies. These energy pick-ups are automatically assigned to your shield reserves, but you can also manually assign the energy to your missiles instead. These missiles pack more of a punch than your regular guns, and are especially useful against each stage’s boss fights. 

If you caught my preview of CYGNI back in July, you’ll remember I had a minor gripe with the lack of overflow when it came to allocating energy. If you’re sitting at full shields, any extra energy that you happen to pick up from enemies won’t automatically be allocated to your missiles. Instead, you still have to manually fill your missiles which, when you’re being rained down upon by all manner of bullets, is an additional step of resource management I’d rather not be dealing with. 

The argument against the overflow is that the extra energy is converted to points that’ll affect your upgrade point reserves when you finish a level. However, those points evaporate once you die (which if you’re playing on anything other than Easy means it’s game over). If you are playing on Easy, you’ll have three lives, meaning you can resume from where you perished, but you’ll be starting your point count back from zero. There will be moments where there are simply too many attacks on screen to feasibly avoid, meaning that you have little choice but to take the hit and hope that the next enemy drops some energy. I had a fairly clean run on one stage right up until I had the boss on about 18% health. After taking too many difficult to avoid hits, and little energy dropping in return, my shields were depleted and I lost a life. Respawning immediately, this all meant that I couldn’t regain anywhere near the amount of points I had going in, and completed the boss fight feeling dejected rather than accomplished. 

I suppose this is where CYGNI’s roguelike features come into play. Unless you’re a shoot ‘em up wizard, you’ll probably want to run each stage a few times on Easy to rack up sufficient upgrade points. Then, once your ship is a little better equipped and optimized, you’ll have a smoother time taking on the stages at harder difficulties. It’s worth noting that each stage takes roughly 10-15 minutes. If you’re not completing the stage first time, or keep losing lives and points in Easy mode, then the grind can quickly become tedious. Roguelikes, to me, reward failure with information and room for progression, but CYGNI doesn’t quite give you enough to work with on that front. 

It’s worth noting that CYGNI has a Designer Mode, which lets you customize your weapon attack pattern and, in turn, gives you a little more control over how you fight. Unfortunately, you won’t have access to this during your first run through the game. It’s also a little confusing to work out once you do unlock it, as to actually build or enable your design will take a bit of trial and error. 

A Sci-Fi Epic Scaled Down

One of CYGNI’s biggest strengths comes in the form of its visuals, which remain just as impressive as when I first saw them during the preview. The environments and enemy designs, particularly those of the boss creatures, conjure up a stunning sense of scale. The mechanical alien creatures rising up from the depths below to meet your tiny combat ship head on, with metal appendages and glowing sensors filling the screen. It has all the makings of a sci-fi epic, accompanied by a score that aims for the same sentiments as a blockbuster film. It seems almost a shame that CYGNI’s story doesn’t carry the same weight. 

Told in stages through a few lines of narration from our pilot protagonist, the story serves to outline the steps of the alien invasion and bridge us from one stage to the next. The protagonist doesn’t have much going on in terms of characterisation, so there’s little to latch onto from a narrative perspective. Even the alien invasion is told in such a vague way that it’s hard to invest yourself into any of it. Fans of the genre might not be all too bothered by a lack of story, but when paired with gameplay that also feels a little loose gives players little reason to see CYGNI through to the end.  

From Humble Beginnings

The small development team KeelWorks has clearly invested a lot of time and effort into ensuring that CYGNI looks at its absolute best. Its evocative environments have me dying to see their concept art, and the mechanical enemy designs will easily work their way into the hearts of any science-fiction fan. The boss creatures are a particular standout, creating an impressive sense of scale in this vertical side-scroller. CYGNI is, unfortunately, let down by its combat mechanics and vague story, with neither really packing enough of a punch to incentivise players to fight for humanity’s survival. While the combat is serviceable, its resource management aspect and slow progression system only serve to add additional hurdles. 

CYGNI: All Guns Blazing launches on August 6, 2024 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and Blacknut.