Cygni: All Guns Blazing review – bullets spirit

Introduction

Shoot-em ups used to be a Konami speciality, with hardcore classics like Gradius and Contra. It’s fitting, then, for the Japanese company to be publishing Cygni: All Guns Blazing – a new shmup from small Edinburgh-based studio KeelWorks that aims to introduce a new generation to the old-school genre.

Not that these kinds of shooters went extinct with the arcades. The excellent PS4 launch title Resogun showed off Sony’s then-new hardware, while a new R-Type came out just last year. The fantasy of being that lone hero (or duo, via co-op) taking out thousands of incoming enemies in fireworks of explosive debris is still strong here. But is Cygni just a nostalgia trip – or does it genuinely offer something new, to make it as iconic and memorable as the shooters of yesteryear?

Pixar perfect?

A game from a studio founded by ex-Pixar animators creates certain expectations, and on an audiovisual level, Cygni certainly delivers. Even decades ago, shmups were a hardware showcase for just how many sprites and explosions could fill a screen with without tanking the framerate. The same applies here in stunning Unreal Engine 5 as you pilot a small airship called an Orca, fending off a mass of invading alien machines while dodging incoming projectiles.

The sense of depth and scale is elevated by the action unfolding on multiple planes. Rather than just fighting enemies in the air, you’ll see this epic war also playing out on the ground below you. The top-down, zoomed-out perspective as the screen vertically scrolls is what you expect of a shmup, so you can keep an eye on all that’s happening.

But Cygni also wants to be a more ‘cinematic’ experience, which doesn’t really fit the action. In practice then, it just means you’re treated to some pre-rendered animations that bookend each mission. There are a couple impressive moments when the camera comes in so close you can actually see pilot Ava in the cockpit, almost to prove KeelWorks has the technical chops to do this stuff in-engine. But that kind of close-up character representation isn’t practical for a game where you want to see everything you’re blasting on the screen. The cinematics are at most a gimmick, and sometimes gratuitous: one early sequence sees Ava changing into her pilot suit, complete with visible panty line.

It seems like most of the budget went to that first cinematic, as that’s as good as the cutscenes ever get. The majority are just lingering shots of static environments as Ava narrates the story; all other characters are just illustrations. It’s a reminder that KeelWorks is still a small studio with limited resources. Plenty of shooters tell stories, so getting to see the face of your protagonist and learning about why you’re being attacked by this alien force is probably the least compelling part of Cygni.

New energy

Fortunately, the actual shooting part (which I hope is what you’re here for in the first place) is pretty solid – though not completely straightforward. You’re primarily firing upwards like traditional vertical-scrolling shooters, but can also use the right analogue stick to change the angle of your guns, and beam attack enemies on the ground below with a squeeze of the left trigger. You can’t use both weapons simultaneously, so have to balance the two different planes.

Larger ground enemies are annoyingly spongey, but you can lock on to whittle down their health while concentrating on dodging projectiles from aerial enemies. Free-aiming can be useful for destroying smaller grunts that aren’t a direct threat, and can be harvested for the energy vital to powering your weapons and shields.

Those shields make Cygni a far cry from classic shmups, where your delicate ship would blow up after one hit; here you can endure more of the bullet hell that usually requires extreme dexterity to survive. It also means you can take risks and charge into danger knowing it’ll only cost a shield point, rather than your life.

The strategic part is using the shoulder buttons to decide how much energy you put into your shield or weapons, with each homing missile barrage you unleash using up a point that could’ve gone on protection. Energy gets automatically spent on shields, but nothing happens if they’re already at max, so it’s always smarter to max out the weapons side.

Orca, better, faster, stronger

Don’t go thinking shields have made Cygni less hardcore, as you only get a single life unless you play on easy mode. The flip side is that you just play one mission at a time, with a full arcade mode run unlocked later. Realistically you’re going to want to start on easy mode because you’re frankly just not as well-equipped from the off.

The usual power curve of classic shmups is what’s missing. Other than energy pick-ups, you don’t get to pick up new exciting weapon upgrades during a mission. Instead, you unlock loadouts from a starting menu, but of course when you start out you have no options. Most players will have to play in easy mode if there’s going to be any chance of making any progress. Once you actually beat a mission, you’ll then earn points that can be spent in the menu to get new upgrades, such as improving the firing power of the air-to-ground beam.

Loadouts don’t actually mean new weapons per se but actually the arc spread of your guns. By default you’ll shoot upwards, but one setting spreads these projectiles out further. You can switching between different settings depending on the situation, with the number available depending on how many weapon points you have.

Earning points can be an annoying grind, though. If you’re defeated and abort the mission you’ll earn nothing, which is why having three lives in easy mode gives you at least a fighting chance. However, using a life also vastly affects how many points you earn. On a flawless run I netted a couple hundred points; when I lost a life at the very end of a boss fight I earned only a tiny fraction. Funnily, the first mission actually feels like the toughest, on account of being the longest. Turns out there’s a reason why levels in arcade shooters last five minutes rather than 15.

Cygni: All Guns Blazing verdict

Don’t go into Cygni expecting an emotionally charged narrative, and the grind-heavy progression has me lamenting the old-school approach where your weapons get naturally crazier in a single run. But it’s still an undeniably pretty shooter, with dazzling effects and a modern, strategic twist.

Seven missions doesn’t sound like a lot, but there’s a real sense of achievement once you’ve earned enough upgrades to beat the first on standard difficulty. It’s welcoming to see Konami giving a new studio the chance to continue the genre, while other veteran publishers seem content to pump out their back catalogue. Whether or not it’s enough to pave the way for a shmup renaissance, it’s still a blast.