Review: CYGNI: ALL GUNS BLAZING Needs a Bit More Time in the Hanger

Konami recently released CYGNI: All Guns Blazing from developer KeelWorks. It is a vertical shoot ‘em up (shmup) a la Galaga and can be played now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Konami was kind enough to provide me with a Steam code for the purposes of this review, but all thoughts are my own. If this sounds like your kind of game, you can purchase it from various storefronts including Humble (affiliate link) with an MSRP of $29.99.

In CYGNI: All Guns Blazing, humanity’s last stand unfolds on planet CYGNI, where players defend the remnants of a decimated colony against a relentless biomechanical alien onslaught.

Immerse yourself in a pulse-pounding battle for humanity, where cutting-edge visuals, sound design, and intense action combine for an unforgettable next-gen experience.

I will preface this review by confessing that I’m not the most familiar with shmups. I’ve played a couple here and there, but none very extensively. I still have enjoyed my time playing CYGNI and even completed it on easy mode.

Let’s start with some technical notes. First, I did try CYGNI on my Steam Deck and even on the Steam Deck setting, it did not run very well. I mostly played CYGNI on my gaming desktop which features a Ryzen 9 5900X, Radeon RX 6800 XT, and 32GB of DDR4 RAM running at 3600 MT/s.

I was genuinely a little thrown off when I found that with everything maxed out, it could not maintain a stable 60 frames per second (fps) which is as high as the game will let you set it. I was even more thrown off when I bumped the detail level down to ‘High’ and still could not maintain 60 fps.

It was better than ‘Ultra’ but still no dice. Sadly, there were no options for AMD FSR. I’m sure if I tweaked some settings through AMD Adrenaline and/or lowered the MSAA to x2 instead of x4 I could get more of a steady framerate at 60fps.

I’m not sure if this is a technical marvel resulting in being very demanding, poor optimization, or a mix, but my machine is no slouch and probably should’ve been able to run it better.

Enough boring, technical speak. I think I’ll start with the gameplay. Overall, it’s exactly what you would expect. You’re in a fighter jet/spaceship and you’re shooting enemies down.

You mostly fire some lasers in a stream in front, but you also have missiles, and a beam for attacking ground units. You can also purchase side drones to increase your firepower, different firing arcs, and more between missions. Overall, fairly simple. However, there’s more to it.

For starters, you can aim your main lasers, adding another layer of strategy while playing a mission. Yes, there are different firing patterns for your lasers, but by moving the mouse or the right thumbstick, you can adjust the direction of fire to be at an angle meaning you don’t always have to take things straight on. You can even buy an upgrade to turn on homing lasers!

There’s also a system where you can shift power between shields (aka health) and firepower. As you destroy enemies, you can pick up more power which as far as I can tell always goes to health which is a complaint I have (if my health is full, just automatically boost my firepower).

Interestingly enough, with more power to your firepower you can toggle between different firing patterns (which you can adjust in the Upgrades tab between missions). The firepower can also be used to fire missiles (something that I don’t think is ever explained) which hit air and ground enemies.

As fun as CYGNI has been to play, there are some things that I’m not a fan of. For starters, while the environments, ships, and effects look great during gameplay, it can be really hard to keep track of your ship. I would often lose track of my ship because of the visual clutter and things moved so fast.

Another problem I have is that it seems to be really hard to get enough money to buy upgrades. I have no idea how they calculate how much money you get at the end of a mission, but I found that I would often end a mission and only get about $20 and so many upgrades cost over $100!

Because they never share (that I saw) how you get money, I don’t know what I could be doing to unlock more upgrades. Third, I wish there was some kind of dodge mechanic. I wish I could push a button to evade enemy attacks every so often. My second to last complaint regarding gameplay is that too often there are too many air enemies.

There are tons of moments when there are powerful ground units causing you problems, but you cannot do anything about them because you’re too busy fighting the hordes of air units that immediately respawn once the group is wiped out. I think there is still some balancing that needs to happen, particularly because it often feels like it takes a considerable amount of time to take out most enemies.

Finally, one of my biggest complaints though is that the levels are fairly lengthy (I think my fastest time is around 11-12 minutes) and there are no checkpoints. This means that if you die against a boss, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the level which just feels bad.

Other aspects of the game that I haven’t talked about are the audio and video. The audio is fine, but doesn’t feel like anything special. The visuals are good, but sometimes feel incongruent. There’s a unified look between the menus and the actual gameplay.

However, the cutscenes rub me the wrong way. You often have fairly realistic looking environments, but then the character that seems to be the protagonist is very cartoony and doesn’t fit in. I wasn’t a big fan of how the art styles came together.

Finally, I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the story really is. Probably about 99% of the story is just what you read in before starting a mission, but it’s very easy to just skip over them. The cutscenes give a little bit of story and it’s mostly just “we must defeat these monsters for reasons.” I was hoping that the cutscenes would provide a little bit more of the story, but it is what it is.

At the end of the day, do I love CYGNI? No. But I wouldn’t say that I don’t like it either. It’s a fun game that I think just needs a little bit of balancing. The MSRP being only about $30 definitely helps it feel less bad.