Cygni: All Guns Blazing Review

I love 1942, Geometry Wars, DoDonPachi, Crimzon Clover, Radiant Silvergun, and Ikaruga. I love top down shoot 'em ups and even though the genre is largely a thing of the past, I cheer a little extra when, in the form of newly released Cygni: All Guns Blazing, we get the chance to revisit this lovely genre of gaming. It will always be very special to move unharmed through bullet hell, all while the front guns of your little vessel take down enemy ships 10-times its size to the tune of fast-paced midi-rock with just the right Japanese flair. I don't even think I'm exaggerating if I say that I've spent 200 hours in Ikaruga in particular over the years.

It should be said, however, that this genre will always be the ultimate proof that I am not a "real gamer". Despite all the time spent playing Treasures' iconic classics, I have never reached the end in either Silvergun or Ikaruga. I have tried, though, thousands of times. So, the question is, is Cygni as hard? No, it isn't. Is it still challenging enough to make me scream out loud over the past week? Absolutely. Welcome to Cygni Prime, the most inhospitable planet in the universe.

Developer Keelworks makes no secret of the fact that with this game they want to resurrect a dead genre. The old arcade game form of "top down shooter" is celebrated and honoured both widely, high and low here and it is possible to find inspiration in Cygni from both R-Type and Gradius, and Treasure's aforementioned classics. There is also a story that I think works well as a framing device. Your name is Ava, you're a highly trained fighter pilot, and your home planet of Cygni Prime has just been invaded by a highly capable alien enemy. Ava is an Orca Starfighter pilot in a fleet that acts as the first line of defence against the invading space villains and her job is to take down as many of them as possible.

While Ikaruga in particular made a (clever) point of allowing you as a player to shapeshift between a black ship and a white one, and thus absorb enemy bullets (as long as they were the same colour as your ship), Keelworks puts the focus in Cygni on the dynamic between airborne targets and enemies on the ground. Ava has to take down spaceships of various sizes and types while also shifting and bombing ground targets, which creates a particular dynamic that I really appreciate. Fortunately, the switching between different types of targets works seamlessly, which becomes a staple this time around, and I applaud the way they innovate within some pretty tight confines here rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.

The enemies are smart, much smarter than I had first expected. All of us who have played the classics of this genre know very well that the enemies rarely do anything other than follow a predetermined "path", something you as a player are expected to memorise. Here too, Keelworks breaks new ground as all of the invading space villains in Cygni are equipped with their own artificial intelligence that is much more subtle than what I have seen in any other game of this kind. The enemies act intelligently, avoiding your attacks if you reveal your strategy too early, and they can often fly out of frame to get reinforcements, as can all the bosses.

Cygni: All Guns Blazing is also graphically exquisite. I've played it on PlayStation 5 and love everything from the Ikaruga-inspired aesthetic to the furiously good flow that only once or twice dipped to levels where the refresh rate struggled for a brief microsecond (at most). The pace is fast, there are any number of enemy ships to shoot, plenty of content and a successful framing of a space war that I learn just the right amount about. There are definitely parts of the upgrade system that didn't need to be there in my opinion and parts of the game's soundtrack that don't quite fit, but those are small complaints for a game that on the whole entertains on the grandest of premises.