All guns shoot – Destructoid

One of my favorite things about gaming is the incredible variety of genres, difficulty, and accessibility. It’s like if Baskin Robbins didn’t just make ice cream and decided to get really weird with the flavors.

As the AAA bubble bursts, indie studios like KeelWorks are stepping up to take on displaced gamers. Can this studio knock it out of the park with its debut shmup, CYGNI: All weapons at the readyor will it succumb to the pitfalls that plague the industry in general?

CYGNI: All weapons at the ready (PC (reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: KeelWorks
Publisher: Konami
Released: August 5, 2024
Suggested Retail Price: $29.99

Reading the promotional material for CYGNI: All weapons at the ready will have you blown away by how beautiful the shoot ’em up is. It feels like a magician is trying to distract the audience with one hand while he sets up the trick with the other. While the distraction is indeed beautiful, it ultimately undermines the other aspects of the execution. It quickly becomes apparent that more time should have been spent on making the gameplay just as beautiful.

CYGNI: All weapons at the ready struggles to establish its tone. The pilot is rendered in a style that is very reminiscent of Pixar films such as Great Hero 6 and for reasons that escape me, the opening cinematic even includes a gratuitous shot of her pulling her pants over a pair of thong-clad panties. It’s such an odd addition that it’s immediately hard to recommend this to a younger audience, despite the fact that there’s nothing sexual going on in the rest of the game.

Cinematics are either fully rendered affairs or illustrations with minimal movement, similar to cost-saving measures seen in titles like Lot 2 or World of Warcraft‘s later expansions. Levels, the pilot’s ship, and enemies are rendered differently and more realistically, with bosses resembling the offspring of a chainsaw and an HR Geiger illustration. It’s just all over the place and like myself in college, it’s beautiful, but confusing.

The story, oddly enough, takes a backseat for something that is focused on visuals and gameplay. It’s clear that a significant amount of time has been spent creating the world of CYGNI and creating the lore of using alien technology to enhance humanity. I found the concept of these eldritch mechanical beings that lie dormant until humanity awakens them by harvesting their “corpses” fascinating. Unfortunately, it only exists to provide a bare bones explanation of why we shoot these aliens.

As for the gameplay, CYGNI: All weapons at the ready Could have used more time in the oven. There is an overwhelming amount of superficial mechanics in the game. Rather than force the tutorial on players, it has been sidelined and ultimately sets the player up for failure. This is compounded by the fact that the first stage is arguably the hardest and longest. It’s a trial by fire that will leave all but the most masochistic a little irritated.

The biggest problem with CYGNI‘s gameplay is balanced. There is no smooth progression and you are punished for things you don’t know exist. Because the first level feels more like an endgame level, players can’t adapt to the different systems and mechanics. Worse yet, you go in with an underpowered power for what it is.

Unless you’re playing on Easy, you only have one life in levels that are longer than 20 minutes, have no checkpoints, and require you to defeat multiple bosses. Unlike other games in the genre, there’s no point system to gain another life. If you run into a barrier that appears out of nowhere and die instantly, that’s a shame.

This in turn negatively impacts upgrades, which are crucial to surviving missions. Enemies have a chance to drop energy points upon death. These points are used to replenish shields, increase firepower, or launch missiles. They are also used to purchase upgrades. This means that you are forced to walk that fine line between using points to survive and saving up enough to actually upgrade your ship. Don’t die though, because all those points will disappear like a fart in the wind when you die.

Unfortunately, the upgrades are mostly useless. Side drones increase the outgoing damage and extra homing missiles are great, but everything else is pointless. For example, CYGNI has a layered approach to combat, with you facing enemies in the air and on the ground. However, you can only attack one layer at a time, and it’s incredibly rare not to fight both at once.

Ground attacks are weak, even with upgrades, and more often than not it’s better to just ignore ground troops to avoid being completely overwhelmed by having your attention divided. In fact, if I had the option to change my ground attack to something like a carpet bomb, that would have been a thousand times better.

Finally, your ultimate attack, the Shield Blast, might as well not exist. This attack uses your shields to unleash a screen-wide AoE that wipes out everything. The problem is that enemy reinforcements quickly repopulate and you’re left with no shield. If you get hit by a stray shot before you can replenish them, that’s it. You’re done. Time to start over.

Not being a masochist, I opted to play on Easy with the intention of buying upgrades and then tackling harder difficulties. With a few choice upgrades, Easy became just that. Still, attempting Medium is a fool’s errand as that core balance issue rears its ugly head. There are simply too many enemies, too many projectiles with no meaningful evasive maneuvers, and the levels are far too long. Honestly, you could halve every level and end it with one of the fun boss fights and it would be so much better.

All of this makes me reconsider the $30 asking price. All in all, it took me about four hours to beat the campaign, unlock all the upgrades, and replay it a few times. Sure, there’s local co-op and an Arcade Mode that’s just a points-driven version of the campaign, but it’s missing too much to ask for that much money.

Maybe it would be worth it if it was better balanced, had more meaningful upgrades, or played as well as it looks. As it stands, I’d say wait for a sale and don’t pay more than $15. It’s a fun way to kill an afternoon and gives you a taste of the genre, but that’s about it. Let’s hope developer KeelWorks can learn from its debut effort and bring its gameplay design up to par with its visuals.