CYGNI: All Guns Blazing

[h1]4.5/5 Criminally Underrated, Visually Stunning, and An Absolute Blast[/h1] DON'T START THE GAME ON HARD OR EVEN NORMAL. START ON EASY AND GET SUCKED IN. [h3]Who should try it: Fans of Resogun, Nex Machina, and Action Rogue-Lites plus Casual Shmuppers, Twin-Stick Shooter lovers, and People tired of Pixel Art Who should avoid it: Shmup-Purists, People whose ego won't let them start any game on Easy, People who hate a bit of Spectacle, People overwhelmed by FX[/h3] Disclaimer: I own the game on Xbox and two different PC marketplaces, finished it on Easy and working on Normal. Hard will probably remain out of my reach. I do not count myself as a shmup lover and have no idea what is considered "good" or "standard" or "mandatory" for the genre - nor do I care. [h3]TECH ADVICE:[/h3] Cygni does NOT have dedicated Upscaling or Frame Generation. You'll have to do take care of that yourself, especially on older hardware. It also runs in Exclusive Fullscreen, so, for example for "Lossless Scaling", you'll have to edit the launch options in Steam - Properties - General with something like "-windowed" for it to work [h2]TLDR:[/h2] PROS: Fun, visually stunning, fast-paced. Ideal for an hour of no-brain thrills. A game you can start on Easy and not feel bad. CONS: Some questionable design decisions. Some rather important mechanics are not explained clearly enough. Intended Game progression (Start on Easy, unlock and upgrade, then work your way up) not clear, which can lead to frustration of unsuspecting casuals ;) [h2]REVIEW WALL O' TEXT[/h2] I work a lot, so to unwind, I like to play fast paced games that allow me to turn most of my brain off and just react. Cygni does that - and does it with style: Sharp controls, amazing graphics, satisfying combat, and fun boss fights, plus some nice, albeit not very well explained mechanics and "build options". It's one of those games that I keep coming back to. But I almost didn't get to enjoy it, because I started the game on HARD and did not make it past the first level. Don't do that. Easy is rough enough, Normal is very rough even after upgrading your ship, and Hard is forever out of my reach, I think. My recommendation: Start on Easy, get used to the gameplay and the controls, unlock all upgrades and upgrade your ship. Then move on to Normal - if you want to. If not, don't worry about it, because even on Easy it's immense, exhilarating fun. I understand that it may not be a "purist Shmup", whatever that might mean, and that the inclusion of air-to-ground combat and some other post 1985-mechanics might be considered anethema by the purist crowd. I can only judge the game by the gameplay and fun it delivers, and boy, does it ever. The systems, once you understand them and play around with them a bit, all support each other to create a very complete package that is far more than the sum of its parts. Cygni is how Space Invaders played out in my mind - by way of James Cameron (and maybe a bit of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay). Is it perfect? No. A lot of the mechanics are not very well explained and the loadout/build-menu is difficult to parse and navigate at first, especially with a controller. And the decision to tie your shooting patterns to your energy distribution - you can shunt energy back and forth between shields and weapons - is questionable at best, particularly since it's not really made clear what that actually means for you (or it wasn't clear to me). Worse, you don't really see your current distribution unless you change it. There's also a bit of a mood dissonance. The game is not a particularly "happy" game, story wise: Alien Invasion, Apocalypse, Cats and Dogs living together, Mass Hysteria! Yet following the peppy tune of the opening cinematic complete with a cheeky gratuitous shot of the very nice butt of a very cute western anime-style female pilot you'd be forgiven for thinking otherwise - and getting a bit of whiplash once it turns into this sci-fi action spectacle with symphonic score. The devs are, luckily, aware of a lot of this. HOWEVER: While a Cygni 2.0 patch is pretty much ready, as far as I understand it, publisher KONAMI never gave the green light to deploy it. Yes, publishers have such power. I don't know what exactly happened or what's going on, so I won't speculate, but personally I think: A) If you want to complain about bugs or a lack of post-launch improvements, complain to Konami. It's their call. B) Reading the plans they have (implemented) for said patch, it's an utter crime that Konami has abandoned this game. I could say much more, but talking about the game makes me want to play it. If any of this sounds like fun to you, give this one a try - an honest try, starting from Easy - and I think you won't be disappointed.

Kept saying my controller was disconnected and even after trying to reconnect it, It just stay's frozen.

Lets start with what this game does well. The visuals are gorgeous. The enemies, the bosses, levels themselves and the animations are phenomenal ... Pretty much everything else I'd say the game does terribly. Just a pain to play.

I finally sat down and played through this start to finish. This game gets a lot of heat that to an extent it deserves, but I gotta say I'm super impressed with the massivity of it all. Playing it on hard was an act of futility but after completing it on easy and feeling the full weight of the story they were trying to tell displayed in the most gorgeous design in an on-rails shooter I've ever played... it's just epic. Pros: - Unparrallel level design, clearly inspired by The Matrix - Epic Bosses - Intricate Detail - Highly responsive controller scheme - Long Levels (I actually really enjoyed this part due to the interesting aliens and sometimes frustrating obstacles. This is also a bad thing - see below) Cons - Unless you have the utmost fine tuned zero-lag input and display settings, this game is impossible at level 1. - Also, Long Levels, (I know I mentioned this as a plus above but..) dying really tests my willingness to try again. Maybe consider allowing the player to earn a halfway point by number of kills? - Upgrade Menu could use a bit more explaining with an overlay that demos the items upon mouseover. - The opening scene includes the pilot exposing themselves which seemed ... campy and forced. This was obviously a labor of love. With some very small tweaks it could improve greatly. Get it on sale.

Cygni is a spiritual successor to Ikaruga with less brain-breaking mechanics. [table][tr][td] Overall      ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ - 7/10 Music        ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ - 6/10 Graphics   ★★★★★★★★★★ - 10/10 Gameplay ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ - 7/10 Story         ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆ - 5/10 [/td][/tr][/table] Difficulty ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ (steep learning curve) [b]What did I like?[/b] * graphic and overall presentation is awesome * no mechanics that will break your brain * bullet-hell situations are random but still evadable * uses a 'health system' with a focus on a energy managemet system (transfering shield to weapon and vice versa) * ground bombardment adds an extra layer of tactic * coop mode * auto-fire available [b]What did I not like?[/b] * arcade mode lacks a difficult setting (attack patterns are hard mode, but enemy hitpoints medium mode) * tutorial is important, but I somehow only understood about half of what I supposed to learn there * campaign mode starts with medium difficulty, this is definitely not the level to begin with unless you are upgraded * upgrade points are only earned if you fully conclude the level (the whole upgrade system should be reworked if you ask me). Th first level is one of the longest ones also, making it difficult to get some upgrade points at the beginning * design mode and weapon adjustments is not intuitive - needed some time to figure it out * weapon layout is bound to active weapon energy, so you auto-change firing modes while using/transfering energy (bad idea) * very hefty system requirements (especially in 4K a problem, no FSR support unfortunetally) * the framerate is locked at 30 or 60 FPS currently (there is a manual fix, a patch is promised) [b]Difficulty[/b] While the game is way more accessible than Ikaruga (due to its brain-breaking polarization mechanic) this game still has a very steep learning curve most people seem to struggle with. I strongly recommend doing the tutorial first. And definitely switch down to easy mode for the campaign until you earned some upgrades and learned also some basics how to handle enemies. If you are a good shmup player you should then be able to beat at least medium without too much hassle. Only if you really learn how to use the energy management system properly and use rockets tactically you will master hard mode though. Don't judge the game by just the first half of an hour gameplay. It is the phase you pretty much learn everything the hard way. Be persistent and you will enjoy the game a lot. [b]Summary:[/b] An awesome bullet-hell-shmup which is way better than Ikaruga and does not deserve the many bad reviews you read on Steam. Yes, there are some questionable design flaws here and there, but it makes fun neithertheless if you are up to learn the game mechanics and invest many retries. And due to its coop mode a friend can join in as well. I definitely can recommend it if you are up for such kind of games.

This game is really fun in my opinion.

More games like this please. The first level is hard af then you blow clean through levels 2 and 3 then the boss at level 4 beats you to a pulp over and over. Play level 2 a 2nd time get a massive payout. Play it a 3rd get next to nothing. Visually the game is awesome. Enemy swarms are tricky but managable. Sound fx are awesome. Crunch audio setting with 2.1 setup sounds great. Get that old school arcade smash effect is the best I describe it. The game is just really hard and for that reason I keep playing. The game is locked to 60fps which looks good but with the amount of action going on unlimited or a higher capped fps would be nice. The progression system needs a lot of work that sadly it'll never receive.

Best graphics of any SHMUP i ever played, its beautifull. The problem is almost no content and its a twin stick shooter so you cant use your mouse to fly your ship like in Chicken Invaders. The game is just to expensive for what it offers, but if they add more content and make a true PC based experience....well then this would probably become one of the best games of its genre.

Not for the Faint of Heart but its super fun If you not into very difficult SEU make a soft pass but if you are you will really enjoy this game. Beat it under a day and has great graphics and visuals. 10 stars for effort and 10 stars for difficulty.

This game is way too hard. How hard is it, I used a trainer and unlocked 75% of the upgrades for my ship. I went back to play the first mission with all the upgrades and still could not beat it on Easy. I got close but still could not do it. After playing it a bit I understand it better but it is still really hard. You have to use your R1 and L1 buttons to put more power into fire power or shields. Shields is what you need almost 100% of the time. If you want to do more damage you tap R1 4 times for max damage but if you take damage like that you will not last long. If you tap L1 4 times you can tank damage. dead enemies will drop power ups for your shields, you will live longer this way. Still, knowing all this and having the upgrades I still cant get past the 1st level on easy mode. I am good at these games it's just too hard in this game. The game does look beautiful and run well. If you are going to buy it get a trainer too or you wont get past the any of the levels.