The best 2D shooter of recent years isn’t Japanese but made in Edinburgh, with a stunning debut from a talented new team.
The question of a video game’s country of origin has been in the news a lot in recent months, from the debate over whether the term Japanese role-playing game is discriminatory to the extreme Yorkshire-ness of Thank Goodness You’re Here! In some cases, it’s very obvious where the developer of a game hails from and sometimes it’s a shock, like when you find out the best 2D shooter of the generation was made in Scotland (possibly from girders, we’re not sure).
Admittedly, the 2D shooter (we’ve always disliked the abbreviation shmup) is not overburdened with new releases but it’s always been one of our favourite retro genres, from ancient trailblazers such as R-Type and Salamander to relatively newer titles like Treasure’s Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga.
We have a particular preference for vertically scrolling shooters and that just happens to be what Cygni is, including some obvious homages to both Treasure’s work and the classic RayStorm. In fact, at first glance, you’d assume this was a new Treasure game, just with more modern production values, and there’s no greater compliment we can give it than that.
Strangely, most of Cygni’s faults lie in terms of its front end, not the gameplay itself. Despite an expensive looking intro, with licensed music, the plot goes absolutely nowhere, and you only end up with the barest of excuses for why you’re fighting giant tripoidal robots and crazed space drills. Not that you need a story with a 2D shooter but it’s weird that so much effort has been expended on such forgettable fare.
Once you start the game proper, you’re faced with some shockingly good visuals, as dozens of enemies fill the screen at once. None of them take much effort to shoot down but the assault is absolutely relentless, with the thud of your space cannons, as they rip apart enemy fighters, sounding like rain on a hot tin roof. The mix of gameplay, graphics, sound effects, and an excellent orchestral soundtrack, is arguably the best there’s ever been for a 2D shooter and it feels fantastic.
Although it’s poorly explained, by an inadequate tutorial, the main gimmick of the game is that you have a shield and energy system not unlike the old Star Wars: X-Wing games. Shields and energy can be filled up to a maximum of five units each, but if you don’t have a full complement you can shunt one into the other.
This is a brilliant idea and since adding or subtracting takes only a single button press it can be done on the fly, according to your needs. When enemies die, they often leave behind an energy pick-up, which by default will charge your shields but if you’re maxed out will be used as credits for the in-game store between missions.
So, if you need to finish off a boss quickly (many of them disappear after a certain time) you can risk losing some shield strength, while remembering that on the medium difficulty and above there are no lives or credits. Likewise, if you’re in trouble you can shunt weapons power to your shields, except that makes it less likely you’ll be able to defeat the enemies and get the energy you so desperately need.
You have two different guns, one for air-to-air work and one for ground attack and each can be used manually or with a lock-on that slightly decreases the effectiveness. Both can also be angled manually using the right stick, with the ground weapon able to target anywhere on screen and the main cannons able to rotate about 45° in front of you.
It’s a great system, that means an inexperienced player can last surprisingly long, especially on easy, since your ship can take multiple hits even without collecting extra energy or sacrificing weapons power.
There’s also a range of missiles, smart bombs, and additional weapons – including options and alternative fire patterns – that can be switched between or activated once you’ve unlocked them in the shop. Some of these also use shield or weapons power and yet the game can be played with or without them and it still doesn’t feel unbalanced.
Mechanically, Cygni is excellent, but the level design is also top notch, even if for some reason the first level is three times the length of any of the others. It’s a great one though, with lots of different mini-bosses, a good mix of ground and air targets, and, most importantly, a great sense of pacing. Like a good lightgun game, no matter how simple the action may seem to an outside observer it takes real skill to orchestrate it in a way to keep the tension and excitement at fever pitch the whole way through.
We’d like to have seen perhaps a little more enemy variety, since the same ones do get reused a lot and the robot insect theme is a bit undercooked, but there’s still some great set pieces, like the aircraft carrier stage where the decks are swarming with spider-like robots, and some nicely varied bosses that always involve more than just shooting the core.
Technically, Cygni is a bullet hell shooter, but it’s at the less extreme end of the scale compared to most of Treasure and Cave’s work. Sometimes the screen is filled with a seemingly impossible-to-avoid field of enemy bullets but they’re a lot easier to doge than you initially assume, and in that sense a good introduction to the sub-genre, as well as 2D shooters in general.
Cygni is a great game, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s frustrating how poorly it caters to new players. On easy the game is perfectly manageable but not only is the tutorial useless (and easy to miss) but, inexplicably, the game does not show the current shield and energy settings by default, they’re just flashed up for a microsecond when you change them.
This seems to be an attempt to make the display look more cinematic, but instead it makes it hugely confusing when you first start playing, until you realise you can go into the options and turn on a perfectly unobtrusive display for the bottom of the screen (and change the movement sensitivity, which we felt was too high at first).
The real problem though is the shop system, which makes no sense whatsoever. We unlocked virtually all of it on the first run through on easy, which makes the whole unlocking process largely pointless – especially as you can just farm credits by replying the first level on easy again and again. Predictably, none of these new systems are properly explained and the shop interface is horribly confusing, to the point where we bought the wrong thing multiple times by mistake.
This would’ve been the perfect game to both reinvigorate the genre and act as an introduction for new players, but it’s unnecessarily confusing and difficult to get into, even for existing fans. You get past that after a few hours, and we’ve had great fun trying to beat the game on hard, but it’s a shame all the presentational flaws are so easily avoidable.
Even so, this is one of the best debut releases from an indie developer we’ve ever seen and if publisher Konami isn’t already talking to KeelWorks about a Gradius revival then something has gone very wrong. We love 2D shooters, but their retro stylings often make them difficult to recommend to the unconverted. Cygni has its issues but they’re not nearly enough to spoil one of the best action games of the year.
Cygni: All Guns Blazing review summary
In Short: A fantastic 2D shooter, that despite being the developer’s first game shows they understand the genre perfectly – but perhaps not the needs of those that are less familiar with its traditions.
Pros: Excellent level and wave design, with great action and movement. Surprisingly good graphics and music, with some memorable boss battles and set pieces.
Cons: The interface settings when you start are bafflingly unhelpful, with a general lack of explanation for anything. Shop unlocks are poorly handled. Not quite as much enemy variety as there could be.
Score: 8/10
Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC*
Price: £24.99
Publisher: Konami
Developer: KeelWorks
Release Date: 6th August 2024
Age Rating: 7
*Currently free from Epic Games Store
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