Cygni: All Guns Blazing: PS5 Review

Developed by KeelWorks
Published by Konami
Platform: PS5

Cygni: All Guns Blazing is the latest release attempting to carve out a niche for itself in a genre that's already fairly full.

And it has to be said, that it does it pretty well.

The game looks colourful with clear-cut chaos on the screen presenting itself in a manner that's concise and compact, something that's important within the game.

Missiles fly toward your craft from below as well as in front - and as each swirls in in a deadly fashion aiming at downing you, there's no confusion where it's coming from.

Shooting opponents gives you tokens to collect, the importance of which is not immediately obvious - and while it's easy to collect most of them, their instant value is non-existent.

That's one of the problems of Cygni: All Guns Blazing, a game that doesn't make it easy for players to dive in and know exactly what's going on.

Certainly in arcade mode, there are the most basic of cutscenes to provide some context, but they're a little too thin to provide an intense narrative to hang the game.

Fortunately, the on-screen arcade action itself proves to be more satisfying and while the game gradually reveals its aspirations slowly, the peeling of the onion proves to be worth it.