After nearly a decade of floundering, Konami is slowly recovering. The legendary publisher will release remakes of both Silent Hill 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, both of which will bring Konami back into the world of big-budget console gaming. These designs join a collection of vintage revivals, including this year Counter: Operation Galuga, indicating that the company is willing to return to its most beloved franchises. This isn’t just digging up an old IP, though. His publishing efforts are still forward-looking, even if through nostalgic undertones.
In this sense, the most intriguing game is not a mega remake, but something much smaller. Cygni: All Guns Blazing, a new space shoot ’em up game that launched on August 6, is the debut game from developer KeelWorks, with publishing being done by Konami. It’s a callback to one of gaming’s founding genres, as players blast waves of enemies from a top-down perspective. I recently did a demo of the upcoming game, taking a look at its first levels. It’s both a familiar and wild take on the genre, bringing in more complex mechanics and a cinematic art style. Call it modern nostalgia, a phrase that might just describe exactly what to expect from the revamped Konami in 2024.
Shoot ’em up, evolve
When I say “space shooting”, you probably already have a strong visualization in your head. I guess you’re picturing a vertical scrolling screen with a small ship at the bottom that fires energy shots at enemies dancing in patterned waves. You will be halfway to understanding Cygni at this point, but you’ll still be surprised as soon as you launch it. It starts with a fully animated cutscene that looks like it was taken out of a Pixar movie. We see our brave pilot jump out of bed and get ready for a mission while energetic music plays. Once I set up the story and board my plane, the camera seamlessly pans out of the cockpit and locks into that familiar top-down perspective. This is an early sign that Cygni it’s not just to make something retro; he wants to develop the shoot ’em up genre.
This is immediately apparent as soon as I start shooting. I guess I can just go in without a tutorial and start shooting, but I can tell right away that I’m not getting something as I’m torn. I certainly am. Cygni is much closer to a modern space shooter like Ikaruga than pick-up-and-play retro. One lesson teaches me that I have a certain amount of energy represented by grids around my ship. I can channel this energy to my shield or weapons. Aiming it at my weapons will make my shots stronger but leave me defenseless and vice versa. I can juggle these dynamics on the fly with my mouse wheel, which instantly brings a more active layer of ship control to the genre.
That’s not the only twist. In addition to my standard punches, I can hold down a button to launch ground attacks. I’ll have to pay attention to where the enemies are on the screen to make sure I’m hitting them with the right weapon. And even then, there’s more to learn: autofire toggles, lock-on, RPG progression, and even a pattern maker that lets me shape my shot distribution. It’s a lot to take in, which clearly shows that KeelWorks is looking to bring more depth to a straightforward genre.
With a better knowledge of what Cygni goes, I jump back to the first level and figure out how to play. The basics are easy enough: click a button to fire at approaching enemies. When I start to deal with the rest of my instrument set, I start to feel more like a conductor. When some weak enemies get close, I channel my energy into my weapons and jump in to take them down with ease. When I hit a big boss, I pull up my shields and start planning my shots a little more carefully.
What I appreciate here is that this isn’t a bullet hell game where one or two hits blow my ship to pieces. Players are expected to get hit – a lot. The action is chaotic with enemy shots coming in thick waves. My shield helps me parry those hits when I need to, giving me some flexibility in difficult sections of a level. There is an art to knowing when to play offense and defense.
All of this can be overwhelming at times. KeelWorks goes for a visual spectacle not often seen in the genre, and this creates some legibility issues. The screen is multi-layered, with the action happening both right in front of me and at a lower level. One section has me flying over a battlefield while my comrades fight some aliens. I turn on my ground attacks and start dropping bombs to help them out. However, the moments of air-ground interaction are not always so clear. Sometimes enemies can feel like they’re right in the middle, leaving me confused as I try to figure out which attack to use. Now add a screen full of lasers, enemies, detailed backgrounds and explosions; it’s a lot.
I guess that will be the appeal to those who really want to dig here. Like any good shooter, these are challenging levels that players will likely have to play over and over again to master. Having so many tools to play with and so much to look at on each try makes the idea of replaying stages a little more enjoyable. Each piece feels like it was created to keep the heart of the genre in tact, while better incentivizing new players to engage with the classic cycles. I haven’t delved deep into its progression hooks and template creator yet, so I’ll have to see how they make the handful of story stages feel different each time since the levels themselves are static.
I appreciate what Cygni: All Guns Blazing it’s about here and Konami as an extension. It feels like a spirited attempt to preserve gaming’s roots and prove that we’re not done experimenting with old genres. KeelWorks is already making a strong case for it here, though the ultimate test will come from how younger players with no nostalgia for space shooters react. Can something old still appeal to newcomers through modern glamor? That seems to be the larger question that Konami intends to answer right now.
Cygni: All Guns Blazing launches August 6 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
