Cygni: Innovation Requires Foundation | Review

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Here is an additional example of the game missing glaring issues with the enemy and stage design: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJC2ipWcfbyebqssi=gcX6HNNAcMNQ2mEP

[@LamarFiddy-sx9su]

a thoughtless rejection of the arcade shooting rulebook

[@MasterChief1117-g8z]

Please review the og Gungraves king

[@Theyungcity23]

I came here to defend Cygni and bro hit me with the Ozymandias: “defend? I’m not some cartoon critic. I already roasted this game 5 years ago.”

[@WalterPowerbright]

Looks like Mark's 10 parallel universes ahead of you.

[@arisumego]

that's actually insane that he was in contact with the developers, gave them amazing advice and they ignored all of it and still got critical acclaim from clueless critics lmfao. mark is something else

[@tita4359]

All I’m getting from this post is “I lack the intelligence to actually defend the game and have no real arguments against what he’s saying because he makes insightful critique.” If you’re just going to resort to the strawman of pretending mark said all of his arguments are free from counter arguments, you may as well not even comment

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Ha that s great 😂 yeah I have thought about this game for a long time at this point, that was one reason why I was curious what other reviews would pick up on and stuff.

[@jerm5466]

@@Theyungcity23 too accurate 😂

[@whoevencares219]

The main thing that killed the game for me was the bullet patterns, like the patterns in this game are not shot FOR the player, they are shot AT the player, like it's clear these patterns weren't realistically meant to be dodged since they all overlap into a hot mess, unlike other shmups where the patterns were clearly meant to be studied, practiced and understood by the player.

[@daserfomalhaut9809]

They're just random, graceless bullshit in this game. There's no rhythm or reason for any enemies appearance other than to be there and it just turns the game into the braindead mishmash it is.

[@graemevaughey7432]

Yep. That's what I noticed when watching playthroughs. It's not _guiding_ you through the stage in a logical, thought out manner, its just throwing a bunch of random trash at the player and relying on the shield to tank any unavoidable stray hits.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yep exactly, the enemy design and level design is sort of brute forced by just stacking so many enemies all shooting aimed patterns. There are a number of issues with doing this (including performance issues) but on top of that becomes really chaotic and messy and not in a good way ha. This is why the shield system is so generous, because otherwise the game would be insane to try to consistently route for newer players.

[@ronniepatterson2827]

Agreed. Thats what makes Euroshmups so much more popular than bullethell. After you study the bullet patterns & enemy placements enough, it gets easier by simple memorization. Understanding you can study & beat the game, is way more appealing & fun, that guiding a tiny a dot between a wall of lazers, blobs, & giant stars covering the whole screen, sheer luck bailing you out time after time. R- TYPE & other beatable shmups like it, stay on top of the shmup mountain, both in sales & reverance for good reason ya know.

[@whoevencares219]

@@ronniepatterson2827 Yeah, Euroshmups are more well known to casuals because they try to make shmups more complex than they should be, adding leveling systems and stuff, but they're worse in every way since this alone requires forced repetition, these games usually have bad controls, awful patterns and so on, Cygni is a textbook Euroshmup, and it's trash.

[@TheCrewExpendable]

I don't know why they didn't just make a twin-stick shooter. "A shmup for the wider audience" is just a twin-stick shooter. They already exist and are very popular. e.g. there are a ton of roguelike twin-stick shooters. They might not be very popular amongst the hardcore shmup crowd, but they are very commercially successful.

[@darkridearts]

I love them too. They have their place.

[@IllusionistsBane]

Raiden's making one and the Shmup fans' reactions have been a comedy.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I honestly don't know either. I feel like the approach to cygni was very vague throughout where the team had a notion of updating the standard shmup formula, but not exactly sure how to do that because it turns out that shmups have tons of variations and different styles over the years ha. A twin stick is already an update to the shmup -- so i think they were slowly reaching the conclusion that their idea was essentially a twin stick, but they didn't want to go all the way in that direction. So the game kinda ended up in an odd purgatory, design wise.

[@tehteh9893]

@@TheElectricUnderground I would like to see your opinion on Nuclear Throne. I like it more than Enter the Gungeon, it feels fun and powerful right from start, full run is just 20-30 minutes, it revived an old forgotten mechanic - loops with increasing difficulty, and not 2 loops like in CAVE games, but infinite loops like in older shmups, and there is a natural way to compete (number of loops you can clear).

[@onlyvvv]

Regarding the performance issues: you are spot on that these stem from some core programming/architectural/design pattern issues. There is zero reason this game would have degraded FPS due to render etc. It is insanely unlikely that this game is GPU bound, and much more likely the hiccups are all CPU related, and likely the result of some seriously poor design pattern execution that's needed for large entity count games (Shmups, open world, RTS). I would bet my bottom dollar that there are few object pools going on in the underlying codebase, and that the memory sections are being thrashed nonstop. It was absolutely shocking to see these performance issues in this game, as it's built on a relatively high power engine (Unreal). Context: I work as a performance & runtime engineer at a game company, and have been for more than a decade.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

What a fantastic comment!! Yeah I'm far from an expert in the field of programming, but I've messed around with it just enough to know that what's going on in the game is due to coding problems, so it's great to get more in depth analysis from your comment.

[@robbyrobot3303]

A very long time ago I read one of the Zelda devs say something to the effect of, "it's hard to design the puzzles zelda is known for that make the player feel clever without making them too difficult." I hadn't realized the carnival trick before then that the developers were trying to flatter the player into feeling smart. I assume cygni did the same for many reviewers, but instead of feeling clever, it made them feel competent at a genre that historically has been very difficult.

[@todesziege]

Gamers love to be flattered.

[@RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS77]

@@robbyrobot3303 that’s the whole idea of modern game design. If you listen to designers they’ll talk about it at length.

[@watchmaker17]

My hope is that people will get their toes wet here and then dive in to what is one of the deepest and most satisfying genres in all of gaming. Reading these comments has only heightened this hope.

[@jerm5466]

@@watchmaker17 pretty much exactly what happened to me. Had a blast with Cygni which has now gotten me into Ketsui, Garegga, Sol Cresta, Radiant Silverfun, Hellsinker etc. The game deserves criticism but I think it’s actually doing the genre a solid in this regard

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I do think shmups are going to have another moment in the spotlight here soon, it's like a long term bet rather than a short term one ha. But you can see a lot of forces lately sort of nodding to shmups. It's gonna happen at some point, but I don't think it will be just one big game that does it. I think it'll be a succession of a group of strong fundamental games that cluster together and start creating momentum.

[@wolfgangervin2582]

I'd still opt for games like Steel Empire, Tyrian 2000 and *insert Compile game of choice here* as beginner shmups, but I can see this being a decent gateway.

[@wolfgangervin2582]

​@@jerm5466Battle Garegga is one of my favorites (alongside Darius Gaiden and Einhander).

[@orangeslash1667]

@@jerm5466 This was KeelWorks first game, that may explain it.

[@qwertyuiopqwerqwererty]

I think the progression system is a major factor in the game's favorable review scores. For casual audiences, these unlocks aren't a barrier to their enjoyment, but rather the element that they most enjoy. Look at Hades- it's an extremely simple action game with a slow, grindy progression and unlock system that is constantly hampered by dialogue. Cygni having unlocks and upgrades, coupled with its "cinematic" presentation, all but clinched its high scores. I imagine most reviewers will not spend any time with the game after the unlocks are over, but will see that their playtime is higher than with any other shmup they've played, and be amazed by the "value." (Of course, Natsuki Chronicles and Drainus show that these unlocks can be a great thing, too!)

[@TheCrewExpendable]

I agree. The mainstream and casual gaming audience absolutely loves progression systems and unlocks. (What that says about our culture is left up to the reader). Also agree with your view on Hades. Never really liked it because the actual gameplay is incredibly, incredibly simple and repetitive. I don't think anyone would play it without the progression system even if you left all the dialogue and production values intact.

[@darkridearts]

Progression and unlocks keep casual people playing. When the same folks try to play retro games without those aspects, I’ve read their posts getting frustrated wondering why any of the things they are doing in older games matter. Mind boggling to me that they need overt carrots on a stick to motivate them.

[@notnoaintno5134]

Hades at the higher "heat" levels is cool.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah it s interesting to see how much credit the progression system of the game ended up getting despite being just some homework when you first buy the game. It d be funny to have a game with a progression system that literally did nothing balance wise and see how many reviewers would pick up on that nothing was changing ha

[@justtmw]

When those same people buy other roguelikes after Hades and leave a steam review where they list "no metaprogression" as a negative, it makes me sad

[@AKTANEARCADE]

Cygni has done such a great job bringing your A+ Shmup reviews back to the forefront! This was great to listen to, really like some of the points I wanted to make but couldnt put it forward with my caveman style of commentary so I picked a few key points hehe. All hail Cygni, the universal conversation starter!!

[@tehteh9893]

Your one is good as well

[@TheRadioSquare]

Really glad I found your channel, it's pretty rare to see people who are this passionate about gameplay and can properly articulate everything they want to say.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks so much radio square! Yeah it's sort of a rare style of analysis these days sort of due to what I was talking about at the beginning of the vid where it's much more likely that you can grow an audience through more narrative and meta-narrative discussion (and I don't mean just story, but the stories about games too) than it is talking about the construction of the games and so forth. It's a really important area of discussion though so I'm happy when I can reach people who are interested in this style of game play discussion :-)

[@n2oshotandironman]

Finally. the first Cygni review.

[@darkridearts]

Exactly lol😅

[@samhein321]

Aktane did a nice review too

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah it's been interesting to see how no one seemed that interested into digging into the game too much, at least on KZbin and in gaming websites and so forth

[@n2oshotandironman]

@@samhein321 Unfamiliar with them

[@MsHojat]

I don't understand. Is that sarcastic or hyperbole or what? I don't know if you're looking for other reviews but I know Electric Playground did a review of CYGNI a week ago.

[@Kira-ji2ft]

The problem with subversion or innovation, is that genre conventions are in place for a reason. Basically, if Mozart, Vivaldi, and Bach laid down ways to avoid musical pitfalls, I'd at least want to understand their solutions before I try to come up with my own. Most attempts at subversion end up being basic and predictable because they stumble in the exact ways that you'd expect if you just stripped out all the conventional solutions to those stumbling blocks without coming up with your own solutions.

[@DoktorJacob]

I don't always agree with Mark on some topics, but on shmup design he's the king and not listening to him while doing a game is shooting yourself in the leg with a bazooka.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks very much my dude! Yeah you don't always have to agree with me, but I do hope people realize that I do care about these subjects I discuss ha.

[@JohanCruyff-wj4pf]

No way they put ship speed into THE OPTIONS MENU!!! Have they never played a shmup? That’s a design decision that literally benefits nobody. Not even journos. HUGE oversight.

[@MotWhinnana]

what's with the bullet patterns in this game? It's clearly all homing/tracking but the fire rate is really weird and all the enemy formations look like they're clustered to the sides of screen. It just looks like a jumbled mess.

[@travisfranz703]

Lot of people here saying this is the game that's got them into the SHMUP genre and that's fascinating to me. Not mad, you got to start somewhere

[@darkridearts]

Hey that’s great, hopefully they check out all the amazing games in the genre.

[@platinumhawke]

That would be a nice change from the usual of when a game from a niche genre breaks out into a wider audience. That single game is as far as they get and everything gets, usually unfavourably, compared to it.

[@kdsm6424]

I got started cuz i found a rom for aleste msx2 while I was getting Roms for metal gear 1 and 2 and thought "why not" I hate playing it now till that supposed aleste msx remaster comes but I was really enamored just how overwhelming the screen often gets and the weapon systems

[@rafaellima83]

@@kdsm6424 Aleste 2 is an awesome game and technically better than the 1st one which is riddled with slowdown.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

"DiZ iS thE shoe-map tHat guT mE inTO De gEnre!!!"

[@jerm5466]

I have 30 hours in it. The game definitely deserves this criticism and I hope the devs listen to it well. But I think it has quite a bit of merit to it too, I can’t stop playing it but more importantly it’s gotten me into the genre full stop. The moment to moment combat feels great with a fully upgraded ship, weapon switching is fun with some very interesting quirks, air to ground target management is frantic but fun, shield and missile management is a fun but flawed central mechanic (Its great how the game snowballs against you if you aren’t managing this right)...I personally love the complexity of it all, add the stunning visuals and audio and it’s kept me glued to it over the last week. Worth noting it feels better on an analogue console stick than most shmups since it was built around a twin stick console control system. I hope they take your criticism on movement speed system into account because it’s such a great idea. It’s sloppy in a lot of areas but that hasn’t kept me from beating every difficulty and working through arcade. I hope the devs stick with it and those who have written it off give it another chance down the line. Mark your criticism is pointed and incredibly constructive, seriously hope the devs watch this and take it into account

[@sigmapath1935]

Good post. These devs just put their first game under their belts and decided to do their own thing, which didn't produce a great game, but a decent game with very impressive visuals. I hope this company makes another game that takes mark's feedback to heart and combines it with their high production value.

[@theblackrabbit1710]

"it’s gotten me into the genre full stop" Well then, you have nowhere to go but up!

[@mariorichter-cx9zg]

If youre looking for good twin stick shooters, check the games from Housmarque.

[@SpidersSTG]

That’s AWESOME!!! I think what some of the hardcore player reviews miss is that you can still apply yourself here despite all the poor design choices, and that is really the “gateway” for newer players… ultimately I wouldn’t be surprised if as you hit the ceiling in CYGNI you see exactly where it starts to critically fail to reward players who go deep and the seasoned vets like Mark, Aktane, Vinu, etc., are just spot on with their criticism and have enough experience catch it early. When your ready to move on, you might really dig Drainus. It think it does a lot of the “innovation” in CYGNI right, and it’s natural path through story modes to hard mode and then arcade is I think is underrated and really rewarding… I wish I played it in that period I was getting serious about the genre:) Same for CYGNI to tbh.

[@Emarrel]

Making a shmup with flashy 3D graphics and a cinematic presentation seems like the cheat code to being some critical darling with the press. Well, if it gets people to pay attention to other offerings, maybe it isn't so bad...

[@pleaserespond3984]

If I had a cent for every time a western dev tries to "deconstruct" or "subvert" a traditionally Japanese genre, I would have enough money to buy a small house in the Japanese countryside. I'm not sure why people keep trying to make "thing for people who don't like thing". If you don't like thing, find a different thing, that you do like, learn how to make it good, and make that. Going back to Japan for a second, thing about JRPGs. Japanese devs did not go "we're making a CRPG for people who hate CRPGs". JRPGs started out as practically clones of popular CRPGs and copied a ton from early DnD. Then, once they had the fundamentals down, they could innovate on top of that.

[@Wreckscalibur]

So what you're saying is, this game is the YIIK of shmups.

[@MundusLives]

I followed your channel pretty recently. I am mostly a RPG/story focused gamer so my background is the complete opposite of yours BUT I find your viewpoint and criticism pretty fresh and valid in most cases. I am also very tired of the bloating and blandness of modern AAA gaming. KZbin needs more channels like that where gaming design and mechanics are dissected and compared across games and genres. There are many channels about storytelling in video games but channels like yours are far more rare. Keep it up!

[@VGShrine]

Classic Shmups = Be the best pilot - Dodge and don't get hit > Modern Audiences Shmups = Don't get stressed - Just tank through bullets.

[@BknMoonStudios]

This isn't "modern" SHMUP design. There are plenty of modern SHMUPs that are incredibly well made. Cygni is through and through a "Euroshmup/kusoSTG", much like Raptor: Call of the Shadows and Jets'n'Guns.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Exactly and the thing that's interesting is that cygni isn't a classic shmup in any sense. It's not like r-type and if it was executed correctly, it would actually play pretty similarly to a modern bullet hell, like devil blade reboot actually.

[@orangeslash1667]

@@BknMoonStudios This was KeelWorks first game, that may explain it.

[@bulb9970]

I was looking for the correct term and you nailed it: Circle strafing. You dodge stuff here like an FPS instead of an actual shmup, it's an absolute mess. If the devs ignored almost all the advice, then it makes me wonder why they looked for feedback to begin with.

[@TheSamuraiGoomba]

Good point about the optimization of Cygni. Quite apart from any quality issues, but just if you look at specs, most of the big, popular, mainstream games are built in very flexible engines that take well to rigs of all specs. Particularly low-power PCs and even mobile devices. Look at Fortnite. Look at PUBG. Genshin Impact. Warframe. The games that go *really* big and *really* mainstream are built so they can run on whatever device the player base might have. If you are targeting a casual audience and your game runs like shit on a dedicated custom gaming rig then you've already fallen at the first hurdle. The people who want to play Cygni want to play it on mobile devices, on the switch, on the steam deck, on the ps4, whatever they have. Nobody buys a shmup expecting it to make their cpu cry. That's just not the way shmups are developed or marketed, and there's a reason for that. It's not a AAA genre. It doesn't have AAA dev times or money poured into it. It's not reasonable to expect consumers of a niche genre to have top-spec machines to play your shmup. Cygni reminds me a lot of Sine Mora and the praise that game got when it was new. Except I think Sine Mora was more compatible with lower-spec machines.

[@OmKol]

Sine Mora works flawlessly on a freaking PS Vita so there is no excuse for Cygni in this regard

[@orangeslash1667]

@@OmKol This was KeelWorks first game, that may explain it.

[@daserfomalhaut9809]

Of course reviewers said this was some innovative masterpiece. Of fucking course they did. I had only just heard about it yesterday and got it because it was free on EGS (leave me alone). It was immediately not fun. Gorgeous as shit though, holy fuck those were some nice graphics. I'm not saying that lightly as some kind of snark. It's not gonna save a game, but I hope they put out something better in the future that looks that good. Somewhat sauceless art direction, but the lighting and some depth effects were fantastic.

[@alfabjornenco2922]

Put these graphics on a shmup with devs who care and it'll be fire

[@TheCrewExpendable]

Yeah the art direction is kind of generic Artstation concept art. But on a technical level its impressive.

[@orangeslash1667]

@@alfabjornenco2922 This was KeelWorks first game, that may explain it.

[@mon11nom]

Imagine ignoring 40 plus years of foundational, iterative game design without fully understanding the reasoning behind the mechanics and having it labelled as a thoughful rejection. Par for the course nowadays.

[@BebehCookieIcecream]

You make me want to make games.

[@Reayashin]

Devil Blade Reboot bros keep winning

[@JoJaDaRu]

Still my favorite SHMUP this year. Mirage Feathers (3D Space Harrier style) has me watching closely but we’ll see how that goes.

[@ColdMetalz]

Devil blade may literally be my favorite shmup of all time. It just vibes so well with me. Goated as fuck

[@jealousyofthesun]

@@JoJaDaRu Mirage Feathers gives me motion sickness.

[@ncrtrooperscout]

Devil Blade Reboot got me into SHUMPs, I'm looking forward to checking out other SHUMPs once I finally beat Devil Blade Reboot.

[@HeatIIEXTEND]

@@ncrtrooperscout SHUMP......i like it xd

[@kylele23]

I thought I was alone in thinking the shield was a band aid to excuse unfair amounts of damage. I noticed it immediately because it’s one of my biggest gripes with Dariusburst stages where your only feedback is that taking damage is inevitable instead of something that you have to think about avoiding. Contrast this to a newer game like Angel At Dusk, where you have a lengthy life bar that expands as you go, but if you take damage you must point blank enemies for a long while to restore that missing health. It gives you feedback on how to play. The Cygni/Dariusburst shields just say “lol you took damage” with no feedback except for you took damage. It’s something that never feels like you learned anything.

[@twilightex]

I had a good watch on this. The analogy of "shmup tradition" being an architectural integrity was spot on. Ignoring a tradition is basically creating or migrating to another genre most of the time. Hence why this game looks jank and is collapsing on itself. It didn't have anything shiny going on, a shame really.

[@kamadoma715]

One of the funniest things about Cygni is that its "subversive" design came out around the same time as that Australian breakdancer in the Olympics who claimed that her moves are "original." I knew the game's performance will suck even before the gameplay started because they locked the Overwatch girl's booty opening sequence to 30fps. All jokes aside, I'm glad I wasn't the only person who thought that the shield system was most likely a mechanic thrown in to compensate for the devs' lack of knowledge on applying shmup fundamentals. I was hesitant to make comparisons between this game and Ikaruga because Ikaruga is such a refined masterpiece, but Ikaruga is definitely the first shmup that comes to mind when you think of a "subversive" design.

[@SpidersSTG]

OMG the breakdancing analogy is kinda perfect

[@Cyclobomber]

The "gear" system you mentiuon was a staple of Compile shmups on the PC-Engine and older consoles (games like Aleste, Star Soldier, Musha and so on). This was a much better system than an inertia-based movement in a shmup.

[@Stoney3K]

And not that hard to implement. I mean, is a boost button too much to ask? Maybe even... make it cost that precious energy diamonds so you can move fast and circle strafe all you want, but at the expense of your weapons/shields? No more tank mode for you.

[@bazzlemedazzle1]

Cygni really made me appreciate how crucial the soundtrack is for shumps. In Devil Blade Reboot the catchy, energetic music made me keep coming back for more and the desire to hear the next rocking tune would help inspire me to make it to the next section of the game (I even bought the soundtrack lol). Cygni on the other hand, has lower energy orchestral music that seems like it would be better suited to cutscenes, credits or menu music. I never really wanted to hear any of those tracks more than once and replaying stages became more of a chore because of it. Also dude, thats crazy that the devs asked you for notes during development haha

[@SpidersSTG]

Just reading this comment started the Stage 1 DBR track in my head

[@VinuShmup]

Thanks for the review Mark you nailed it! I'm very shocked to hear the devs are fans of your channel. You gave them some advice but when I played Cygni the first thing that came to mind was "Those guys never played any Shmups ever and don't understand the basics of the genre". Too bad they didn't listen...

[@franckg1442]

Hello Vinu, décidément les grands esprits se rencontrent 🙂 Je suis venu pour écouter ce que Mark avait à dire et il n a pas perdu l oeil ! Ca me rassure de voir que la plupart des noms " connus " du milieu shmup ont plus ou moins le même ressenti que les autres joueurs sur Cygni. Et me conforte aussi malheureusement dans l idée que certains reviewers fr n auraient jamais du poser les mains dessus car ils ont dit n importe quoi. Quant à moi je vais même pas perdre mon temps dessus en fait. Trop d autres shmups à jouer ainsi que d autres jeux.

[@VinuShmup]

@@franckg1442 Hello Franck, oui c'est une Masterclass de Mark, une de ces meilleures vidéos je trouve! No comment pour les reviewers FR mais je suis bien d'accord haha. Oui à la limite le prendre sur l'epic game store gratuitement pour profiter de ces graphismes et sa mise en scène mais ça va pas plus loin, comme tu dis il y a tellement d'autres Shmups plus intéressant à faire...

[@TheElectricUnderground]

What's crazy is that it wasn't just me that was giving them feedback. I was probably the most forceful, but the whole shmup community was giving them feedback before the game came out and the critique was all pretty much stonewalled, which I never have fully understood honestly. My theory is that probably the dev team was overwhelmed and decided to focus a lot more on the graphics and art and put the concerns with the gameplay aside.

[@VinuShmup]

​@@TheElectricUnderground Yep I also saw people give them feedback on system11 forums. I think you're right and as you said in the review maybe they were already too far in development and this take them too much time to "fix" the gameplay.

[@BagofSchmidt]

Ive noticed a thing where people prefer ambition over execution

[@thefebo8987]

I don't see much innovation or creative new ideas in cygni

[@rafaellima83]

@@thefebo8987 That's a real point. All of its "innovative ideas" have been done before in one form or another and were always badly received.

[@orangeslash1667]

@@thefebo8987 This was KeelWorks first game, that may explain it.

[@Apc7th]

Mark. I got to give it to you. I watch all your videos. And just when I thought I couldn't learn anything new about shmups. You come with a mind-blowing design review like this. Bravo, my friend. Great video.

[@tita4359]

Can’t believe you managed to make such a great video out of the confusing mess that is Cygni. I think it’s a thing of extreme arrogance that they thought they could transcend/supersede the genre without even having a basic grasp of fundamental shmup/arcade design. There was never any hope in this project imo

[@StrnGuy]

I’m not a kneejerk hater, I love games to be good. But many, MANY shmup players could look at footage of this game and very easily conclude “this is not gonna be good.”

[@Finofinissimo]

I love shmups and I`m playing them since the eighties. I was super excited to play a new IP with amazing graphics but I actually played I started to thing I got old and didnt understood the game. The review kinda relieved me because is exactly that: its just a bad game. Amazing review, super deep and detailed.

[@fiddlestickjones]

the ships design is perfect for it being bigger, it has a diagetic red circle in the middle of the ship which would act like a hit box marker if it was a bigger ship on screen

[@Im_Mr_Lonely]

Good review man. I believe Angel at Dusk deserves a review from you. It was released this year and has already received about 1000 overwhelming positive reviews. Very rare in Shmups.

[@Maxx__________]

I like CYGNI's presentation (cutscenes aside) and the new mechanics they introduce. My main issue with it is that it tends to turn into a game of "grab the power up" over the more compelling mechanics the game has to offer. The progression balance is also pretty silly. First level took me about 30 tries, 10 for the second - but I've only died maybe 5 more times in all other levels combined.

[@VinuShmup]

Gigawing is also a good example of a Shmup who works even without its main mechanic, you can still clear the game without using reflect shield!

[@martinwohrle7887]

No I can't, even with the shield I never came close 😂.

[@VinuShmup]

@@martinwohrle7887 Me too it's super hard lol, but possible!

[@Steril707]

I am learning so much in this channel for the Neo Geo SHMUP I am coding right now..

[@RRVCrinale]

Man, this game makes me realize that Shmup Creator project I'd had in my head needs a total rework. I was so sure a "missile hell" concept capturing the Itano Circus was gonna be fire, but it just means I have to be way more clever about it.

[@ralfvanbogaert3451]

Refunded this after 10 minutes. It looks good yes (although drab and Euro-like) but you could tell straight away that this had many design problems. The music is awful, and there's a HUGE difficulty spike barely a minute into the first stage! The developers clearly didn't understand what makes a good shmup work, which is especially ironic since it features a friggin' PC Engine in it's intro.

[@pts-3d904]

The music is the biggest crime in this game lol it really makes the game feel 10x slower and more boring than it actually is and doesn't match the action at all

[@KitogoruGames-wq6cx]

I agree on everything you said, cygni is a strange and flawed experience. That being said, i enjoyed playing through the game, the visuals and the enormous scope of things in the background and bosses was incredible. Cygni gave a sneak peak at how a shmup in Unreal engine can look like. And occasionally i thought i was playing a new Ikaruga, and even if these sections were few, getting a little bit of the feeling of playing a Treasure game was enough for me to enjoy it while it lasted.

[@futureskeletons66669]

There's an IGN video on KZbin with the devs talking about it. They were asked straight out if it's a Shmup and they said they were reluctant to label it a Shmup because their game is bigger than that and they didn't want it limited to a very small niche audience. That and how the game looks in action was enough for me to write it off as another Euro Shmup or as we used to call them - an Amiga shooter. I haven't played it and I really don't want to. I'm about 15 yrs older than you, been playing games my whole life and can make up my own mind. It's a game for no one. And what I mean by that, is that it's a Shooting game for people who don't like or play Shmups, who wont buy it because they think it's a Shmup and the Shmup players (they don't want to be associated with) wont play it because it's a blatant Euro Shmup. It just upsets and angers me that we could have had a well funded M2 Gradius VI and/or an M2 remake of Gradius V instead of this bullshit. Because we all know that Konami will blame us for not supporting it rather than accept they backed the wrong horse again. They didn't even acknowledge the 20th anniversary of Gradius V. They see Gradius as something for the niche audience of 20,000 of us and that doesn't interest them. Instead, they take a gamble on something they believe has mass appeal, and doesn't. Total misfire on their part. I would have absolutely no problem paying AAA money for a new Gradius (I have gone so far as to create a Japanese account and I buy Japanese PSN credit to pay full price for every M2 Shot Triggers release on day one). I must be representative of some demographic? Surely I can't be alone in this? Do what Nintendo did with Metroid Prime Remastered. Stagger the release. I'd say more would double dip on a physical if it came with worthwhile extras and not just bits of card, than you'd think. I wouldn't, I don't buy physical releases, but many demonstrably would. I'd even be tempted if it was high quality merch. I'm going to put 300+hrs into a AAA Gradius over its lifetime, sell me DLC also if you want and I'll likely buy it, but this idea that there is an audience outside of the core Shmup players that can be reached with a Euro Shmup with nice graphics is a nonsense. I get it, they're going after the people who bought Deathsmiles and tbh I think they'd have more chance of that with a new well made Gradius with a hefty price cut, once the rest of us have bought it already and got online to say how amazing we think it is. A recent example of this is Crimzon Clover.

[@futureskeletons66669]

And then Jaimers does a video. I still stick to what I've said even after watching a bit of his arcade mode run.

[@gianniloscapolo]

Good video! It's sad that people that pretend to be the next Kojima and trip on their egos by calling it "creative vision" are the ones that get celebrated by the industry while the players see miles ahead they're just frauds, but this is the modern gaming industry...

[@ShadowXeneth]

I played the tutorial and first level of Cygni and bounced off so hard I got WHIPLASH; now, I'm old, my hands/eyes are deteriorating, and I haven't been keeping up with the genre. I get why there's so many more demanding bullet patterns than the Raidens, Life Forces, R-Types, etc. I remember... But seriously, I thought I was going INSANE after reading some positive reviews that made it sound like I played a different game! Thank you so much for pointing me at some additional resources and explaining why I wasn't crazy for feeling like I somehow had too much AND too little control, for thinking it was mysteriously too fast/hard and too EASY at the same time, for not being able to visually track the action on screen, for feeling simultaneously overstimulated AND bored by the patterns! If I ever build some sort of lame shmup for people that haven't been keeping up with the genre for decades, making a note to shout you out in the credits, ha ha ha.

[@comradecatbug5289]

7:55 "It'd be like shooting a film and shooting 4 months worth of footage and then being like 'This guy is a terrible actor we need to recast and reshoot the film!'" Funny thing, this is actually what happened with Back to the Future. Marty was originally played by Eric Stoltz, only to be recast in the last stages of production.

[@manowarii3314]

Imma need you to touch Angel of Dusk pretty sure you already have already been recommended to try/review. Excellcent Shmup, love your channel

[@FoxyCAMTV]

I want a combination of cygnis artstyle with Japanese gameplay....It really feels like an alien environment.

[@Gazkhaio]

Summed it up perfectly. For me a game designed to be new player friendly should not introduce concepts in the tutorial that you cannot actually use, I.e missiles. After playing the first level and being unable to use things I was shown in the tutorial and doing the tutorial again in case I remembered wrong was a joke. Being shot from below from respawning enemies you cannot hit if they fall too far below is a bad design choice. Finally, not a problem for me, but if you want to platinum trophy this, well two trophies require you to play co-op locally. Well not everyone has that option so another bad choice.

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

Disclaimer, I haven't tried Cygni myself. I don't mind developers trying something new, but by this point they should already know inertia cripples gameplay design possibilities more than it opens possibilities. What I do mind is the color palette. Games from the early 2000's arcade era have a lot of color and contrast. Does Unreal only ship with shades of blue, red, black, and gray?

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

Also, I think it takes more than just saying that a game is a great intro for beginners to convince me that that's the case, because my impression is that this game has a long campaign that doesn't put up much of a challenge, and when people go to other shmups they may feel discouraged because of the amount of practice that goes into clearing a shorter, more traditional ~30+ minute experience.

[@ColdMetalz]

It's weird, it's incredibly beautiful and yet still somehow incredibly bland looking. Dodonpachi, Dranius, Zeroranger etc all look so much better. It's kind of like how the hand drawn kof13 is still to this day the greatest looking fighting game ever made.

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

@@ColdMetalz Yeah it seems like for this game they took a page from Ikaruga but then made every stage a variation of a long gray metallic structure and it outstays its welcome very quickly. Like Mark said, none of the stages stand out, they really tried to make it "cinematic" but it looks really lazy. Speaking of cinematic, I just heard the music... it sounds like someone accidentally dragged and dropped their "epic orchestra" folder into the games files. It also seems like they really tried to ape Ikaruga on that end as well but end up misunderstanding how the music was composed for that game and why it fits.

[@noelrobles6334]

Here’s my prediction: in a couple years, there will be a graphically impressive SHMUP that releases with a ton of accessibility features that will get mainstream appeal. A bunch of new fans will latch onto the genre like what happened to Dark Souls and start claiming that the games are good because “they are hard”. Then we will all pretend like the last 30 years of SHMUPs didn’t exist.

[@sammypercy388]

I hate dork souls fans so much

[@TonyTonyRedgrave]

That doesn't really sound like a bad thing to be honest.

[@LuizMoraes-xb7qj]

Brooooooooooo they had you as a play tester and didn't listen to the feedback?? What a waste

[@platinumhawke]

Sounds like Sine Mora all over again

[@Ronbotnik]

devs would rather let their egos get in the way of better game design

[@Steve-Fiction]

Seemed to me like they did take quite a bit of feedback into account, just not all of it.

[@MrOreo76]

Thank you for the thorough review, as an architect and engineer I appreciate the reference to a bridge - it’s a hard pass for me on this one

[@jacobo_fungus_farmer]

Excellent vid Mark! I'm glad you talked about inertia and why it's bad in shmups but fine in racing games.

[@Stoney3K]

The problem with Cygni isn't that it's in the Euroschmup genre, but that it takes a lot of the bad elements of the Euro genre and not the good aspects. A schmup-like game with a resource collection mechanic? Could be amazingly cool, if you make the collection of resources or special items as one of the game's objectives. Wide aspect ratio? That can definitely work if you make the UI and level design support it - like more tight maze-like levels where you can't circle strafe because you die if you get stuck behind a wall. Have moving obstacles that force you into a specific direction. One of the games I compare Cygni to that does the "Euroschmup" genre *right* is Tyrian. You used Raptor as an example of the genre, but Tyrian is a good example of making the game different and leaning into it. It has some degree of inertia in the controls, but the enemies and levels are designed around it. Same with the screen aspect ratio, the levels are never a flat sheet of paper but an obstacle-ridden maze where you have to avoid terrain and large aircraft all the time. The resource and upgrade system in the game doesn't feel like a crutch, because the game plays fine even without it (there's an arcade mode where you can't do it). If Cygni was designed as a modern version of Tyrian in a new coat, it would combine all the *good* elements of Euroschmup design and it would have been this "rule-breaking" game that they intended.

[@dezm101]

good review. I feel like they should have just gone full smash tv and embraced the twin stick style. This seems like they had a bunch of ideas to include but had a hard time understanding how to make it really work as a whole.

[@thegobbojones]

The perfect casual shmup game already exists! And I mean this with no snark. If you really dig Cygni and want something else in the genre please look at Qute's catalog. Eschatos is my personal favourite, however Ginga Force is a great way to dip your toes in shmups.

[@GojiGuy]

I just frankly can't comprehend why Konami paid for this knowing all the other STG pitches they've received.

[@connormccarthy2745]

I played Cygni for about 2 hours (after it went free on Epic) and was pretty disappointed; at the very beginning I was getting Radiant Silvergun vibes, the aspect ratio and on the fly player choice between shot types reminded me of it, but that feeling faded FAST. It just feels sloppy and you've done a solid job of explaining why. great video

[@RagnarokAdvent]

Another insightful review Mark. I had seen a lot of contradicting opinions on this game, so I'm glad you were able to offer an objection and honest review of the game as a whole.

[@neo-giu]

"Subverting the genre" without understanding it at all is like saying you're making a masterpiece artwork while barely being a beginner Many such cases in indie development

[@Agus-wp2cc]

Thanks for bringing up the performance issues. A lot of games are getting away with it. People don't know how powerful hardware is nowadays, and it's a big problem in programming.

[@yagami999913]

Smart devs ! They listened to your advice, and then implemented nothing of it because the majority of mainstream gamers and casuals wouldn't care. Instead they focused on presentation and progression and voilà, A+ reviews. Well, the bright side is that the genre is getting more exposure ... hopefully.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

First Contra, then Stellar Blade and now we got Cygni. The more disappointing a game can be, the more spicey videos we get from you. I really just wish that you finished Knight Witch(my personal worst game of 2022) so we can hear you say the main problem of typical metroidvania. Maybe bad games still do something good... Anyways, good video.

[@chkbkko7431]

Hey Sora since i found you here i'll ask, are you into Fire Emblem? And if you are wuts the best most "dense" title for beginners?

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

@@chkbkko7431 must...resist....mentioning....Ygg....I think the GBA Fire Emblems are better compare to the 3ds ones. I will give more recommendation to Sacred Stone since it doesnt have the "longest tutorial arc in video game". . . Also, how did you know I got idea on Fire Emblem?

[@chkbkko7431]

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 i tortured Boghog and he named Names. Thanks for the recommendations tho ha, since now i've been playing noth but arcade games, i wanted to go back the genres i used to play and find the most dense gameplay wise this time being Jrpg's, i still have the hope that there is a game out there that is beyond, Story, Characters, length and Grinding -Edit (i think i remembere discussin fire emblem with you on either Mark's or Bog's streams)

[@lamegamertime]

44:55 so what you're say is for something to reinvent/affect a genre, it has to actually reinvent/affect the genre :P

[@GeorgeNoiseless]

Hm, there are some games that are lumped in with shmups where inertia and piloting (of sorts) are actually a core part of the gameplay, seemingly most of them Time Pilot descendants like LUFTRAUSERS and Jet Lancer... Too rare to have a classification of their own, but if we could separate them from shmups, "dogfighters" would probably be the most appropriate term.

[@Chloroxite]

I went into cygni hoping for a neat shmupping experience and immediately realized it was geometry dash. I bought an arcade stick for nothing, apparently.

[@jerm5466]

I think the philosophy behind the shield/missile mechanic is that the game is going to snowball against you if you aren’t keeping your missile count/damage% high It’s a juggle, you don’t want to use missiles too much because you lose firepower. And when you keep firepower high, weapon switching becomes more fun too, raylight is low charge time and decimates enemies. So the idea is to take as little damage as possible so you don’t have to revert firepower into shields. Thus, if you tank too much damage, you end up doing less damage, and the game snowballs against you and destroys you. There’s flaws to it but I actually think it’s incredibly fun and resonates with a lot of us. It’s part of the design that a lot of reviewers don’t seem to understand the merit of or simply aren’t picking up on.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I see where you are coming from jerm, but the problem is that even if this is the case, the game is not properly balanced to make this style of play interesting because the game doesn't have a solid fundamental mode of play. Check out zaarock's arcade 1cc here, and you'll notice that once you have the missile routing down, even on the hardest mode, that's kinda it. This lack of dodging fundamentals prevents deeper play from being meaningful. Whereas if you look at something like crimzon clover, which def has a more aggressive hyper routing requirement as well, you'll see how much deeper that game is able to go. Cygni Replay: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqSZhIWCoch6mpY Crimzon Clover Replay: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXiUoWh8abaaibM

[@jerm5466]

Very interesting - I will check out crimson clover! We can agree if Cygni did one thing right it’s that it’s thrown me full throttle into the genre. Will also watch that replay because I totally believe it. As much fun as I’m having it’s obviously going to need an arcade mode/scoring overhaul - thankfully the devs have already talked about doing this and that they ran out of time. Very much a wait and see thing if they do it well. Wish Konami pushed the release date back but at some point you gotta pay the bills. I just hope the devs stick with it while pulling the best criticism from channels like yours. You really do devs and the wider gaming audience a solid with your mechanics focused review, a ton of us really appreciate it.

[@zqf42]

@@TheElectricUnderground imo crimzon clover is the inspiration to take for making a more broadly appealing shmup. > nice novice mode that is still pretty lethal once you are in the last few levels so it is easing you up to arcade difficulty. > you can use single breaks to break more frequently for the temporary invul. > You can use the recharging bomb, but you can't abuse it as it gets more expensive with every use. > you can choose lives over break gauge as your boss reward. > whole game open in training mode from the start is also really nice. practicing the TLB before I reach it was really helpful. Crimzon Clover is just fantastic. seeing how it scales so well for a newbie (like myself) to a superplayer on unlimited is incredible imo.

[@hotworlds]

Even if all the enemies are only onscreen, you have to really think about optimization early if you have a bunch of entities doing any kind of physics or collisions at all. Stuff like colliding with a mesh vs colliding with simple geometry like cubes and spheres has a gigantic impact on performance. GPUs are extremely fast so graphics usually aren't the problem anymore. But physics generally happen on the CPU unless you really know what you're doing, and physics operations can be extremely processor intensive. If you pay attention to performance from the beginning you can make it good anyway which is what all good SHMUPS have to do to avoid lag. It's a guess, but an educated guess. Experienced developers know this kind of thing. But for new developers, there's a quote from a very famous and smart programmer that is totally misunderstood and misused: "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". It's supposed to mean that you can't make something faster before you have something you can analyze, you need to be analyzing the performance of your software throughout development using profilers that tell you what specifically needs to be optimized so you're not shooting in the dark. But people are taught IN SCHOOL that the quote means "get it working early in the project and optimize late in the project" because optimization is hard. It's an attractive idea to people who are lazy and impatient. You need to unlearn this to make performant software but the majority of programmers these days never do. This leads to the same type of thing you're talking about with the core of the gameplay: by the time you've slapped together all the systems without thinking about making them fast, it's too late and you've built your game on a slow foundation. There's no excuse. It's an epidemic across all of software and I blame this one thing for the absolute abysmal state of software performance these days. Computers are literally billions of times faster than they were three decades ago and we're doing the same exact things but we still have these problems.

[@DigitalMoonlight]

To further prove your point with Knuth's quote, the optimizations he was referring to was stuff like hand rolling assembly to increase performance in a program otherwise written in a high level language. How the quote is treated is so far removed from the intention that it's laughable.

[@protolegacy9184]

I gotta tell you Mark. I was looking forward to your in depth analysis/review like a big movie opening. It looks like there's a lot of things going on with Cygni with good intentions and clearly a big budget. There are eyes on this one.But I think too many overlooked the issues that are all too apparent. Look past the nice graphics and things fall apart. And thats where you come in. I just was not ready to put my 40 dollars down until I got word from you. With the game sitting at mixed on Steam and a good amount of negative reviews I really,really hope the dev re evalulate a lot of decisions and make the game better.They are going to have to swallow their pride and erase some decisions they stood by for years on that have clearly been poor decisions. In the end is it a fun shoot em up worth replaying several times? Not at this point. Your time with Cygni cutting into its meat and rummaging into what makes it work and fail is greatly appreciated and I seriously think should be looked at by the developers to learn some things esspecially when things like this happen. I do hope this one has a second chapter that is better written but I have my doubts.

[@MeDjezze]

The graphics of the game look so amazing, but I had a really bad feeling since I played the demo when I was immediately overwhelmed by the controls. Any shoot 'em up utilizing more than three buttons should have a very good reason for every additional button; this game uses ten or more. And they barely listend to that feedback, not just from my insignificant self...

[@brentrusche2056]

@TheElectricUnderground KeelWorks should have clearly considered your constructive criticism in the early development stages of this game. After learning about its poor game design, you have just saved me $30 and will continue to play DoDonpachi and Ketsui in hopes of ever getting a 1CC!

[@NSAspyvans]

Treasure not making games anymore makes me so sad.

[@LamarFiddy-sx9su]

Tell me how good Cygni is Mr MSX :)

[@h.t.steiner5567]

A few problems I had with the game: 1. The progression system makes your first few runs feel like ass, sucks to have to time out the first mid bosses despite constantly shooting at them and just not having the firepower to take them out. Arcade games need to make a good first impression, and making your first runs feel like ass is not a good way to get people engaged. 2.swapping shield into firepower doesn't feel like an actual risk/reward system when you're constantly picking up more shield, and it just feels like they just wanted to use every button on the controller. I think it would feel a lot better if you entered some kinda hyper mode when at max shield to incentivize not getting hit. Maybe even just sacking shield to use bombs (it is this anyway), but at least that way it wouldn't have a little bonus un-fun thing to micro manage. 3. The homing bullet toggle should have been switched to a focus mode TouHou style. You have a homing shot for unfocused while you're circle strafing, and you focus for a more narrow shot while you move slower. 4. Should have committed to full twin stick or no 2nd stick, again, feel s like they wanted to use every button on the modern controller. 5. Make the Player's ship actually visible during gameplay. Plenty of shmups have iconic ship designs that make you more invested in the game just because they look cool: Vic Viper, Cotton, Ikaruga, Darius Silver Hawk, etc. I couldn't even tell you what this thing is supposed to look like through all the lighting effects going on. It feels like just a hit box.

[@yegormorozov7007]

The fact that the game doesn't have the full analog movement is honestly just insane. Like the only reason EVER to play shmup on the stick of regular controller. You mentioned gunvein here but I think a better example here would be Gradius 5, treasure literally did this TWENTY years ago at this point. When I think about stuff like this it makes me laugh so hard when some gigabrain youtubers talk about how some games are outdated and the gamedesign evolved a lot since ps1-2 era. When in reality I think it comes down to the fact that some designers just "feel it" and some don't. Always has been, always will be

[@TheCrippledWerewolf]

I came here because I played the game for about 10 minutes, streamed it to friends on discord laughing about how insanely dense the first level is with random bullets and enemies, then promptly got confused and stopped. What I was trying to figure out is: why does this game exist? Like, what was the motivating force behind it? I can't figure it out. Even after a highly in-depth ubershmup-fan critique, I still can't figure it out.

[@LyrisTheCat]

absurdly funny, how regardless if the dev studio is AAA or INDIE. theres always some devs who REFUSES to listen to their QA staff at any cost holy shit.

[@nemoguy]

Hopefully the dev's next game would be better

[@darkridearts]

I like waiting for your reviews, Mark

[@auellaitaela8035]

Whoa, wait a second. They insist you play on a gamepad, but... they don't have true analog stick movement? ...honestly this one single fact right here says everything that needs to be said about the game. The dev mentality that would think that type of control is acceptable will think ALL sorts of other silliness is okay. I do hope this game at least gets more casual players into real shmups. They might think "hey, this is pretty neat", and then get into the real games, eventually leaving these training wheels behind. Sometimes people just need a trashy accessible entry to get to the good stuff. Like there are people who probably got into Kurosawa films from Ghost of Tsushima. Amazing god-tier art that they wouldn't have interacted with had they not played the mid action game.

[@slimynaut]

They got too cocky. You cant possibly innovate a genre unless you are an absolute master of it first.

[@Midekai]

I dunno man, one of my biggest issues besides good design is legit just the amount of visual clutter the game has. I'm all for shiny cool effects, but holy crap, so many particles that don't add to the game's information for your eyes. I NEED to be able to see enemies, my ship, my bullets and enemy bullets. Older games have this in spades. Performance issues are also a big nono in these games.

[@Msixx6]

lol I just noticed the "PRO--GEAR RULES" in the intro XD I agree mate XD lowkey its the greatest Cave game

[@DrBossKey]

Good stuff, thank you for taking the time to unpack this in a thoughtful manner.

[@room.beer.controller3032]

TEU's insights are profound. Easily my favorite reviewer.

[@Coinneach-ez7ec]

so.....sine mora 2.0

[@peter0071000]

Ha ha that game was terrrrrrrible! 😂

[@SpidersSTG]

The “you’re taking on a greater burden, not an easier one” is the 😘👌 concept every developer needs to inscribe in their minds. It’s not even how one thing is such a grievous sin, it how every weird decision pulls in a different direction than the other. I hated the progression system enough to make an 1h20 minute video about it lol… I am surprise you had the patience for it, especially as it’s just a linear upgrade path to MAX. This was great. Sorry it must have been so frustrating not to be taken seriously. Didn’t Junkie consult too??

[@FiRezfps]

28:00 While I've not played the game I noticed this just by watching the first minutes of this video. I even though it was a novel mechanic but unfortunately it seems it's just an easy way to exploit the game. It reminds me to Gleylancer in Sega Genesis you could make the game way easier if you equipped the 2 weapons as auto-seeking missiles.

[@BuzzaB77]

Well I'm glad it was free. Saved me 25 quid. I was in expecting a proper shmup , but it turned out to be just a spectacle shooter. It reminds me of astebreed , fun enough but doesn't really feel 'designed' in terms of intelligent challenge. More of a call of duty style experience.

[@jasp2003]

I’m a casual shmupet and this game turned me off right away! I’ll give it another go but it didn’t have a fun factor on level 1

[@peter0071000]

Then why bother?

[@Blatt9Button]

Thanks for the review. Wish more reviewers put the time and effort to dig into the mechanics and other intricacies of the game. I hope this channel sets a new precedent for reviewers!

[@TroikaTV1]

I wish you would do less IGN comparisons. I feel like there is nothing to be gained from comparing opinions to the most watered down review site out there and it just gives your Reviews this culture war vibe, instead of just standing on their own

[@lamegamertime]

Personally I think it's necessary. If devs listen to IGN it will not end well (unless IGN suddenly learned design but uhh not happening)

[@ffmpregffmpreg]

As someone tired of culture wars, an opinion of my own that's not reflected in either side of the discussion, I think calling out IGN is fair. Even if I didn't believe IGN is industry-sanctioned advertising-branch of the gaming industry, their coverage of major releases such as RE4 Remake makes me think they, like many other outlets, don't seek out to employ people that are familiar with the tropes of the genres of games they're covering.

[@SpidersSTG]

I agree in that I often forgot IGN is still a thing - why even bring it up? - but at the same time Mark is practically running a de-programming camp so you kind of have to address the mainstream to make the points… plus it’s clearly the case that IGN reviewers are a more important target audience than genre fans and that’s not culture war stuff that’s the issue imploding the industry currently.

[@SpidersSTG]

@@ffmpregffmpregGreat point… I think they actively don’t employ gamers to try and catch more fish with an “everyman” perspective, but yeah it ultimately functions as industry-sponsored propaganda.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

Hey Electric Undergroubd, I think you should check the game called Elite Exorcist Mako. Its a twin stick shooter shmup inspired by Suguri.

[@TobiasSchoenke]

For me it was really fun to learn how to play it - its weird but if you get your head around it its really fun

[@VisserStudio]

The way I played Cygni was circle-strafing and permanently syphoning shield blocks to rocket blocks, spamming rockets to kill as many enemies as possible and collecting their refill drops, rinse and repeat. Finger torture. The progression system (or the UI) made no sense to me at all. For something that seemed to be one of their core pillars (design your own shot patterns) they sure made that as incomprehensible as they could.