Sektori Review

I’ve never really given twin-stick shooters much love; I’ve dabbled in some here and there, but at large, it has never been a go-to genre. Thanks to Sektori, that might not be the case for long.

As you can probably infer, Sektori is a twin-stick shooter, and to be blunt, it’s pretty simplistic. In some cases, this could be a negative, but in this case, it’s a perfect amount of depth. You play as one of three different ships, with some unique abilities, and survive waves upon waves of enemies, while you slowly build your strength through an almost roguelite progression system. It’s super simple, and it more so gives you a place to focus your abilities rather than super unique and varied builds.

As you fight off enemies, you’ll collect Glimmer and fill up a meter. Once full, you’ll summon a selection token, which increments a small menu of upgrades. You can choose these at any time, and they range from increasing your speed to a limited number of shields and boosts to your attacks. These are Blaster, Missiles, and Strike, and they each serve an interesting core purpose.

Your Blaster is your standard attack, which goes precisely where you aim. Missiles fire alongside the Blaster (once obtained), and have a level of tracking, automatically seeking targets. Strike is the most interesting of the three, having a multitude of purposes. It primarily acts as a sort of melee ability with a small area of effect, on a relatively long cooldown. However, if you Strike into a token, either the previously mentioned selection token, a score token, or an evolver token, you’ll increase its area of effect and instantly recharge it (alongside building a temporary score multiplier). It leads to a satisfying loop of difficulty, chasing down tokens to clear the ever-increasing pressure caused by the enemies.

Evolver tokens are the other main progression system, which draws a trio of Cards (or decks, from the eight you select before a run) that often boost a set part of your ship. They’re never incredibly strong, but it’s a nice bump to a specific aspect, and can help focus your upgrade path. Progression acts as a comfortable way to scale yourself to handle harder and harder waves of enemies, but a good build won’t come close to allowing you to autopilot: skill is the core decider if you succeed or fail.

Each world, which is a series of waves, introduces new enemies, bosses, and even map layouts. The map you fight on evolves with you, growing, shrinking, and changing shape, which keeps you always on your toes. It adds a nice additional dynamic element to the core gameplay. I wasn’t super impressed with the boss design, though: they’re relatively fun the first few times, but they do really kill the pacing. There’s no real benefit to playing super risky against the bosses, so it becomes a lot slower and more tedious. They’re visually super fun, but in execution, they lose their lustre very quickly.

The difficulty is also at risk of turning people away. It’s pretty damn tough, even on the standard difficulty, but I’m pretty happy with it. It’s snappy, and it rarely feels unfair. There’s a lot to adapt to, and losses can come out of nowhere, but you can get back into it just as quickly, and I’ve noticed myself steadily making progress.

Beyond the core gamemode, there are six other challenge modes, such as Crash, which allows you to only use Strike attacks, none of which I was particularly endeared by. They’re perfectly playable and provide a unique set of challenges, but Sektori works so well due to its fantastic combination of mechanics, and removing any of these makes it lose a lot of its charm.

As a whole product, though, Sektori is genuinely a blast. It’s visually and sonically a masterpiece, with both aspects coming together to form a really unique vibe. While its challenge modes fall behind the standard mode, it’s nice to have variation, and each mode has its own score challenges, which gives a comfortable amount of content. Even for people who aren’t fans of twin-stick shooters, I think Sektori has a great chance to change that, as it has for me.