I remember the impact Geometry Wars had on the video game industry. It was such a blast to play, and it was a must-have game on the Xbox 360. When I saw Sektori in action for the first time, it gave me the same vibes. A simplistic-looking twin-stick shooter that combines colorful graphics with a futuristic soundtrack. While this doesn’t revolutionize the genre, it’s still a blast to play.
Randomization is the key
The main mode in Sektori is Campaign. Here you’ll control a pyramid-looking ship as you fend off against other geometric shapes. As you progress through the stages, you’ll come across boss characters. There isn’t a lot more to describe. Unlike Geometry Wars, the environments change every few minutes. This forces you to pay attention to your surroundings.
Stages are random. Other than the opening section, every run is different. Enemy placement changes. The sequence of events is different. Even the order of bosses won’t be the same. So, if you’re keen on memorization, you’re out of luck.
As a result, the game encourages you to go out and have fun. It doesn’t matter if you don’t finish the game, since you’ll still get a chance to see every boss battle after a few tries. At the same time, though, this isn’t an easy game, and the narrow stages make it easy to get overwhelmed by enemies.
An interesting leveling system
To improve your ship, you will be collecting orbs that enemies drop when killed. As you collect these, you’ll earn the chance to upgrade different aspects of your ship. There are “six” categories: Speed, Score, Strike, Shield, Missiles, and Blaster. But the structure for upgrades doesn’t allow you to pick and choose outright.
Speed is your first option. Once you collect enough orbs, you can immediately spend it on Speed. But if you’re aiming to improve your Blaster, then you’ll have to collect five more rounds of orbs to unlock that. This creates a risk/reward scenario for the player. The best rewards are the offensive boosts of Missiles and Blasters. You’ll also want to unlock extra Shields, especially for later stages of the game. But, to get those, you’ll have to wait and pass up on the first three bonuses.
Once you unlock a boost, you start the process again. Of the six, Score is the only one that doesn’t improve your ship. So, you’re likely going to focus on upgrading the others. While I tend to focus on Blaster, Missile, and Shields, Speed and Strike can help in tough situations. Striking allows your ship to hit a group of foes. This is key in situations where you’re surrounded and need to ‘break through’ a group of foes. There is a cooldown, so you can’t use this all the time. When used at the right time, it has a significant impact.
A few other fun distractions
Outside of the main campaign, you’ll unlock a few other challenges. Each offers something different. One of my favorites is “Gates”. You don’t directly attack enemies. Instead, you cause damage by flying your ship through a series of gates. When your ship breaks the plane, it causes surrounding damage. It gets harder the longer you survive since more enemy characters swarm around you. But when you manage to time a gate check, the screen lights up, and it’s satisfying to see.
There are six “challenge modes” available, and they all have leaderboards. Since I was playing the pre-release version, there weren’t many scores to compare to. But I could see some people trying to improve their scores or seeing how far they can go.
In the same way that the campaign is challenging, these are also difficult. There is a ‘recommended’ score chart which highlights how much an “A’, ‘B’, etc, ranking is worth. I never got above a “C” rank. Those comfortable with these types of games might not find it challenging. But for most people, the challenge is fair and never feels cheap.
A pleasant surprise that’s worth your time
I had a lot of fun with Sektori. It doesn’t revolutionize this genre of twin-stick shooter, but it serves its purpose well. There is a decent challenge for people who want it, and the game has reason to replay it. I would die, but I immediately want to jump back into a run to see if I could improve my score and performance. This is a game I played on my Steam Deck, and it’s an easy recommendation.
