Sektori – PS5 Review

Sektori is a twin-stick shoot ’em up which comes to us from solo developer Kimmo Lahtinen.  That name might not be familiar to everyone but if we tell you that Kimmo was one of the original founders of Housemarque, best known for Returnal but also responsible for the PS4’s best game, Returnal, that should get a few of you very excited about the prospect of trying his latest game.

And what a game it is.  Sektori is a proper, no-nonsense affair.  An old-school twin-sticker with a handful of modern features.  There’s no plot, no lore.  Just you and a bunch of geometric bastards, just like with the game that really popularised the genre for modern audiences, Geometry Wars.

In terms of the mechanics, it’s relatively straightforward.  You move with the left stick and aim/shoot with the right.  Immediate points for there being no fire button.  Enemies appear in the arena, try to swarm you and you blast them away.  But there’s also a ‘Strike’ move which sees you darting headfirst into a group of enemies which will then also provide a little bit of an explosion to help keep you out of immediate danger.

The game’s main mode is the Campaign.  This sees you playing through an ever-shifting arena for long enough to trigger a boss battle.  After defeating the boss you’ll just move onto the next level until you’ve beaten them all.   But its the game’s use of roguelike mechanics that makes it more compelling.  Enemies drop experience which build up to allow you to select upgrades to things like your gun, supplementary missiles, shields and speed.  It’s hard to know what to focus on initially but it all helps.

The dev reckons that you need to focus on your Strike move but we’ve not had all that much success with it.  It’s powerful and can be chained by landing into tokens that show up on the arena but we found it awkward, clumsy and ultimately too risky.  We instead focused on missiles but we’re no experts.  This game is tough and we feel like we’re a lifetime away from mastering it (despite otherwise having very good chops on Geometry Wars 3 and other similar games).

This mode also has the occasional choice of perks a’la Vampire Survivors.  These come as cards that exist in specific upgrade decks but only last as long as the run, and there are no permanent upgrades either.  But they offer even more choice than the regular upgrades.  That said, we found them a little insipid at times and not exactly the gamechangers you want in a game as tough as Sektori.

Yep, this is a tough game.  You’re always outnumbered and your guns barely do enough to stem the tide.  And then when you factor in the boss battles, which represent a dramatic spike in difficulty and are multi-staged affairs, death can come quickly and can sometimes seem a little too harsh.  Sure, these are teachable moments and you do get better but it’s definitely a bit much.  And when death ultimately means starting again from scratch, it can all seem a bit of a slog.

But you do need to stick with it because you do get better.  We’re still struggling for sure but we’ve made gains at least.  It’s certainly not as immediate as Geometry Wars 3 and does indeed feel more like a Housemarque joint in that it demands you just get good where as Geometry Wars 2 and 3 were generally easy enough to progress through but offered up challenges for people who wanted to keep improving their skills.

If you do make some progress though you’ll unlock other modes.  These are simpler affairs where the upgrading aspect is taken out and you just need to focus on a new rule-set and these are pretty good.  We particularly loved ‘Gates’ which is this game’s answer to Geometry Wars‘ Pacifism mode.  It’s the exact same set-up.  You have no guns and instead need to travel through gates that will then explode and take out crowds of enemies.  It’s worryingly addictive but much tougher than the mode that inspired it.  Especially one particular enemy that charges you down with great speed and precision.  We normally only spotted it when it was killing us because it’s just one thing in a screen full of them.

That’s the main problem with this game.  It’s just very unforgiving.  It’s fun and rewarding but casual players may find themselves locked out of some of the game’s content just because of how taxing it all is.  And even now and early boss encounter can still get the better of us.  But it’s definitely a skill thing rather than any failing of the game’s design.  I believe the kids say ‘get good,’ right?

The presentation is definitely a bit of a joy though.  That classic neo-retro look with blazing colours, geometric shapes and shifting backdrops.  The sort of game that Housemarque decided they weren’t going to make when they said “Arcade is Dead” and all set to a banging soundtrack that’s all big beats and fat bass.  It’s exactly what you want from this genre and yet is so often messed up by indie developers in this space.

Sektori is definitely a great game and it’s wonderful to see a master of the genre return to it and show everyone else how it’s done but calming down those boss battles and chilling out on the difficulty just a bit wouldn’t hurt it and would probably be difference between the game being very good and it being a modern day classic.  It often feels like it is punishing you rather than rewarding you and while we can’t stop playing it, we can’t stop telling it to fuck off either.