Sektori Review: Perfection | The Gamerheads Podcast

Platform reviewed: Nintendo Switch 2

Also on: PC (Steam), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S

Price: $14.99

Every time I turn on my Switch 2, Sektori is staring at me, taunting me, asking, “Think you’ve got what it takes to beat your high score this time, buddy?” Yes, I’ve been playing it for review. A lot. But there are times when I fully intend to play something else, and yet the draw of beating my score is just too compelling not to dive back in. Again. And again. And again.

Sektori is best described as a twin-stick arcade game inspired by titles like Geometry Wars. With its simplistic shapes for both enemies and your ship, it would be easy to assume the visuals are basic. But there’s actually a lot happening here. First off, the game is vibrant and fully embraces its arcade aesthetic. Beyond the variety of enemies flooding the screen, the background itself is fluid and deeply psychedelic. It feels like drifting through some wild, drug-induced trip across space. Not that I would know what that’s like, I’m just assuming that’s what it would feel like…

The space where I maneuver my little ship changes constantly, with sections disappearing and new paths opening up. At first, the levels expand, shifting from a diamond shape into a much larger battlefield. Then comes another shift, and suddenly red spaces appear beneath me. The game never explicitly explains what’s happening, but intuitively, I know I probably don’t want to be there. Areas that were once safe to fly through are swallowed by the void. The result is that I’m sometimes trapped in increasingly tight spaces, really putting my ability to fight off any sense of claustrophobia to the test.

While Sektori isn’t a roguelike, it borrows some of my favorite elements from the genre. Defeated enemies drop small yellow crystals called glimmer, and collecting them fills a progress bar. Once that bar is full, a flashing blue token appears. Grabbing it gives me access to ship upgrades, which I can purchase with the shoulder button based on whichever option is currently highlighted. But this is where Sektori introduces a smart risk/reward system. I can cash in immediately for an early bonus like increased speed, or hold out longer in hopes of landing stronger upgrades like missiles. Better yet, these upgrades stack, and yes, unleashing even more missiles is incredibly satisfying. But during my runs, I quickly realized that greed can backfire. Chasing what I assumed were the stronger upgrades often left me too slow to dodge boss attacks, which made speed feel a lot more valuable than I initially gave it credit for.

There’s another way to level up my ship, and that’s by collecting flashing yellow tokens known as relics. These relics expand my upgrade options, adding things like additional missiles or new blaster types when I stack future power-ups. They’re presented as cards, essentially letting me build out my power-up deck as I progress. I also have the option to grab instant upgrades through white cards, giving me immediate payout, which makes getting yellow tokens much more valuable.

That’s where the similarities between roguelikes and Sektori end. There are no permanent progression systems or leveling abilities that carry over outside a run. Instead, it’s the lessons I learn during each attempt that shape how I approach the next one. Sektori essentially looks at me and says, “Get good.”

Oh, but Sektori knows I’m not ready for its true form when I start. Instead, I’m introduced to the Experience difficulty in the campaign, a mode designed to help players get familiar with the game before facing its greater challenges. Only after defeating the first boss does Sektori decide I’m ready for more.

There’s also a brief tutorial that teaches me the essentials: left stick moves, right stick shoots, right shoulder purchases the highlighted upgrade, and left trigger unleashes my strike attack, which lets me ram into danger without taking damage. That strike becomes especially useful when I’m cornered and desperately need an escape route.

And then the game simply tells me, “The rest is for you to discover.”

A challenge.

With every run, it feels like I’m uncovering something new. Oh, I can unlock drones through relics. Oh, there are score bonus drops. Crap, the blue upgrade icons disappear after a while. Wait, I unlocked a Classic Mode that lets me play without the shifting levels? There’s constantly something new to learn, and that ongoing discovery is a huge part of what makes Sektori so compelling.

The boss battles are so well designed. Tough, but fair. There isn’t a traditional “first boss.” Instead, after surviving enough level transitions, Sektori throws a random boss my way. Exactly when one appears is dictated by some logic behind the scenes, which makes these encounters feel sudden, almost like the game is ambushing me out of nowhere.

Over time, though, I start learning their patterns after facing them multiple times. Then, just when I think I’ve got things figured out, Sektori throws a boss at me I’ve never encountered before, and suddenly the learning process begins all over again.

It’s interesting that Sektori starts me off in campaign mode. I know Sektori is, at its core, a score-chasing game, but instinctively, I found myself more focused on pushing farther through the campaign than climbing the leaderboard. Instead of obsessing over points, I kept asking myself how much farther I could make it and what boss might be waiting for me next. Sure, if I earned a great score along the way, even better, but my real motivation became discovery.

Even after unlocking Classic Mode, which feels more in line with a traditional arcade-style pursuit of high scores, I still found myself spending most of my time in the campaign. I went in expecting to want a pure score-chasing experience, but I left far more invested in uncovering what else the game had waiting for me through its campaign structure.

I’m not sure whether that says more about me as a player or how cleverly Sektori is designed, but either way, it’s one of the most fascinating realizations I had while reviewing it.

Final Score: A

I love Sektori. The roguelike-inspired elements and smart risk/reward systems feel fantastic within the fluid arcade shooter framework Sektori delivers. I’d heard people loved this game, but playing it on the Switch 2 feels especially right at home on the platform. If you’re a fan of challenging twin-stick arcade shooters, pick up Sektori. You won’t regret it.

Review provided by Plan of Attack