Sektori

Well crafted game with lots of replay value.

This is a real banger. I decided to check this out after playing pathogenic; a great game unto itself. Man this takes it up a notch. This is a classic arcade game for a new generation of players. The music is heart pounding and the color scheme is vibrant. You will need to lock in and enter a flow state if you are going to put up a score your boomer parents or grandparents would be proud of. Turning to the campaign gameplay the room(s) seamlessly evolve into to each other with the addition of new enemies to annihilate and geometric obstacles that are added and removed from the "board". These changing landscapes and increased enemy difficulty culminate in a miniboss fights. Kill the boss and evolve by entering a new room and rinse and repeat the formula against a higher threat level. I think many people will enjoy the mechanics for progressing their ship during their run. As enemies are killed you will collect "coins". After a certain value is reached you will then collect "points" that go towards improving your ship is some way. Secondarily you also have an opportunity to add or use "decks" that you select at the start of your run to modify the improvements you selected with points. Intoxicating outcomes are made from choices. Sometimes you will feel untouchable. Runs can last from 1 min to 45 min based on your skill. Lovely when you want to play an engaging single player game that's plain dumb fun. No online ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with bums on CS2 or story investment with larger single player titles. Just fun! My only criticism as always is it seems the Arcade/Rouge-like space doesn't trust or appreciate making their games DRM-free or supporting platforms like GoG alongside Steam for their content. It's a shame because these are the games I find to be cathartic. I would like to be able to introduce these games in aftercare programs or to a future generations without being tied to always being online. It's what is and the developer needs his money too.

Probably the best twin stick shooter ever made.

When I close my eyes I see Sektori; please help

A lot of negative reviews are focusing solely on difficulty, so I'll try to address why I think Sektori is needlessly difficult. I'm going to focus exclusively on campaign, because the less random Arcade modes are more balanced imo. I'm not going to claim that anything is impossibly hard, only that some of the difficulty is due to some frustrating design decisions. The following elements actively getting in the way of players using the tools meant to overcome the increasing challenges of a run. Upgrades: Tracking whether or not you've got enough points to buy an upgrade requires glancing away from the action or counting in your head. In a game where decisions happen in fractions of seconds, this means the UI causes frustrating deaths. They could instead either add a simple indicator somewhere center screen (you learn the upgrade order quickly) or better yet, have the voice that announces the chosen upgrade instead announce the level you've reached. I don't need to be told I just bought missiles, I would love to be told I reached that upgrade level. Strike: This is clearly meant to be a central mechanic given the token synergy and score multiplier. I have read many people talking about taking the upgrades last and deprioritizing the related decks. It creates complete visual chaos which sometimes leads to an enemy or bullet blindsiding you after the strike. The recharge indicator is difficult or impossible to see even if I'm staring at my ship (you can crank the visibility of the line, but it's still not where I want to be looking). In a game of this style I rarely look at my ship. I am scanning for a safe path and targets. The ship is, at best, in my peripheral vision. A steady sound, a background hue, or some other very obvious indicator might work better. Also just my .02, but a small vacuum effect for points at the strike location would make a huge difference in how it feels. Building a perfect path of 10+ strikes only to be unable to collect any of the points feels terrible. Which leads me to: Level rotation: I get it. it adds to the chaos, but it has never once felt challenging when the level swaps to separated areas with no fully connected teleport path only to switch to more separate cells with no path at all. I have lost many tokens and points this way while sitting, bored, waiting for the action to start again. It breaks the flow and takes away player choice. Similarly having the level change to a configuration that completely blocks them before the ships from an objective even enter the screen just sucks. Decks: I won't go into why some decks are good or bad, I'm sure that could be debated. However, Challenge and up starts to really punish you for taking legendary cards to the point that it's often better to skip them unless you've mastered the game. The glaring example is losing your shields for large portions of time. For most players, carefully balancing the choice of buying more shields vs upgrades that increase power is how we survive a run. Suddenly losing the benefit of the shields I've carefully maintained or accumulated is rarely worth the risk. That means I'm being punished for getting lucky. It's a rug pull moment that feels bad. The upgrades often aren't good enough to warrant the risk which brings me to: when a card with a mediocre rare perk is presented as rare I effectively have one less option rather than an exciting better option. It also makes Rare Imports suicide for most players. The game at its core _is_ fun. The problem is that past Experience, it's not. Most people just aren't going to enjoy it past the first difficulty so I can't recommend it in its current state.

It's excellent. Great pacing. Also, I suck at it.

This game is SO GOOD. Must have bullet hell arcade insanity.