Sektori is a finely crafted adrenaline machine and I am a tiny baby
Sektori is deeply unfashionable. It isn’t stacked with layer upon layer of meta-progression, unlocks, and permanent upgrades drip-fed to you incrementally over hours. Death does not send you back to a glowing neon house to fill with glowing neon furniture, or an entire neon village inhabited by sexy neon people who tell you about your sad neon backstory.
It is, instead, pure videogame. Sektori is an arcade shmup in the (neon) vein of Robotron in which you are beset upon by (neon) shapes that kill you if they touch you. Death presents you with nothing more than a score and an invitation to try again.
The trailer alone gets my heart rate pumping.
That’s not to say it’s solely a retro throwback. That paragraph above also perfectly describes Geometry Wars, an obvious aesthetic inspiration, but Sektori has broader inspirations and plenty of ideas of its own. The arena changes shape during play. You have a dash move which destroys enemies, and which can be instantly recharged if you use it to collect tokens. There are four different types of token, which advance you along an upgrade track, or give you a temporary increase in fire rate,