Sector 781 from Refold and Ben James is a bite-sized budget Metroidvania on Nintendo Switch. Learn more about it in our Sector 781 review!

 

Sector 781 from Refold and Ben James is a bite-sized budget Metroidvania on Nintendo Switch. As a fan of Metroid, Castlevania, and what we now know as the Metroidvania genre, I was up for checking out this smaller indie game between all of the huge retail games we’ve been getting for review. You’ll explore three areas in Sector 781 as you try and find the items needed to progress through each area as you overcome the obstacles and destroy all enemies on your path. Activate checkpoints to save your progress and try to defeat all bosses along the way.

Given its bite-sized nature, the controls are simple and to the point so that you can focus on exploring every section and defeating every enemy on your path. You can move your character with the left analog stick and jump with the A button. The B button is for attacking, and the X button is for checking your map so that you can see where you’ve already been and where you still need to explore.

 

As you start your adventure, you won’t be able to jump very high and will only have four health points. A few seconds into the game, you’ll find your first teleported, which will allow you to access a special room where you’ll get your first power-up: the double jump! Thanks to this, you’ll be able to press the A button again while in mid-air to perform a second job. This greatly opens up the rest of the game’s map for you since you can now reach twice as high as before!

This is why you should immediately teleport back and return to the room where you started the game. Why? Because to the left is a ledge that was too high for you to reach, but thanks to the handy double jump, you’ll get to reach a room where you can grab a very useful power-up: the bomb! It’s a small timed explosive that can be used for blasting through grey blocks. To use it, press down on the left analog stick or the D-Pad along with the B button. These bombs won’t damage you.

 

The next power-up on the list will be the power beam, a mighty attack that can allow you to damage enemies from a longer range while also granting you the possibility of destroying brown blocks. This all happens during the first area of the game, at the end of which you’ll battle a boss. Once he’s done for, you’ll move onto the next area in Sector 781. Along with power-ups, you will also get to collect energy shards. Once you find four of them, you’ll get an extra health point added to your character’s bar, up to a total of ten health points.

Sector 781 is a fun bite-sized Metroidvania that you can certainly complete in an hour or less, depending on your experience with 2D games in the genre. That doesn’t mean it’s not a game you should play on Nintendo’s console since it’s a solid indie release to play between bigger games. Sector 781 is out on Nintendo Switch with a low price of only $5.99.

Disclaimer
This Sector 781 review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Refold.