Star Shaman

My first thought putting on the headset for Star Shaman was that Paris-based Ikimasho had clearly spent more time thinking about how VR should feel in your body than most studios three times their size. The core idea here is physical empowerment: rather than pulling a trigger, you reach out and collect orbs with your hand, trace a gesture pattern, and summon a weapon into existence. Once you internalize the motion vocabulary, the gestures start to feel like a choreographed routine, and that sensation of becoming a cosmic wizard through sheer physical fluency is the game's single best argument for existing. The combat structure underneath is a wave-based roguelite. You hop between planets inside procedurally generated solar systems, clearing mechanical enemy hordes spawned by the villainous Architects of Entropy, gathering resources, and building toward a boss encounter at the end of each system. Death sends you back to the start, though post-launch updates added persistent perks and spells that carry over between runs, meaningfully softening the sting of a failed attempt. Ikimasho also patched in new spells over time, including a sustained beam attack, a stun grenade, and a temporary combat companion, which gives the nine-weapon arsenal some genuine build variety to explore. Three full solar systems frame the progression, and a built-in speedrun timer signals that the developers understood their audience would keep coming back for score chasing rather than a single linear story. The visual presentation is the other headline act. This is not a highly textured, photorealistic environment. It is something better suited to VR: smooth, saturated, and stylized like the inside of a psychedelic comic book, with planet-to-planet transitions delivered through a portal sequence that replaces loading screens entirely. The soundtrack, rooted in French Touch house music, stays in your head long after the headset comes off, and the Raindance Immersive Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in Audio is not a surprise once you have actually played a session. There are genuine friction points to acknowledge. Loading pauses between short wave stages break the rhythm in a way that feels at odds with the game's kinetic energy, and early runs before the control system clicks can feel more frustrating than empowering. The story, involving the Architects of Entropy reshaping living planets into cold geometry, is more mood-setting backdrop than engaging narrative, and players expecting deep lore will find it thin. Some reported play-space calibration quirks that can shift the game environment off-center, which is worth knowing before you start rearranging furniture. For a debut title from a small studio, though, Star Shaman carries real craft in its priorities. The movement design had input from a lead choreographer with Just Dance experience, and that lineage shows in how satisfying the physical spell-switching loop becomes once you stop fighting it. It is aimed squarely at VR players who want short, energetic sessions of 10 to 20 minutes, prefer challenge and replay over a single long campaign, and care about a coherent audiovisual atmosphere. If you own a PC VR headset and have been sleeping on this one since 2020, the post-launch updates have made a good first game even more forgiving to pick up.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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