Once considered to be a thing of the past, arcades are slowly making a comeback as gamers pine for the days when quarters lined the dash of game cabinets and the neon glow of the screens were the only lights illuminating the dark rooms. Classics like Galaga, Mortal Kombat 2, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles In Time, and X-Men are all there, but new games have come onto the scene as well.

One such title is Killer Queen Black from Liquid Bit and BumbleBear Games. The 10-player arcade strategy game is almost always guaranteed to have a line of gamers waiting to play. But if you’re not able to make your way to the arcade, you can at least now pick up the home version of the game for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC. We tried out the Switch version of Killer Queen Black, and while it won’t necessarily replace other go-to party games like Mario Party or Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it at least deserves to be considered along with those titles when trying to decide what you and your friends should play on a Friday night.

Choose Your Victory

The premise of the game is fairly simple, but can definitely be overwhelming at first. Thankfully, the tutorial does an admirable job of teaching new players the ins-and-outs of the game and its strategies.

Matches consist of teams of four. One player takes on the role of the Queen who is very much an offensive character, using quick jabs and dives with her sword to take out the enemy team. Everyone else is a Worker, tasked with either collecting berries, riding a Snail, or morphing into soldiers that wield guns, swords, maces, or shields.

There are three ways to win:

  • Economic victory: Workers need to collect berries and deposit them back at their base Military victory: Slay the opposing team’s Queen three times, either with your own Queen or a Worker soldier Snail victory: Each level has a rideable Snail that players can take back to their base to secure a win

Levels are made up of walls and platforms that players have to navigate to collect berries, obtain powerups, or move about in hopes of destroying each other. Queens and soldiers can fly, while Workers can only jump and throw the berries that they collect. Each match generally takes between 30 seconds to 2 minutes, which allows Killer Queen Black’s Quick Play mode to be a great option for when you have just a few minutes to kill.

Controlled Chaos

Porting the controls from the arcade version to the Nintendo Switch was done perfectly. Controls are simple and feel great whether you’re playing in handheld mode or if you’re playing while docked, using a single Joy-Con controller.

Game modes consist of Quick Play, Ranked, Custom, and Local Wireless. There’s even an option to spectate other players. Quick Play seems to be the most popular mode right now, which is no doubt due to the fact that bots are added to the fray when there are not enough players to fill out both teams. Wait times vary, but never extended beyond a minute for me. The same could not be said for Ranked, however, as I waited more than five minutes to be placed in a few different game.

On that note, loading times for the game are surprisingly long. This isn’t necessarily a huge deal though, especially considering how flawless the actual gameplay is.

The pixelated art style coupled with what can be described as intense thrash metal synthcore music works perfectly together. The simple design is a perfect complement to the fast and chaotic nature of the game.

Deserving Of All The Buzz

I’d love to try out a Switch-compatible arcade stick to truly bring home the arcade experience, but the game already does a phenomenal job of doing that on its own. As great as Killer Queen Black’s online modes are, the game is best experienced on your nearest couch with your closest friends. Local Wireless makes it easy to join up in local play, with the overall addicting nature of the game making it easy to keep playing for hours on end. You won’t regret picking up Killer Queen Black. Come see what all the buzz is about.

A Switch copy of Killer Queen Black was purchased by TheGamer for this review. Killer Queen Black is available now for the Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC.