Note. This game's online multiplayer component closed down in 2022 and is therefore no longer accessible. Local multiplayer support is unaffected and still functions as designed.
Finding the right balance for a multiplayer experience is always a challenge for developers. How much emphasis do you place on teamwork? Should you give players the space to operate independently of one another? Teamwork and ‘free-for-all’ methodologies don’t often mix well, but for the studio behind Killer Queen Black, the challenge was finding a formula that brought play styles together without one alienating the other. The solution? Offer more than one way to win…
First launched as an arcade-focused cabinet experience way back in 2013, the original Killer Queen removed the restriction of a single end goal, instead opting for three distinct ways to claim victory. You can go down the Military route (kill the enemy Queen three times), employ an Economic tactic (collect berries and fill all the holes in your own hive) or place your future in the hands of a Snail (yes, a snail, and you’ll need to ride it through your own gate to win). All three of these victory types can end a round, and the first team to three wins is declared the victor.
When a match begins, one player is randomly assigned the role of Queen, while the rest are spawned as Drones. Queens are faster than any other type, and can strike at lightning speed. But those strikes make them unyielding, and it’s all too easy to be caught off guard and killed with a single hit. However, Drones have the power to transform into various forms of Warrior – which possess the ability to fly and wield both ranged and melee weapons depending on their type – but only if a Queen flies past a gate, automatically changing it to your team’s colour. And while a Drone is defenceless, it’s the only class that can collect berries for a slow Economic victory or ride the Snail to an even slower one.
Killer Queen Black reduces the number of players from five per team (as seen in the arcade version) to four, but that slightly adjusted headcount doesn’t make each round any less chaotic; it simply makes this over-the-top multiplayer offering fit the even controller numbers of Nintendo Switch perfectly. Each round has an almost Quidditch-style feel about it, with the threat of a match’s end continually looming from multiple sources. What’s brilliant about Killer Queen Black is just how important it is to balance the desire to be a lone wolf or a team player. You can get preoccupied killing Drones as a Warrior, only to completely forget the enemy team has almost crossed the finish line with the Snail.
It shows how well all three roles play into one another, and how quickly control of a map can shift back and forth, as well as how tactical a match can be. You can’t knock a Drone from the Snail if you’re playing as another Drone, but you can use it as a sacrificial lamb, which forces the mollusc to slow down as you consumes you. Those precious few seconds can be all that’s needed to give your teammates time to swoop over and smash the enemy on the Snail. Or perhaps the enemy Queen will momentarily land on some long grass, which automatically slows their movement, enabling a Warrior or Queen that little extra edge to skewer them and bring you one step closer to victory.
There’s just so much going on, and so many ways to approach each round, that Killer Queen Black's own brand of chaotic strategy can be quite intimidating to new players. This is a game that’s perfectly fine for silly, unpractised couch play sessions where everyone is going for kills, but when you start playing with more strategy in mind, the sheer amount of tactics you can employ and the amount of action you need to track on screen means it can become a more frustrating experience. The learning curve is quite steep, but much like similar twitchy battle arena titles (a la Nidhogg 2) there’s a great deal of satisfaction to be had in really learning the ins and outs of a class. Luckily, there’s a great way to learn Killer Queen Black's own brand of warfare built right into the game.
The Spectate mode offers the perfect means to brush up on how other teams operate, especially when it comes to how short matches unfold (where an enemy Queen is killed off in a couple of minutes) and more even encounters (where clever Drones tactically sneak berries into their own hive for a slow yet steady victory). There’s no real single-player content per se, bar a short but helpful tutorial mode, but the game comes complete with some pretty decent AI – so even if you come across a less-populated room, the game will fill in the gaps with computer-controlled allies and opponents.
The transition to Switch has been a relatively smooth one, but we did find playing in handheld mode was more of a challenge as the small pixel art characters can be very hard to make out with so much action unfolding on a small screen. Playing both locally and online was far more enjoyable and easier to track in docked mode, and served as a more enjoyable way to have an eight-player rumble with two Switches and two pairs of split Joy-Cons. The game was built for use on a giant arcade cabinet screen, so Switch’s smaller display was never going to be ideal.
The upgraded art style (which simply makes the pixel art visuals even more detailed and colourful) helps elevate it above the one found in the arcade original, although the lack of diversity in the map designs and a lack of background music during matches does take some of the shine off – especially when the heavy metal flourishes used elsewhere are so damn good. There’s also talk of new maps being introduced post-launch, which should give Killer Queen Black's cross-platform community (with players shared between Switch, Xbox One and PC) a little more arena-based variety.
Conclusion
Killer Queen Black does for Nintendo Switch what TowerFall Ascension did for PS4, offering up a 2D multiplayer extravaganza that’s easy to pick up but devilishly tricky to master. The support for local multiplayer (through split Joy-Cons and/or wireless play) really sells this as a crazy couch play experience, while the inclusion of online play and a Spectate mode gives room for a potentially vibrant competitive scene. The learning curve is steep, and it's chaotic to track when playing on anything other than a massive TV, but with cross-platform support it’s likely to become a cult mainstay for indie multiplayer aficionados.
Comments 44
another review I waited for daaaays!
Being playing it for the past 3 days, and I'm having a blast. Matches are a couple of minutes long so it's great for short bursts, but ultimately I keep playing for hours.
Such a great competitive game, I recommend it to everyone.
Killer Queen! Daisen no Bakudan: Bite za dusto!
Killer Queen already touched the purchase button
Man been really looking forward to it, I better get really good to play online though. All of my friends I could play local with used to play video games with me all the time, but now as adults they rather just loaf around and do nothing. It makes for pretty boring get togethers lol
Really like this game.
No local multiplayer (like Towerfall) = No buy
I've spent at LEAST $20 playing this game at various bars and arcades over the last few years. I'd want to say it would save me money to buy it on the Switch, but it's not like I'm going to turn down a request to help some friends balance out a team.
@mist YES! Also it took the 12 year old that did ALL the art work, only 27 minutes, which to this day still stands as a world record in any video game.
Guaranteed to blow your mind
Aaaa ha I get it
Myself and 4 friends played a lot of this game yesterday--- about 4 hours local Co-op on the couch old school. the game is fun, I do feel the hype is a little high for this game, it's a very entertaining diversion and the unique aspect of having multiple ways to win a match makes it exciting. I do feel like the physics are a little clunky , the Queen herself can be frustrating to move around the map , and although this is an intended feature, i did notice it made me feel a little less interested in the game after a while.
However the biggest flaw with this game is the user interface. Even with four experienced gamers, getting local matches set up with bots and navigating the menus to start a simple match was surprisingly challenging at times. It's not insurmountable, but it felt like the ways of getting a match started could have been streamlined and simplified a great deal. Again, 4 gamers of many years---we're in agreement about this, it wasn't simple ignorance on the part of this user. Also unless we missed something, there is a four player local Co op limit. We were surprised by this, since a match entails 8 players, but it seems as though when playing locally you're limited to 4 humans +4 bots. Not sure if this is the case online—we only played local.
This was a bit disappointing since we had five players, and naturally assumed we'd all be able to play. However the user interface actually refuses to let you start a new game if you have 5 controllers synced to the switch. We actually had 2 close the game refresh all controllers , and eliminate one controller from sync before the game would even allow us to start a match. Seems strange.
Overall, it is a fun couch Co-op experience. But I admit that I thought the hype was a little bigger than the actual experience. Recommended, with expectations in check.
@gurtifus Not sure why you think this has no local multiplayer. It's mentioned in the review, the conclusion and also the Joys.
'Support for eight-player local & online matches'
Towerfall also has local multiplayer by the way.
I'm worried that this game will have no online community due to poor sales (even with cross play). The game has really struggled on the eShop, only just barely making the top 30 best sellers yesterday (in 30th place). The message board on GameFAQs is also a complete ghost town, which is never a good sign for online focused games like this.
@unoclay
I’m glad you also noticed the UI issues. Adding bots/players and switching teams is cumbersome for such a simple setup, and it boggles the mind why eight players can’t join up on a single console for local play. Although the load times aren’t ridiculous, they’re just long enough that it felt like the game had frozen.
The gameplay, in general, is great, but I’m disappointed with the overall lack of features. There is no way to change bot difficulty; you can’t fiddle with the rules or win conditions (I.e. increase the number of the queen’s lives); and there are no other modes. I can understand the developer wanting to deliver an awesome core experience, but KQB seems to lack what most arcade/local multiplayer games offer on the Switch.
@MARl0 Right now it's 182nd in Europe.
@Solomon_Rambling Yes. The bot difficulty---its either too hard, or too easy. You cant adjust it from what I could see. An obvious oversight, IMHO.
Originally stumbled across this game by accident at a bar in Chicago. People were lined up to play on both sides of the cabinet, and I had no clue what all the cheering and hype was about. Then I played it... and man, if you have enough players it really is some of the best multiplayer I’ve ever sampled.
@Xaessya YOU FOOL, YOU FELL FOR IT! THUNDER CROSS SPLIT ATTACK!!
My name is Yoshikage Kira...
I do wish the game allowed for more players local. I believe they originally planned to do this but didn't want to take away from what makes the arcade game special (or so I heard — haven't looked it up to verify), which in my opinion is not a great reason considering how small the potential audience is there — I've played it on vacation, but there isn't a single KQ machine in my state. Plus, the arcade has the advantages of being at a social location where you can meet new people to play with, playing up to 10 instead of 8, and only setting the players back a few quarters.
That said, I'll take what I can get because the game is brilliant. I remain hopeful I can convince someone else locally to get a copy so we can play 8P "local" online.
The physical version comes out this week, hopefully that will increase the number of people playing.
@unoclay I still haven't figure out how to set up a match with 4 local humans and 4 bots.
I see people have already picked up on the tagline's Queen reference in addition to making some references to another Killer Queen.
@Adam - "I do wish the game allowed for more players local."
YES!
This game is magical in the arcade w/10 people. You NEED all the talking and banter and craziness to make it awesome!
4 people is meh.
I understand you can play two machines if you happen to have 2 TVs sitting next to each other and get 4 on 4.
...but that is stupid.
The screen is the exact same for both teams, there are 8 controllers already on my Switch, there is no reason to need the second system and the highly terrible local connection (we've done this so many times with Mario Kart - it always drops...unless you have no interference from anything it'll drop - oh for the days of the DS when we could get stable connections, 3DS & Switch are both terrible at it).
8 Player LOCAL SAME MACHINE is the sweet spot - this game missed it = this game missed.
It's 4-player SAME MACHINE - and you can play against bots, or online, or try against another nearby Switch.
...which is too bad.
It went from insta-buy to insta-bust.
Back to Runbow, Party Golf, Bomberman and what was that other crazy good 8-player game that managed to play 8-player on a single machine despite it having eSport levels of complexity? Oh Yeah - Smash.
Towerfall's 6-player mode gets an honorable mention here too.
I see what you did with the subtitle there
'Guaranteed to blow your mind' Nice.
@gurtifus it has local multiplayer.
@Adam If you know someone else locally with a Switch, they don't need to buy the game. You can just log your account into their system and play your game on their system and then run the game on any other account from your own system.
@cyrus_zuo I've played the game locally and online and it runs flawlessly. If you have any friends who want to play, it's still not hard to get it going and it's amazing. I wouldn't deny yourself just because a lack of 8 people on one system.
FYI, the head of LiquidBit said this on Steam two days ago on the Killer Queen Black forum regarding 8 player local play:
"When we started making this game, we specifically decided that we don't want to compete with Killer Queen. It was a deliberate decision to make a new game that didn't risk destroying the amazing arcade culture that Killer Queen has helped build, and didn't negatively impact the business of our arcade customers. The health of the arcade community is important to the growth of both games. We also knew that the original design of the Killer Queen arcade game wouldn't translate well to a home environment, so we decided to design gameplay better suited to that environment.
That being said, we understand that this is the highest priority for our players, and are discussing this option internally."
They also said on their own site that it wasn't a matter of wanting to or being capable of doing it, but that it was a difficult "legal issue" for them. What some people don't realize is they didn't invent Killer Queen. They borrowed the license from Bumblebear, the two guys who made the arcade game. It seems highly likely it's in their contract that they're not allowed to have 8 players locally. The recent comments on the forum sound like they're trying to get around that if possible, though. I imagine if they can convince Bumblebear that it's hurting sales, maybe they'll change their minds.
Realistically, most of the people playing Killer Queen Black aren't looking for an alternative to Killer Queen. It's for all the people who can't play Killer Queen in the first place so.. I don't think it's going to destroy the arcade scene like they're afraid of.
The game is really fun. Unfortunately when it's my turn to be Queen, I'm more of a Killed Queen. I'm better at riding snails and throwing berries.
Game is a heck of a good time. I grabbed it on Steam but also have the physical Switch version en route. Maybe my fave game of the year so far. It just oozes good design.
This is fascinating, but like most team games I'm afraid I don't have the time to get gud to the point where I won't be a detriment to the team. Reluctantly passing.
I just want to live a quiet life...
@cyrus_zuo
You need a second system to play 8 player local for this game?
@DeltaPeng yeah, each system only plays 4-people.
Since they do let you play 8 player local between two systems it is silly they don't do it on one.
@cyrus_zuo Thanks for the info, that's a bummer, if I bought it it'd be for the potential of playing 8 players locally (on one system)
@OorWullie I mean there's no same-screen local multiplayer !
@Deltath but no same-screen local multiplayer ! You need 2 switchs !
@gurtifus There is same screen local multiplayer. You can play with 4 people locally, same screen on one Switch. You can play four people on one team cooperatively online or any player split against bots locally. I just played myself (and three bots) vs three friends and a bot locally earlier.
@sonicnewboy Actually, 8 player Smash is a show and has never been fun for most people. Though that's not me saying 8 player Killer Queen Black locally would be bad. Obviously it's a different game and it's always an 8 player so it's not made worse by the extra players like Smash is.
@gurtifus there is local multiplayer. I own it and we've done up to 7 players on 1 Switch
@holygeez03 I haven't figure it out either, but my son can do it so I'm good
@cyrus_zuo @Deltath @gurtifus @sonicnewboy you can play more than 4 players on 1 Switch... I've done it. We had 3 gatherings for 2 of them we had 6 players and 1 of them we had 7 players ALL ON 1 SWITCH
That came in a patch after we wrote
I bought it and it's ok.
The queen attacking sideways breaks the balance though. Most every game is now a military victory.
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