Killer Queen Black

I can’t really give it more of a ringing endorsement than saying this: it has the potential to be the definitive online multiplayer experience of 2019, and that’s coming from someone who plays Tetris 99 every single day. If you can get friends together, local or otherwise, you’re guaranteed an awesome time. Dynamite with a laser beam, indeed. My mind’s already blown.

Killer Queen Black is a wonderful adaptation of the modern arcade game. If you're a fan of unique online multiplayer experiences and frantic 2D action, it's a definite must-play game.

Killer Queen Black is a near-perfect collation of individual elements that, when combined, make for an engaging, intense multiplayer experience.

With only a scant amount of truly unique experiences coming to the few reaming arcades in America, it is great that Killer Queen Black exists. This is an experience that you won’t get anywhere else, and it deserves to go beyond its current cult status.

It would be easy to say that you should just wait until later to pick up Killer Queen Black once more content has poured in, but no, you should check it out as soon as you can. The action is still quick and intense while requiring a healthy dose of strategy, it’s visually stunning and it’s another stellar example of “easy to learn, hard to master.” Top it all off with the insane amount of fun that can be had while playing with friends and Killer Queen Black a no-brainer. Much like the NBA Jams and Mortal Kombat IIs of the ’90s, what we have here is an impressive home version of an arcade hit that can easily keep you tied up for a while.

Ultimately, with Killer Queen Black, there are layers of complicated, dragging tutorials, confusing menus, and gameplay generally unfriendly to newcomers. But past that, there is an exciting, unique, and thoughtful title that will have you and your friends frantically testing out all kinds of different roles, plans, and contingencies on the fly.

Killer Queen Black is a surprisingly superb mix of action and strategy in a 2D arena. Levels, game modes and character choices are rather limited after repeated matches, but the action and strategy are enough to keep players invested simply by having a good time. Killer Queen Black is an exceptional choice for gamers that want quick fun in a 2D space.

Killer queen black expands what is good upon the arcade and improves it dramatically. The developers keep working to make sure their clientele will receive the best possible game. For a cheap price you will have great multiplayer fun!

This game is really, really fun. It doesn't have much depth, but every match still manages to be fun and engaging.

Killer Queen Black is a nice and unlikely mix between two gaming worlds. The gameplay owes everything to the early arcade games from the '80s, like the half-forgotten Joust. That intuitive twitch gameplay, however, is adapted to a modern team multiplayer game that's very much e-sports worthy. KQB is very aware of this duality, and it indulges its arcade roots even as it provides modern quality-of-life features such as a spectator system. All in all, I'd rate Killer Queen Black a couple of points higher than a 6… except that the game is currently barely playable from where I live. Ranked matches barely seem to exist in Europe, and even quick matches usually involve a minute or two of wait, just to be packed in a match with two or three human players and bunch of bots. I'm sure that this game would play great with two well-coordinated teams of human players that know how to use voice chat. With the current shortage of players in my corner of the world, however, I spent way too much time waiting for matches that were disappointingly devoid of humans.

Interesting concept, but since devs didn't have enough forethought to allow anyone to host servers. Game is dead forever.

It feels like this game really came and went. It's essentially just a multiplayer-only game, it has bots that you can play with but I found the bot play to be boring and mediocre. You can tell how local multiplayer is essentially what would make this game fun, the online capability is there but it's got such a small community that unless you are really invested in playing with a group of gamers you will probably just wait around until you are matched with people way out of your league. To top it off the game always has a zoomed out look to it so unless you are playing on a TV it's a bit straining to look at. In the end this game simply feels useless on my Switch Lite and it's community just doesn't seem to be there.