Queeny Army

Queeny Army is set in the war-torn city of San Romero, and tells the story of a group of young women who have escaped an adoption house. After escaping, the group goes on a revenge rampage against the corrupt enforcers who murdered their classmates and school director. Playing as one of the twelve escapees, all of whom trained under the armed forces’ former commander and each have their own quirks and abilities, you’re tasked with overthrowing the syndicate leader who seized control of the government.

I was hoping Queeny Army would be a fun retro run and gun adventure. But sloppy design and amateurish storytelling kept it from being anything other than mediocre. What’s painfully ironic is a lot of problems could have potentially been solved if this retro game had some form of in-game instruction booklet to explain things. Without that, though, it’s just a game that I can’t recommend, even for the low price point.

At the end of the day, Queeny Army is a decent retro style shooter held back by a few design choices. The game is still a decent value at just $4.99 on the Switch, and if you can overlook some of the frustrating design choices here, there is some fun to be had. Each of the ladies having their own story adds quite a bit of replay value, so if this is your type of game, there is plenty of bang for your buck here. I just feel like the frustration level outweighs the fun for me, but to each their own. I’m sure some of you out there will quite enjoy this.

Queeny Army presents a stiff challenge. It’s perhaps not quite as brutally hard as the developers tried to position it as on its original PC release, but it does provide an authentically challenging retro-style experience that nicely captures the feel of NES games in particular. It has an endearingly sort of “home-grown” feel to it thanks to a few rough edges on the character art in particular, but this just helps to distinguish it from big-budget titles and make it clear that this very much was one man’s passion project.

As a huge classic arcade run and gun shooter fan, having grown up on the likes of Contra, Rush'n Attack, and more, a quick look at Queeny Army caught my eye...