Great arcade games usually have a simple premise. Pac-Man literally eats little dots. Donkey Kong asked you to just not get hit with things. Data East’s 1982 game BurgerTime had a simple premise: make a burger, and avoid enemies. Now, some 37 years later, a new BurgerTime game is out for the Nintendo Switch, and its simplicity both adds to its charm as well as limits its enjoyability.

BurgerTime Party! is a game that features the simple mechanics the original utilized to gain a cult following. Your character, originally named Peter Pepper in the 1982 classic, walks on top of burger ingredients to have the toppings drop down to plates. Do this in the right order, and you clear the level and earn points. The only problem is that peppers, pickles, eggs, and other personified food enemies are out to get you. That’s it; that’s literally the game. What follows is a sequence of varying difficulties like any great puzzle game. The single player mode stays fresh well into hours of gameplay, although by the end of the main story, the condensed maps ended up feeling limiting and less fun than I imagined.

What helps keep BurgerTime Party! worth sticking with after you get the basic premise down is the art style and presentation. Very much in the same vein as Cuphead, G-Mode opted for a retro art style this time around. It works well, especially considering the historical pop culture influence of burger joints in the 1940s and 1950s. It’s just enough to get you to want to try the other game modes, including multiplayer modes where you battle one another or work together. Each map has the ability to earn 1-3 stars upon completion, giving you plenty of reasons to return and take on levels you could have done better. The issues tied to the game, however, do make it tough to feel the need to push for 100% completion.

It’s not an insult to call G-Mode a mobile game developer; it’s literally what they do. For that reason, the gameplay in BurgerTime Party! feels a lot like a mobile game. That’s not a bad thing, but at $30, I’d argue anyone other than major BurgerTime fans should wait for a discount. On that note, once you play the game for a few hours, the single player experience gets a bit repetitive. Any arcade game follows a formula with tiny deviations from level to level. I just didn’t find the experience of BurgerTime Party! worth exploring these tiny variations further. I didn’t feel any sort of pull to go into the game and 3-star everything. Yet, I didn’t find myself disappointed in the game.

What we have with BurgerTime Party! is a well designed and artistically presented arcade game. At $30, I’d put the sweet spot for this one at closer to $10. Even long time BurgerTime fans who don’t have friends readily available to dive into multiplayer modes might find the game a bit lacking. What it sets out to do, it does well, but let’s be clear: BurgerTime Party! is still true to its arcade roots, eliminating any real chance at it becoming anything other than occasional time killer.

A Nintendo Switch review code for BurgerTime Party! was provided by XSEED Games for this review.

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BurgerTime Party!

$29.99

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Great art style and visuals
• True to the arcade classic

Cons

• No real draw to keep playing after a few hours
• Feels like a spruced up mobile game
• Price tag too steep for the experience