When it comes to indie games on the Switch with a multiplayer focus, and that include an online component, I’ll admit that I tend to be skeptical. While many times the issue is that the availability of other players online for more than a week or two tends to be questionable, more often than not the fundamentals of many of these titles can also be lacking in places. With both of those common issues in mind, it makes BEAST all the more of a pleasant surprise. The blend of an extremely budget-friendly price, very approachable play, and pretty quick and satisfying matches, whether playing online or in the single-player campaign, make it pretty easy to enjoy, at least for a while.

Mixing together elements of role-based team shooters, a simplified dash of Titanfall, and with a third-person perspective, BEAST quickly feels familiar, but absolutely does things its own way. Though it has a number of modes that will change up your objectives, for the most part your core concerns will remain the same. Seek out targets and take out enemies to build up your gauge, hit your enemies with your BEAST mode mech when the opportunity is ripe, and then do your best to maximize your impact and keep yourself and your team alive. Depending on your character’s role, there will be some variation in what your primary concern should be, whether doing damage, providing some support, or healing, but those more come into play when partied with friends or playing online with more organized opponents.

That’s also perhaps one of the limits the game runs into though, and that’s the fact that its arenas are pretty compact, and your teams will only have 3 people, so strategy typically only plays a small role in things. Larger-scale games like Overwatch and others like it, have much larger teams which somewhat naturally force you to have dedicated role-players on each side to keep things in balance. Given the shorter matches, smaller arenas, and more limited teams in BEAST, the opportunities to make the most of supporting role-players is more minimal, making their utility more of a fair question if your opponents are loaded for bear with offensive might and some smarts. Still, given the budget price and the ease of getting in a few quick matches, whether in the game’s pretty long campaign, against bots, or online, BEAST is more fun than you’d think it would be.