Review- Marvel Cosmic Invasion

In the early ’90s, Marvel mania was alive and well throughout arcades. Whether a cabinet was made by Sega, Konami, or Capcom, you could practically throw an arcade token and have a high chance of hitting a Marvel beat-em-up. Though the synthesis of Spider-Man, The Avengers, X-Men, and The Punisher with the belt-scrolling genre was short-lived, it made a generational impact. When beloved arcade games are recalled in conversation, Konami’s 6 player X-Men cabinet in particular is often brought up in the same conversation as such heavy-hitters as Pac-Man and Daytona USA. 

Over 30 years later and long after the beat-em-up craze gave way to the Marvel fighting game boom of the mid-’90s, the legendary comic book company is back with a brand-new sprite-based 2D brawler. Marvel Cosmic Invasion hits with a POW! word bubble right to the nostalgia and is even able to combine in some aspects of the aforementioned Marvel fighting games in the process. The result is a reverent kneel to Marvel’s prestigious arcade history and a beat-em-up worthy of the brand’s heroic stature. 

Marvel Cosmic Invasion allows you and up to three of your friends either locally or online to bring the fight across space and time using two of 15 total playable Marvel heroes. Yes, you read that right — you choose two heroes to bring into battle and can swap between them at any time. The colorful menus and presentation will look familiar to anyone who played 2022’s TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge as Cosmic Invasion was developed by Tribute Games. It’s with this knowledge that publisher Dotemu adds another notch to their beat-em-up belt for this year following the stellar medieval rogue-brawler Absolum. 

 

 

The plot in Cosmic Invasion follows a multi-dimensional battle against Annihilus, a villain who is almost as difficult to fight against as it is to spell his name correctly. Using the power of the Cosmic Control Rod,  Annihilus wants to live forever reigning as the ruler of the Negative Zone with the aim of conquering the universe and has taken hold of various Marvel heroes to gain even more power. He also commands an army of insects, so prepare to squash many, many bugs this go-around. The roughly five hour Campaign features an impressive spread of locales, from New York City and Asgard to Wakanda and the Savage Land. There’s even a Watcher Citadel level that takes place on the moon with low gravity. The levels are always full of fun details and cameos despite their short run-time. 

This game’s claim to fame will undoubtedly be its tag-team mechanic, a feature I’ve not really seen in a beat-em-up before. By selecting two heroes from a diverse roster of everyone from Silver Surfer to Cosmic Ghost Rider and of course Cap, Spidey and Iron Man, you can swap between the two characters you’ve chosen at any time. There is no cool-down or limitation. This makes for absolutely insane combo setups, especially when you realize you can also tag-in when in midair. You have one of three options at all times: Press ZL to tag-in and swap characters, hold ZL plus a direction and either light or heavy attack for an assist or press ZL and special to tag-in the second character with their special attack. And these are just the basics. You can really rack up seemingly constant juggles using this system and though there aren’t special synergy moves unfortunately, there is strategy in which characters you choose. I often went for a character that could hover such as Phyla-Vell or Phoenix combined with a fast ground character like Wolverine or Black Panther. The hovering character made taking down airborne wasps easily accomplished while the fast ground-based character set up combos and wall bounces the midair character could extend. This system is incredibly fun and no two characters are exactly alike. It’s worth noting that blocking, parrying and grabbing are not universal across characters. Only some characters get one of these luxuries each. 

 

 

I only have one gripe with the character roster, at least in Campaign Mode: Not all of their abilities are available from the first level. In fact, no character will have achieved all of their passive perks, HP buffs moves or costumes until pretty much the end of the story. What complicates this further is that the Campaign incentivizes using different characters for each mission in order to get specific dialogue. While this is a great idea in concept, in theory it means that if you play as the Campaign intends, you won’t be leveling characters quickly at all. This is clearly meant to extend the game’s legs for completionists but is quite arbitrary in my opinion. Thankfully, the Arcade Mode has every character at their full potential and health from the start. But even it features modifiers for enemies, health and difficulty that are only unlocked by finding hidden colored cubes or completing each stage’s 3 challenges specifically in Campaign Mode. These cubes are used in the The Vault to unlock costumes, lore entries, music tracks, and Arcade Mode modifiers in random order with a system that reminds me a little of The Krypt in Mortal Kombat. Overall, I ended up preferring Arcade Mode with its branching paths, but the ability to save and level up characters in the Campaign Mode sets it apart meaningfully. 

 

 

Marvel Cosmic Invasion absolutely nails its scope and sense of fan service. Fights against well-known big bad’s like Thanos and MODOK are orchestrated just right while other villains appear as gorgeous backdrops and even offer surprise assistance. Some levels feature faux-3D scrolling into the background or have interactive weapons similar to The Punisher arcade game. The enemy variety is better than expected too and I can’t tell you how good it felt to be taking down towering Sentinel sprites again just like in the X-Men arcade game. Another aspect Cosmic Invasion aces is character individuality. Cap can throw his shield and have it bounce off enemies. Beta Ray Bill can throw Stormbringer and have it hang in one spot for any amount of time before recalling it back. Cosmic Ghost Rider can pull in enemies with his chain to start a combo while Phoenix can also pull opponents in from across the entire stage and throw them like ragdolls. She-Hulk can suplex and bounce enemies off walls. Characters like Iron Man, Rocket, and Nova have refillable projectiles with Rocket in particular having a one in four chance of throwing a screen-clearing grenade. Rocket, also possesses insane combo ability thanks to an infinite mid-air stomp attack. What this all tells me is, there will definitely be living room fights over who gets to play as which character. 

Unsurprisingly, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a great fit for the Nintendo Switch. It plays smoothly and fluidly, and if you’re playing the Nintendo Switch 2 version, it features GameShare with either another Switch 2 or Switch. I was not able to test this or the online capabilities out. However, I will note here that I experienced two crashes in the Nintendo Switch version of Cosmic Invasion on the second-last stage, once in Campaign and once in Arcade. No doubt this can be easily patched. The last minor gripe I have has to do with the game’s visibility. When playing with more than one player, Cosmic Invasion gets hard to read but this is something the beat-em-up genre as a whole struggles with. If anything, the chaotic splendor onscreen only made local multiplayer that much more fun. 

 

 

The holiday season always sees the best multiplayer games pulled out to bring families and friends together (or tear them apart). While the usual suspects of Mario Kart’s and Mario Party’s will be reached for this year, I think Marvel Cosmic Invasion with its four-player heroics will be just as popular in many households. For many, a beat-em-up is only as good as its license and this is why Marvel is often seen as synonymous with the genre. Marvel Cosmic Invasion specifically more than succeeds in its role as a fitting successor to Tribute Games’ TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and is Marvel’s most ambitious and exciting beat-em-up to date. 

 

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