MARVEL Cosmic Invasion Review

Tribute Games has proved their beat ’em up chops with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge.

Evoking years’ worth of Turtles content from cartoons, comics, and games, Shredder’s Revenge was a near pitch-perfect beat ’em up. Tribute Games has a knack for crafting games that feel, well, like tributes to a classic style. It makes sense considering the team worked on the seminal Scott Pilgirm vs. The World: The Game and even a TMNT game.

The Marvel universe is a well that simply refuses to run dry. An argument can certainly be made for oversaturation in terms of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its constant flood of content. But that doesn’t mean that players who enjoy the content shouldn’t welcome games that explore these long-running characters. After all, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy was one of my favorite games in recent memory. Even with the films still ongoing, Eidos Montreal told a different kind of story for these beloved characters and made an incredible game. Insomniac has done the same with Spider-Man and are poised to do the same with Wolverine.

But if there’s one genre that Marvel content can benefit from, it’s a beat ’em up. This expansive universe of comics has been bursting at the seams with heroes for decades. What easier way to incorporate them than in a 2D beat ’em up where players can team up with others and pummel a rogue’s gallery of foes, planet-crushing villains, and goofy bizarro monsters?

MARVEL Cosmic Invasion gives players the chance to square off against bug baddie Annihilus and his plan for cosmic domination. He’s doing so by infecting prime real estate like New York City, Asgard, the Negative Zone, Wakanda, and a S.H.I.E.L.D. craft. The narrative in Cosmic Invasion is loose enough to make a great excuse for dozens of Marvel references to blot to screen at a time and account for the constant jumping back and forth of locations. Despite playing each level multiple times, I can’t really recall the thread tying them all together. And honestly, when I look back on the entirety of the MCU I can probably only recall the broad strokes as well.

Marvel is a property that lives and breathes on the strengths of its characters and Tribute Games recognizes the assignment. Players can control the following characters (with a few unlocked over the course of the campaign):

• Beta Ray Bill
• Black Panther
• Captain America
• Cosmic Ghost Rider
• Iron Man
• Nova
• Phoenix
• Phyla-Vell
• Rocket Raccoon
• She-Hulk
• Silver Surfer
• Spider-Man
• Storm
• Venom
• Wolverine

You may notice a few oddballs in there–I personally had never heard of Beta Ray Bill, a dinosaur-looking Thor-like guy–but that’s part of the charm and appeal of Cosmic Invasion. Cheers should go out to Tribute Games for incorporating a handful of big names in the roster but also its inclusion of X-Men and some lesser-appreciated heroes from Marvel’s long history.

That same logic extends to the levels, characters, and bosses encountered throughout the 16 stages of Cosmic Invasion‘s campaign.

First and foremost this is a Marvel game designed for fans who want a fun excuse to bash around hundreds of foes by themselves or cooperatively with up to four total players. On the whole, Cosmic Invasion is an extremely solid beat ’em up because it focuses on visual variety and ease of use. Each of these 15 characters acts relatively similar but has enough individual quirks to make them feel unique to play as.

Characters like Beta Ray Bill, She-Hulk, and Venom are heavy-hitting brawlers that focus less on speed and more on raw power. Black Panther, Wolverine, and Spider-Man strike fast. There is a character type for everyone, mixing in range, speed, and strength. But there are small differences in each character’s move list to give players a shot at creating preferences.

Each character has a charge attack but some of them function differently. Where many simply hit harder with a charge, someone like Black panther can actually parry with his charge attack, building up kinetic energy and then releasing it if hit by an attack or projectile. Characters can defend or dodge with the press of a button, often negating damage or striking back if timed with receiving a blow. Others like Storm, Iron Man, Nova, and Phoneix can hover off the floor providing a line of attack for flying units. And each character has their own special attack and super ability, often dictated by charges or a special meter cooldown.

Yet the biggest draw of Cosmic Invasion is in the team mechanic. When diving into a stage, players select two heroes as a team. While any combination is possible, the story usually has two specific heroes voicing lines in a level. Secondly, each level has two hero-specific challenges to complete. Similar to a fighting game, Cosmic Invasion allows players to tag-in a hero in multiple ways. With the touch of a shoulder button, Venom can tag in Spider-Man or Wolverine can sub in for the Silver Surfer.

At the most basic, the heroes will just swap places by phasing in. However, the same meter that dictates a hero’s ultimate attack is also used for team-up attacks. By holding a shoulder button and pressing one of the face buttons, both members of the team will attack at the same time, using up a bit of super charge at the same time. These flashy effects are not just get-out-of-jail moves, they can do sweeping damage, or even parry attacks and deal substantial damage.

Complimenting the fast and fluid movement of Cosmic Invasion‘s blitz of attacks and flashy characters is the fantastic pixel art that Tribute Games has become known for. The rendering of all these characters is steeped in the school of 1990s Saturday morning cartoons, as are the numerous voices trying to evoke that same era. This is an exceptionally beautiful game with memorable music, not surprising from the team that did Shredder’s Revenge.

However, Cosmic Invasion does suffer from a lack of variety and content. Once the campaign is mopped up, players have a few options open to them. Over the course of the campaign, each hero can be leveled up to grant them a passive skill, or increase things like HP and their focus meter. Maxing out a character can take several full runs of a stage and doesn’t necessarily come by naturally–likely incentivizing hopping online and tackling things cooperatively. An Arcade Mode is also available that plays like a traditional cabinet, stripping the story and using lives. As players go through the content they can unlock palette swaps for heroes, codex entries, music, and modifiers for Arcade Mode that make it harder or a bit sillier. It’s nothing special but does slightly extend the playtime.

But in terms of the genre, I think Cosmic Invasion could have been a lot stronger. It hinges a lot on the Marvel property and merely being a fan of smashing buttons and fighting off against a bunch of bosses. Don’t get me wrong, there are some fun bosses here that have at least one mechanic to make them interesting. But a limited pool of enemies that are mostly bugs, robots, and humanoids does get a bit bland. And levels aren’t that dynamic or exciting. I wanted my “Welcome to Die!” moment, my crazy level explosions that blind the screen in a flash, my weird chase scenes in space or along the skies of New York City. With such a deep pool of history to pull from, Cosmic Invasion primarily asks players to move from one side of the screen to another, punching and kicking their way through enemies.

Because of that, Cosmic Invasion doesn’t feel as special as other games in the genre, especially ones done by Tribute. I understand that a beat ’em up has its limitations but with Marvel, it doesn’t really feel like there should be any restrictions on what a developer can do. These alien worlds shouldn’t be so static. And sometimes they felt a little tight in terms of real estate, especially when other players enter the fray. Even if new characters are added over time, that won’t necessarily extend the appeal or length of the game outside of one or two new plays. Whereas something like Scott Pilgrim always had me coming back with its variety of moves and Shredder’s Revenge had the bombastic nostalgia of playing at an arcade.

MARVEL Cosmic Invasion is an excellent excuse to play a satisfying beat ’em up with friends. It covers a wide variety of content and characters spanning the decades of comics and other media. By pulling well-known heroes and a few oddballs, Tribute Games offers a unique feel for each member of the roster. While the levels and bosses offer Easter Eggs for everyone, it doesn’t make up for combat that may eventually grow a bit stale for players who don’t find thrills in dropping into matches from time to time.