Marvel Cosmic Invasion Review

AVENGERS! ASSEMBLE!

This is how I’d like to start this review for Marvel Cosmic Invasion. But this isn’t an Avengers game, even if its roster is comprised of superheroes who’ve served on that illustrious team at one time or another. Instead, it’s a spiritual successor to the Marvel arcade side-scrolling beat ‘em ups of yesteryear that we all loved.

The side-scrolling beat ‘em up revival has brought us some fantastic new additions to the genre in recent years. From the deliciously gorgeous Streets of Rage 4 to the shell-shockingly good Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, beat ‘em up fans have been gorging well. Developer and publisher DOTEMU, along with the developers they’ve worked with, has been an instrumental force in reviving this genre, bringing back that nostalgic gaming addiction from the arcades that categorised the young lives of so many. And they’ve been doing it with style and class.

Now, in conjunction with developers Tribute Games, they’ve given us a reason to go kicking around in the Marvel Universe again.

Story & Setting

Universe has been the keyword here, as Marvel Cosmic Invasion will throw you into various locations across the Marvel Universe. From the swinging streets of New York to the Halls of Asgard and beyond, our superpowered heroes need to stop a universe-wide invasion by Annihilus. And the only way to do that is to beat the ever-loving hell out of everything in their path.

Heroes & Abilities

To do this, you’ve got fifteen heroes at your disposal. The game’s roster is composed of some fan favourites, like Spider-Man and Wolverine, but the developers have opted to bring in other, less-used or famous heroes to round out the ranks. You’re looking at the likes of Cosmic Ghost Rider, She-Hulk, Beta Ray Bill and Rocket Raccoon, just to name a few. Not all of the heroes are available from the get-go, with a handful that you need to unlock through gameplay to use.

Each hero plays differently enough to make it worth your while to try out all of them, though I’d imagine most of us would end up with favourites soon enough. Spider-Man is quick and agile and can dodge beautifully, while his webs can immobilise enemies for short periods. Iron Man pulls out the big guns for his super, which is a nice throwback to his super attack in the Marvel Vs. Capcom series and Cosmic Ghost Rider can set enemies ablaze with his chain attacks.

Some can fly, some can dodge, and some can block and parry. And they all have a super move meter which builds up as you fight, for those screen-clearing moments when you’re overwhelmed. A lot of thought has gone into the character abilities, and a lot of thought will go into who you’d like to pick for your team.

Team Mechanics

That’s right: you’re team. You can pick two heroes to use in the game’s levels that you can swap between at the press of a button. Even better, you can use them for support attacks and, if they’re meters are full at the same time, double-team everything with a dual super attack that’s guaranteed to leave everything but the toughest enemy on the floor. Levels come with challenges as well, such as hitting ten enemies with Nova’s special or beating a specific boss with a specific character.

For the first level run, there’s a team you should ideally pick to clear those challenges, but after that, you can replay them with any other character.

Progression & Difficulty

For the game’s campaign mode, heroes can be levelled up through use, unlocking more health and passive abilities for each level gained. And you’re going to want to level them up as the campaign slowly increases in difficulty the further in you get. There’s no difficulty selection here, just an increase in the ass-whupping you can get. This, though, is one area where I felt that the difficulty for later bosses fell on the cheap side, as many of them tended to deal in knock-back AOE’s and ranged attacks that made it both hard to get in close and do enough damage before either of those continuous attacks sucked your health away.

Co-Op & Game Modes

Marvel Cosmic Invasion does support four-player online co-op, so if you’re having trouble, you can team up with other players to get through the campaign. And as with most beat-em ups, this makes the game even better if you’re playing with friends.

Outside of the Campaign, there’s also an Arcade Mode, which is a more traditional beat-em up mode. There’s no levelling up here, limited lives and continues and no save progression. So no pressure then. On the plus side, you can also play this mode in co-op.

Rounding out the game modes is a vault where you can check out and reset the progress of your characters, their character profiles, your Achievement progress and the Cosmic Matrix. This is where those Challenges come into play as you’re rewarded with Cosmic Cubes to pop into the Cosmic Matrix to unlock new music, character colour palettes, character profiles and game modifiers. That’s right, a game that goes all the way back to the good old days of letting you unlock things through just playing the game rather than through insufferable micro-transactions! More of this everywhere, please!

Visuals & Audio

Finally, we come to the game’s visuals, which are, simply put, stunning. There’s some fantastic spritework – or pixel art if that’s the term you prefer – and animation on display here. From the backgrounds to all of the characters, heroes and antagonists, it’s just good old-fashioned 2D awesomeness. Every character’s personality comes through in gorgeous fashion through their animation sets. From Spider-Man’s superb dodges and slides, to Venom’s tentacle attacks, to Wolverine’s aggressive stance. It’s stunning stuff. And it runs like a dream as well.

The sound side is not to be dismissed either. There’s a good soundtrack and some really fantastic sound effects that add a whole lot of punch to the shenanigans on screen.

Conclusion

With levels that run on at just the right length and some really fantastic and fun fighting gameplay, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a fantastic slice of retro gaming that captures the spirit and the magic of the arcade games it’s inspired by.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion Video Review

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The product was provided to us for the express purpose of reviewing.

The review was written by me and edited by my partner.