Growing up as a gamer in the 80s and 90s, I was no stranger to beat’em up titles that brought Marvel characters to the gaming spotlight: to this day, I still have Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and The Uncanny X-Men on an emulator, so when Marvel Cosmic Invasion was originally announced, I couldn’t help but feeling nostalgic.
The first chance I had to demo the game was during the Brasil Game Show event, in October. At the time, the demo was short and sweet, and despite liking it, I couldn’t hang around for long since we were in an open booth, and other people were waiting in line to play it.
Well, now I have the game, as Dotemu was kind enough to provide PRG with a Steam copy and…well, the game’s even sweeter, but the “short” part does take away from what is an otherwise amazing experience.
A roster of cosmic proportions
Published by Tribute Games (the same team behind Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge), Marvel Cosmic Invasion has the eponymous Disney IP as its major draw, but unlike other games, this title chose to be a little daring — among the most well-known heroes, its roster also brings some lesser-known-but-equally-awesome names.
The obvious choices are there — those being Black Panther, Captain America, Iron Man, Phoenix, Rocket Raccoon, She-Hulk, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Storm, Venom and Wolverine.
However, Beta Ray Bill, Cosmic Ghost Rider, Nova and Phyla-Vell are also part of a roster chosen to repel a bug army invasion led by Annihilus, another lesser-known name within the Marvel universe (but a villain with some excellent stories himself).
Now, one thing that I feared before firing up the game for the first time was the possibility of classic beat-em-up elements not aging well: despite the modern trend of retro gaming influencing contemporary titles, such projects do require a bit of balancing as to cater to all audiences.
Well, Marvel Cosmic Invasion does just that. There’s not a single aspect in the game that feels out of place or shoehorned into a situation that would never make sense in any capacity. Down to each levels visual scenery and characters movesets, everything in this game just…fits.
Speaking of which, each character obviously has its own moveset, everything in sync with the overall knowledge and powers of each: Wolverine is evidently the more “in your face” physical confrontist (props to Dotemu for going with the classic brown & orange uniform: that was a nice touch), while Spider-Man is more of a guerrilla, hit-run-hit-again fast fighter. And level design caters to these abilities, despite some hit-and-miss situations here and there: Genosha has too many flying enemies for Wolverine to properly set up combos, for instance.
Not that it takes too much away from the overall experience, mind you: granted, while the game does recommend which characters to choose for which levels, that’s only for story purposes, and you’re free to choose a different option should you feel like it. And there’s a certain mechanic that balances that out (read on to find out).
One thing that does feel weird and you can’t escape is the villain himself: despite not being an exclusive part of his canon, Annihilus is more related to the Fantastic Four, which are not in the game. Again, there’s nothing in Marvel lore that says this villain can’t fight that other hero, but do consider: if Magneto was an antagonist in this game, you’d half-expect the X-Men to be more on the spotlight than others, so why not bring in at least the Thing or Human Torch (the latter, in fact, has one of the most amazing storylines against Annihilus, so it would behoove to have him in).
Modern mechanics with a retro feel
Gameplay-wise, each level sees you choosing two heroes to tag-team throughout the plot, in classic, side-scrolling fashion: you progress through sections where you beat the brakes off from your enemies (AIM soldiers, Annihilus humanoid bugs, Sentinels and so on) and fight a major boss at the end — those include Taskmaster, Master Mold, Sauron and many others.
Now, the tag-team part is a nice touch: in Marvel Cosmic Invasion, it’s easy for enemies to gang up on you, as the game’s AI does put in the effort of attacking at the same time, in a non conforming line. It’s easy to be surrounded if you’re not paying attention. So the tag part serves that purpose: if you’re more of a single character fighter and doesn’t feel like juggling many enemies at a time, you easily swap Spider-Man for She-Hulk and have her kind of take care of most of what you see on the screen.
That’s just one strategy, mind you. Every hero has the regular, punchy abilities, a secondary, more power-move-related skill and, finally, one “ultimate” skill of sorts that can be both a “Hail, Mary” type of move for clearing out hordes as well as a quick progression tool if you’re feeling antsy to get to the end of a given level.
There is also a RPG layer to the gameplay, as heroes have points tallied at the end of each level, and as they level up, you get benefits like extra health, decreased damage taken (or increased damage given), less knockback or more chances to bring out that sweet, sweet ultimate move (those have a cost in the form of a collectible you pick up by making successful combos).
The soundtrack and sound effects are beautiful, truly reminiscent of the old days of comic books and early Marvel animations, before things got “too adult”, let’s say. Not that I mind this in any way, mind you: one of the greatest strategies from the publisher was to engage in several uncomfortable themes head on instead of leaving them in “innuendo” form, but sometimes, you just wanna put on some colorful tight spandex suit and let loose on villains, no questions asked. Marvel Cosmic Invasion does just that…
Fun, but fleeting
…But not for long: you see, my main gripe with this game is that there should be more game to this game. As in…you’ll finish it before you know it. You’ll be done with most of it in about 3 to 5 hours — give it a 7 hour sitdown if you’re a completionist, but the point is, you can be done with this game in one particularly dedicated afternoon-to-evening session.
That…kinda leaves you wanting more with nothing to fulfill that hole. There is a lot of unlockable stuff in Marvel Cosmic Invasion — some of the aforementioned characters, in fact, are not available from the get go and require specific steps to be part of the choosable roster, which is nice: the game does a nice job in keeping you curious as to how this or that character plays out.
But other than that, the game sort of loses its own track fast, being reduced to the same process with different looks: choose mission, go to the place, beat people up, beat boss up, rinse and repeat. And worse still, that feeling gets bigger right at the end of your adventure, which is absolutely something that should not happen, as the storyline tries its best to shape up like a crescendo. Is it bad? No. Is it great? Also no, because as fun as it is, it underdelivers.
At any rate, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a great game, and it does have what it takes to entice and entertain most gamers out there. I only wish there was a little more to it.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is available on PC (Windows and Linux), Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
