You’re telling me that Tribute Games made a 4-player beat ’em up, based on the greatest comic crossover of all time, and you can play as Beta Ray Bill?!
Sign me up.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Developer: Tribute Games
Price: $3o
Platform: PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox, PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was supplied with a Steam code for review
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is exactly what it looks like. A throwback to old school beat ’em ups with a cosmic cast of Marvel heroes. In some ways, it works as a spiritual sequel to the legendary X-Men Arcade and infamous Captain America and the Avengers. Where you and your friends travel across a myriad of Marvel-inspired locales, beat up super villains, and wise a few cracks. Much like Cosmic Invasion’s forebears, it works exceedingly well. Superheroes just lend themselves well to the format, as taking out waves of colorful mooks & goons is a fundamental part of both genres. But you have to ask, who are we beating up?
While story isn’t usually a major part of a beat ’em up, it’s refreshing to see an adaptation of Annihilation, the 2006 magnum opus of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. The setup is simple: Annihilus, the robotic bug god from the Negative Zone, has invaded the Marvel Universe with a seemingly endless army of alien insects. It’s now up to our heroes to unite and Aveng- STOP this Marvel Cosmic Invasion.
There are some twists and turns along the way, like the insects infecting Sentinels or a surprise villain appearance or two, but the story is pretty basic: bugs are bad, squish ’em. This is fine, as thin as the story is, it gives Cosmic Invasion an opportunity to do more interesting space-based levels and villains that usually don’t get the chance to shine. There are some fun deep cuts like: The Blue Area of the Moon, The Kree Homeworld Hala, Sanctuary II, and while it’s not in space, it’s always a delight to visit the dinosaur-infested Savage Land. This love for the lesser-known cosmic side of Marvel extends to the playable characters.
There are 15 playable heroes, a pretty large cast for a beat ’em up, straying into fighting game roster size. Obviously, you can play as Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America, but the exciting choices are the cosmic-based heroes. Some of the more popular picks, like Silver Surfer and Rocket Raccoon, are awesome, but deep cut characters like Beta Ray Bill and Phyla-Vell speak to a genuine love of the source material. There are a few strange exclusions, like why so many Earth-based heroes instead of space hero staples like Star Lord or Adam Warlock? But that’s a minor quibble, as it’s a solid roster overall.
The gameplay in Marvel Cosmic Invasion is pretty simple; every character has a basic combo, super, jump attack, and a special ability. The special ability is a power that the heroes can use whenever they want and changes from hero to hero. Captain America can reflect projectiles and throw his shield, whereas Rocket pulls out a massive gun and fires at enemies directly in front of him. Some special abilities cost meter, but do interesting things, like Spider-Man’s webs slowing enemies down, or Storm jolting them with electricity. It adds to the action variety and allows some opportunities to pull off fun combos. There’s also a character switching, ala Marvel vs Capcom, allowing you to tag in a hero to spam an attack or fully switch with them. You can use this to cover some bases, like having a flying and non-flying hero, or maybe a fast and slow-hitting combination. While it’s not necessary, it’s great to use all these tools to pull off crazy combos that sometimes go into the hundreds. Juggling a boss for a solid 5 minutes after defeating them is such a wonderful time.
Finishing the campaign doesn’t take long; with a group of four players, it took about 3.5 hours to finish every level. Marvel Cosmic Invasion isn’t particularly difficult, save for one level towards the end of the game where there’s an extreme spike in challenge. Outside of that, don’t expect to die too often. That said, the game offers a campaign experience where you are free to complete it however you want, with infinite continues, and a more traditional arcade mode, complete with lives and limited continues. You can also unlock modifiers for the arcade mode, allowing you to tune it however you want.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is the Best Marvel Beat ’Em Up Since Shredder’s Revenge
Outside of the main campaign, there isn’t much. Each level has challenges that unlock bonus costumes and sprite work, but you finish most of these as you normally play through the game. There’s also a large grid called the vault that you can unlock more costumes and sprite work in with the currency you collect by completing levels and challenges. While these costumes are fun, ranging from comic-inspired stuff like Symbiote Spider-Man to some more inspired ones like a recreation of Cap’s sprite in Captain America and The Avengers, complete with some blown-out colors, there isn’t much incentive to play through the campaign more than once.
This is a problem with Beat ‘Em Ups across the board; they’re pretty finite in scope, and your mileage may vary on replayability. Marvel Cosmic: Invasion does a lot to remedy this with its large cast of playable characters, but even then, it’s a pretty short game. It could take a long time to unlock everything the game has to offer, but that depends on what the player wants out of it.
With four friends together, though, it’s a blast. It’s incredibly fun trading off characters, seeing what combos work, or playing tennis with a dead bug’s body. Seeing a crew of four Marvel Heroes rendered in beautiful pixel art reminds you that maybe insane graphical fidelity and 100+ million dollar budgets aren’t what this franchise needs.
It’s smashing space bugs as Beta Ray Bill.
The Final Word
Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge before it, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is another wonderful love letter to the quarter devouring beat ‘em ups of the past. While it might not be breaking new ground, the changes to traditional beat ‘em up gameplay are fun and make squishing screens and screens of bugs a delight.
MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
