Marvel Cosmic Invasion Review

Player(s): 1-4
Extra Features: Local co-op play (2-4 players), Online Co-op play (2-4 players), Crossplay

Going to the arcades in the early 90’s, I have a lot of memories of Marvel beat’em up games such as Spider-man, X-men and The Avengers. Even though Marvel eventually moved on to fighting games, there was still the occasional beat’em up with their license that was a lot of fun to play. Tribute Games and Dotemu, creators of TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, have teamed up once again to give us Marvel Cosmic Invasion. Cosmic Invasion is another 2-D beat’em up that plays a lot like Shredder’s Revenge but gives us a few new twists along the way. While I don’t feel it compares to Shredder’s Revenge, Cosmic Invasion introduces some new ideas that helps it to distinguish itself.

An attack is launched across the galaxy as Annihilus steps up to rule everything with the help of his Annihilation Wave. No place is safe as all life hangs in the balance of his attack. Luckily, earth-born and cosmic heroes have stepped up to defend us. The game sounds epic as hell. The story isn’t that much of anything and is really just all over the place. The story doesn’t matter much though. We want some good brawling action no matter how loosely connected it all is!

This game has one heck of a roster that surpasses Shredder’s Revenge even with its DLC, which is quite impressive. The game has the usual favorites in it’s roster but it also brings along some very obscure and rarely seen characters as well. We have characters such as Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine, Storm, Spiderman and Phoenix, which we see often, but then the game introduces characters such as Black Panther, Nova, Venom, Rocket Raccoon as well. Still not obscure enough? Well, let’s also mention Cosmic Ghost Rider, Phyla-Vell, She-Hulk, Silver Surfer and Beta Ray Bill. It’s so amazing to have Cosmic Ghost Rider, She-Hulk and Beta Ray Bill in the place of their obvious and way more popular counterpart that we see too often.

Cosmic Invasion plays quite similar to TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge overall. The action is slower but still just as chaotic. All characters have their own melee combo melee combo, unique attack and special attack as well as other moves. Some characters can fly and some are completely unique, such as Rocket Raccoon with his gun combat. We also have heavy hitters, quick attackers and “middle of the road at everything” type of characters.

You pick two characters from the character select screen. Yes, you have a tag team while playing. You can switch in and out between your two characters. The partner character can be called in to assist with an attack. This leads to some heavy juggle combos with the right combination of characters. Beta Ray Bill’s dash attack assist is really good at keeping a combo going. Just like with Shredder’s Revenge, special attacks can be performed once your meter is built all the way up. Special attacks seem a bit down-sized in this game, but can still pack quite a punch. Rocket Raccoon’s special attack, when right up next to a big enemy, can delete that enemy’s health bar extremely fast.

The game is set across 16 stages, including the opening tutorial stage. Stage design is a mixed bag. Some stages are a lot livelier than others. The first few stages feel similar to the fantastic stages from Shredder’s Revenge, but I’m just not feeling some of the later stages as much. Some stages just feel like a boring progression to the right along with the usual stop for waves of enemies. Some of them just lack variety, such as background details, vertical progression or just some sort of break from the standard stage design. For the really good stages though, they are done very well with a bunch of eye candy such as cameos or background action. The stage selection is done on a grid, where you just select the next stage, which seems boring compared to Shredder’s Revenge where you ride the turtle van around to different stages and extra areas.

As you progress through the stages, you’ll have challenges to try for in each stage. There is also a cosmic cube collectible to find in each stage as well. The enemy variety is really good overall. Most enemies are some form of Annihilus spawn. Sometimes you’ll run into enemies that are being mind-controlled by Annihilus. Each stage has its own unique boss. All bosses are unique and have their own unique attacks. I do feel the bosses in Shredder’s Revenge are livelier and more difficult, but the ones in Cosmic Invasion can be just as good.

The game has an Arcade mode as well. The Arcade mode is a standard stage by stage progression with limited continues. You get to choose the difficulty from the character select menu. Character health is retained from the last stage, so if you mess up a bunch on a boss fight, the next stage can take you out early if you don’t get to some health quickly. One cool part about this Arcade mode is that you can unlock modifiers that can hurt or help your progression, such as infinite continues or doubling enemy HP. There are some very nice ones such as changing the enemy configuration to a 4-player game even though you’re only playing 1-player.

The game can be played with up to four other players (four tag teams). It can be played locally or online. Thankfully, it has both private and public lobbies. The game has crossplay, so you can play with people on other consoles or PC. You can play with friends or have randoms join you as you progress. The game does make adjustments for having multiple players such as having more enemies to fight at once.

As for extras, you have a Vault where you can use Cosmic Cubes to unlock part of the Cosmic Matrix. The Cosmic Matrix unlocks Character/Enemy files, Hero Palettes, Arcade Mode Modifiers and Music Tracks. You also unlock extra characters while playing through the story mode. There are a total of four characters that need to be unlocked through progression. All characters can level up to a total of ten levels. You gain extra attributes and passive abilities while leveling. Honestly, the leveling feels like an afterthought in this game with how quickly you rise in level. It only takes just a few stages to get to max level.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is somewhat of a mixed bag, but overall it’s still a great beat’em up. I enjoyed the game much more once I finished the story mode and went into the Arcade Mode. I feel this game mainly excels with its tag team gameplay and overall roster. Story mode just has a sort of dull feel to it with little challenge, but Arcade Mode makes the stage progression feel more meaningful. Cosmic Invasion is not as good as Shredder’s Revenge, but I do feel it just enough unique mechanics to stand out on its own. The hardcore Marvel fan will be pleased, but those looking for something along the lines of Shredder’s Revenge might find the game to be somewhat lacking in areas. I do feel that this would be in the upper bracket of Marvel beat’em ups, but ff this game could get some impressive DLC (more stages and characters), it could very well be a legendary Marvel beat’em up.

The Good:
+ Such a great roster of heroes to choose from
+ The tag team system is a lot of fun (so many combinations also!)
+ 4-player online co-op with rollback netcode and crossplay!
+ Very nice Arcade Mode (with modifiers)
+ Overall good soundtrack

The Bad:
- Some of the stages could have more variety
- It’s a bit too similar to Shredder’s Revenge
- The leveling system feels uneventful