From its initial reveal to now spending several hours playing the game myself, one thought consistently crossed my mind while playing Marvel Cosmic Invasion: it’s about time! Any regular consumer of video game opinions has probably heard the classic “I’ve been waiting X years for this!” line about an upcoming game before. We all know deep down that anyone who says such things is a liar and poser – it’s not like they were literally waiting that entire time. They probably eat, sleep, play other video games, maybe even talk to other people like some kind of loser.
Well, not me. I do nothing all day, every day except think about how cool the Maximum Carnage game was, desperately waiting for another game like it to release. Some might say I’ve wasted my time on this Earth, but clearly that’s not true. I’ve psychically manifested Marvel Cosmic Invasion into existence and it’s exactly what the world has been waiting for. I’ll give partial credit to the people at Dotemu and Tribute Games, too.
Marvel beat-em-ups are the easiest slam dunk projects in the universe. Comic book characters beating up endless waves of bad guys fit so perfectly that I don’t understand why they stopped happening. If it were up to me, there would be Marvel arcade beat-em-ups out every year since 1995. I don’t need to tell you that Marvel Cosmic Invasion looks awesome, because that is self-evident. Instead, I’ll spend this preview going over some of the finer, less visible details to explain how despite the drought of 2D beat-em-ups the past few decades, Cosmic Invasion easily makes up for lost time.
Let’s talk about fundamentals. While many often write these kinds of games off as mindless button mashers made to steal your lunch money, that critique is usually the best way to tell that someone is bad at them. The core of a fun beat-em-up comes from mastering the “dance” of the game: learning when to attack, how to position yourself, and where to focus your efforts in controlling the crowds of enemies coming at you. The more you credit-feed through these games, the less fun they will be.
That’s not to say that every classic beat-em-up walks the line of difficulty and business sense perfectly, but these days newer games tend to have the opposite problem. While I enjoyed this developer’s previous efforts with TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge, that game’s main weakness was its poor combat balance; it was way too easy to dodge through enemies and spam super attacks to trivialize the game even on its hardest difficulty.
Cosmic Invasion immediately felt more “grounded” in comparison to Shredder’s Revenge. You have a dodge (depending on your character choice), but it’s not as effective in avoiding damage and it’s also far less efficient in setting up counter attacks. I also noticed far more recovery after attacking pretty much across the board, which leaves you open to enemy attacks. These two decisions highlight the importance of the “dance” that makes these games great. I had to go through a bit of a learning curve to effectively play, which surprised me as someone who has played dozens of hours of their previous game. I greatly prefer the weightier approach in Cosmic Invasion so far.
Unfortunately, the spammable supers return to undermine the fundamental gameplay and they seem to be more potent than ever, at least in this preview build. Your super meter fills after landing just a few hits on enemies, which you can use for massive attacks that instantly defeat normal enemies and do decent damage on bosses. These moves are basically an “I don’t need to think about playing anymore” button that you can press at least a dozen times per level with no real consequences or drawbacks. Although I can live with simply ignoring this mechanic like I do in Shredder’s Revenge, I shouldn’t have to do that. I’d be happy to see them become less prominent in the final product, whether that comes in the form of making your meter harder to fill or simply making them less effective.
The supers seem especially unnecessary given that Cosmic Invasion introduces a far more fun and interesting way to give players a helping hand. Cosmic Invasion’s tag teams not only spare me from having to pick between Spider-Man or Venom, they give you access to a variety of assist attacks. I like this premise conceptually; everyone could use more Marvel Vs. Capcom in their life.
Based on the two levels available to me, however, I’m not completely convinced of their utility. You can use your partner’s assist attacks to extend combos and add some extra damage to enemies, but frankly you don’t need it in most cases. Unless you really like juggling bad guy corpses, most enemies will die within a normal combo anyway. The tag system’s most practical use seems to be defensive – they can provide some cover against a horde and if an enemy hits you, you can quickly save yourself from the hit stun by swapping in your partner. At the very least, it’s a fun mechanic to play around with and I’m excited to see if and how it evolves in the final product. Tag teams have kind of become synonymous with Marvel games, so it’s fun and novel to bring that into a beat-em-up.
Perhaps the true triumph of the tag system will end up being how efficiently it lets you explore the game’s arsenal of characters. Although my demo only lasted two levels, I played through those levels about a dozen times with the nine characters available to me. Everyone likes to see a big character select screen, but what really impressed me was how each character genuinely feels unique from the others. Unlike many other beat-em-ups, the differences between characters aren’t subtle.
New to this build of the game were Rocket Racoon and She Hulk, so naturally I beelined to playing as Spider-Man. I evaluate every game I play purely by how much I enjoy playing as Spider-Man. If he isn’t in the game, then obviously it’s an uphill battle when it comes to the review score.
Overall, I’m pleased by the Spidey experience. Importantly he moves and attacks like you’d expect the Spider-Man of the comics too, which is not something you can actually take for granted in this genre. Most beat-em-ups give Spider-Man a bad back and make him kind of stiff, when in reality he should be super flexible and agile. Cosmic Invasion’s Spidey looks the part with acrobatic animations and a moveset that emphasizes his agility. His dodge and webswing let him quickly move through crowds. Although his air attacks aren’t anything special, I like that his web swing kicks have a little bit of a learning curve to properly utilize.
On top of that, Spidey’s unique ability button shoots webs. They don’t do much damage, but they do slow down enemies temporarily, which makes him great for boss fights which often give you limited windows of attack. I can’t remember the last beat-em-up I played that lets you abuse bosses with long combos, grapples, and debuffs like this, which is a pretty fun experience. Spidey’s webs serve a practical purpose, which is something that the Avengers game from a few years ago oddly failed to do, so I’m a big fan. They even remembered the little things like Spidey using web cartridges, so he has a brief cooldown before he can shoot more. The amount of games that totally forego this drawback when it’s one of his main weaknesses blows my mind.
Spider-Man’s uniqueness shined as I tried out more and more characters. Although Venom has a lot of Spidey’s moves, he’s a much heavier character. Instead of using a dodge, he can deflect blows with a counter attack, and instead of shooting webs he can grapple enemies around. Captain America’s shield serves as a stronger, damage dealing projectile compared to Spidey’s webs. The shield’s utility reminded me of the old Captain America and the Avengers game from the 90s. Every character feels different – Wolverine most closely resembles playing as a turtle from Shredder’s Revenge, characters like Nova and Phylla-Vel can fly for better air enemy coverage, and so on.
Despite the fakeout earlier, I will highlight Rocket Racoon and She Hulk because they emphasize just how different the characters can be. Rocket focuses on projectiles and traps, not too dissimilar to his Marvel Vs. Capcom appearances but in beat-em-up form. He’s kind of strange to play with, but his grenades especially can be extremely powerful against crowds. She Hulk might be one of the smoothest implementations of a grappler I’ve ever seen in one of these games. You can easily combo into grabs or scoop enemies from the air in ways that Venom simply can’t compete with. She was one of my favorite characters to play as.
The game leans into the character differences by making it obvious that certain enemy types can be better handled by different characters, although realistically you can do just fine with any of them. I suppose we’ll see what the hard mode looks like to find out if that remains true. For now, I enjoyed simply trying everyone out – each character would be fun enough to carry a playthrough on their own. I’m looking forward to trying out the recently announced Beta Ray Bill and Silver Surfer in the final product, not only because it’s nice to see those characters finally get some respect but because the rest of the roster has set my expectations for them pretty high.
This preview build also implemented the newly announced voice acting. All of the characters sound great. I’ve made my biases clear, though, so obviously the highlight to me is bringing back Josh Keaton as Spider-Man. To me, modern Spidey actors like Tom Holland and Yuri Lowenthall sound way too nice to fit the character. Spider-Man is no boy scout! He’s a New Yorker with a chip on his shoulder. He needs some bite to his voice, and Josh Keaton is the last actor who really nailed that feel. I’m pleased to see him return to the role more than anyone else, although Cal Dodd returning as Wolverine is a fun bonus. I do wish they gave Rocket a Cockney accent like they did in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, but I suppose James Gunn has prevented that interpretation from ever catching on.
The voice acting forms just one part of a great sounding experience. My second biggest gripe with Shredder’s Revenge was the somewhat unsatisfying sound of hitting guys, and Cosmic Invasion’s hits knock those piddly sound effects out of the planet, straight into Thanos probably. The music layered on top of that feels straight out of a CPS (that’s Capcom Play System, true believers) arcade machine and captures the exact kind of feeling a game like this should.
Absent some smaller game balance concerns, everything seems to be in order with Marvel Cosmic Invasion. In many ways it’s exactly the game I’ve been waiting for, to the point that I played it several hours after I “had to” for this article. My endless wait for another Marvel beat-em-up seems to be approaching its end, and it’s looking to be worth the wait.
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