What Tribute Games did for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, they’ve done again for MARVEL Cosmic Invasion. This means they’ve captured nostalgia of retro beat’em ups and have brought them into modern era to feel fresh and exciting. This all-new adventure is a brawler with depth and a character roster you can’t help but marvel at the selections made. Tribute Games lives up to their name and pedigree with MARVEL Cosmic Invasion, another fantastic game that’s not to be missed, even this late in the year.
Calling upon the Annihilation Wave event from the comics, the galaxy is invaded by overwhelming amount of unknown extraterrestrial bugs brought by Annihilus. And so, this is where things kick-off, allowing for characters such as Spider-Man, Beta Ray Bill, Cosmic Ghost Rider, She-Hulk, and Rocket Raccoon to come together and work to stop this impending threat. Like before, this is a game that’s not terribly long but hits a sweet spot with a first clear of around four hours. To unlock more characters, find secrets, and complete challenges you’ll be well over a dozen hours to see and do everything. There’s a lot of replayability here.
The first thing you should do is play campaign mode, this is where missions are played mostly linearly, there are some places where it branches, but both missions must be played in order to progress to the next mission where things converge. Each new location takes you to different areas in the greater universe of Marvel, and most likely to places you’ve never been before. If you can’t beat a level, particularly a boss at the end of the stage, I have good news for you. Your chosen heroes will level up, as they earn a form of experience playing through every stage. They will be given extra health points, passive skills, and more. And if you try again, you’re more likely to beat that level with the same combo of characters, now that they’re stronger as a result.
Playing the game is standard fare for a game like this, as the mechanics don’t go beyond the arcade experience. But there is some additional depth to keep it from feeling shallow. You’ve got punch, kicks, jump, jump attacks, and specials. But you can hold attacks for charges, block incoming attacks, and unleash devastating ultimate. Each character plays vastly different from the last
Once you’ve loaded in the game, and you’re greeted with the horns of the menu music, you know you’re in for something special. There’s cutscenes and introductions for each level that really set everything up while progressing as things are taking places all across the galaxy. There’s a lot of deep cuts here, but if you’re paying attention to Marvel media, I think you’ll recognize a lot.
There’s fifteen characters to play as, but not all of them are available at the start. Some will need to be unlocked, who they are and how they are unlocked I won’t spoil, as it’s best to be experienced for yourself. The cast of characters are great, from mainstream to lesser known characters. She-Hulk is slow but strong, and doesn’t use energy (or focus). Storm uses energy, can fly, and is nimble. Wolverine has regenerating health, as you’d expect and is deadly as an all-rounder. Spider-Man can’t fly, but can swing with kicks that can knock back everyone like bowling pins. Then you’ve got Beta Ray Bill, your Thor-adjacent characters that’s really fun to utilize. There’s not a wasted character, and they’re all super fun superheroes.
Each level has objectives to complete. The game hints at what levels should be played by which characters by highlighting them in the character select screen, which is a nice touch. Challenges can reach a fail state, but playing the level again does allow you to be able to complete them.
MARVEL Cosmic Invasion has four-player local and online co-op, and it’s great. It feels like the right number of players, given the size of the levels. While something like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge allowed for up to six players, there’s a great balance here. Playing solo is perfectly valid, and being able to bring in two characters that you can tag in or out at-will feels great, and it gives you the opportunity to perform moves in tandem when swapping them out for a cool display.
After you complete the campaign mode, it’s definitely worth playing Arcade Mode solo or with friends. It’s essentially a harder version of the Campaign where there’s a limited number of lives and no saving your progression. Much like if this was an arcade game from the early 90s that you’d walk up to and pour all your quarters into. What makes this more appealing is the fact that you can unlock arcade modifiers like “Vampire”, where you’re health is constantly going down, but defeating enemies replenishes it. Or there’s “Hard Focus”, where the focus meter never replenishes on its own. There’s more to unlock, do, and see for a unique experienc every time.
There’s an unhealthy amount of unlocks in this game. Completing challenges and finishing levels will give you cubes, a currency to unlock them. There’s 30 Hero Palettes, 20 Music Tracks, 41 Nova Corps Files, and the aforementioned 10 Arcade Mode Modifiers to unlock in the Cosmic Matrix of the vault.
Also in the vault is the Hero Lab which shows all the current levels of characters, and what’s been unlocked for them. You’ll see at what levels unlock the passive skills, new palettes, extra hp, extra focus, and so on for them. As mentioned, leveling up a character does make things easier for levels that challenge you, or having fun when going back to earlier levels to complete challenges. Finally there’s the Corps Files to give you the details on all the game’s characters and groups, much like reading the back of a Marvel trading card.
While MARVEL Cosmic Invasion doesn’t support ultrawide monitors, it does have a CRT filter that enhances the nostalgia and retro nature of the game. There isn’t much in the way of graphical options, but it works and plays great on the Steam Deck. There are occasional slowdowns that I experienced both on PC and Steam Deck, so I’m not sure if that’s intentional or not, but it was few and far between. This is a game that’s what you see is what you get, and there’s nothing wrong with not having to fiddle with anything in the settings.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (8 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
MARVEL Cosmic Invasion is such a blast, it also serves as an introduction to Marvel, beat’em ups, arcade games, and so much more. Tribute Games has done so much right here, nails the superhero landing with ease to please fans, and even make new ones. There’s a richness of value to be found with its unlockable characters, modes, and even palettes. MARVEL Cosmic Invasion with an impressive display of talent and execution on what’s to be the last don’t miss recommendation of the year.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
