The boys at Dotemu and Tribute Games have been cooking pretty well lately.
We’ve already sung praises to Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound and Tribute’s very own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge did good numbers as well. Absolum is another recent beat ’em up published by DotEmu, but its particular mix of fighting mechanics, artstyle and roguelite elements may not be for everyone.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion knows exactly what it is and building on a solid foundation of the aforementioned Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, delivers an equally solid title.
Will this ensemble cast of caped crusaders dazzle you with its power levels or will the safe boundaries snap the joy out of this colorful beat ’em up?
Find out in our Marvel Cosmic Invasion review!
Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Developer: Tribute Games Inc.
Publisher: Dotemu, Gamirror Games
Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch 1|2, PlayStation 4|5 and Xbox Series X|S
Release Date: December 1st 2025
Price: $29.99
What does it take to craft a good beat ’em up?
There are plenty of elements that make up that funky button mashing action we all know and love. And Marvel Cosmic Invasion doesn’t have a lot of them.
Now that’s not to say any dish with few ingredients is necessarily a bad one. It’s all about how you cook, present and portion it. A dish can be over-complicated or fail to find its target consumer group.
While Absolum may be considered fine dining by some people, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is the ol’ reliable $1.50 Costco glizzy.
And brother – I want that dog in me.
It does what it sets out to do correctly, namely: mindless minion bashing. There are very few mechanics involved in the overall gameplay loop and each fighter has a spartan set of moves.
Not surprising when you consider you start out with 11 characters and later expand that roster to 15 by progressing through the campaign. Developing each move set to its fullest and unique-est would certainly be impressive, but ultimately lost upon a large portion of beat ’em up enthusiasts.
Like yours truly.
This doesn’t stop each hero from feeling unique in their own right. Some characters specialize in projectiles and keeping an enemy at bay. Rocket Racoon has the highest damage output potential when his hit combo is high enough to trigger high-damaging grenades. Silver Surfer feels more like a support character, since his projectiles stunlock enemies across the screen.
My own personal favorite standout is She-Hulk. The jolly green giantess plays like a professional wrestler, pile driving flying enemies and throwing grappled mooks across the screen. While most characters feel similar to each other initially, unlocking unique passives after leveling up a hero will clearly sort them into most and least favorite.
The only problem with that are the other unlockables.
Each and every level (well, except for the tutorial) has 3 unique challenges, kind of like the ones found in Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound. The issue lies in the fact that most of these are character-bound challenges.
For example:
– Defeat 10 enemies using Captain America’s shield throw
– Perform 10 successful parries using Phyla-Vell
– Hit 5 enemies with a single special attack using Nova
Completing these challenges and collecting hidden cosmic cubes in each stage will grant you points to spend at the Cosmic Matrix subsection. Here you can unlock extra costumes for heroes (or rather color palettes), their character profiles, music tracks and arcade mode modifiers. All except for arcade modifiers are ultimately useless from a gameplay standpoint. And you won’t know which category of the unlockable you’ll be unlocking with the unlock points, you master of unlocking: you.
Thus, if you’re a completionist type, you’ll be switching between characters often. This spreads the XP across the roster, rarely letting any one hero to get to that coveted lvl 5.
Leveling up otherwise will increase either HP or Focus. And focus is pretty interesting. At the start of each level you get to pick two heroes. You can swap freely between the two during gameplay, but if you hold the swap key and press any of the action keys, your other hero will perform a support attack at the cost of some focus. Though I mostly used it to get both of my characters hit by a single enemy sweep. It can also be spent on a special attack, using up most of the focus.
These elements may sound familiar to some readers, because it is sure beginning to resemble Capcom’s “Marvel VS ____” fighting games. Some of the moves have been lifted outright from those games. Iron Man’s Beam Cannon, Wolverine’s Adamantium Rage, Venom’s Symbiote Burst, etc…
Not complaining, this was made by “Tribute” games after all, and what is the sincerest form of flattery if not imitation? A love letter to all things Marvel, especially the games of yesteryear.
Some of the animations looks similar as well and they look good overall. The whole game looks good. Pixels are nice and chunky, colors are very vibrant, befitting a Saturday morning cartoon vibe.
Even with all the chaos happening on-screen I haven’t once lost sight of my character, even during multiplayer sessions.
Music does its job with those retro-inspired guitars and synths we’ve become used to in the past couple of decades.
Voicework is befitting the setting as well with one-liners, quips and Steve Blum.
My least favorite standout is She-Hulk, again. Search me, but I have no clue as to why they decided to write her lines as if she was an obnoxious Deadpool impersonator. The 4th wall breaking is forced and unbecoming of her character.
Everything else is written fine, obviously aimed at the younger audience.
The story is a generic “Big Bad Guy wants to take over the world”. In this case, it’s Annihilus rearing his bug face out of the Negative Zone. Quite efficiently, too.
The insectoid cataclysm spans multiple planets and involves numerous factions across the universe. What’s interesting is how they work in all the evil factions to appear in each stage as well. This allows other BBG’s to shine in the spotlight as stage bosses or animated background decorations.
The bosses have that annoying “shield” mechanic that seems to be present in every modern ARPG. Most bosses starts out with some sort of energy shield, which recharges whenever a third of their health bar is depleted. This is a purely aesthetical complaint – when I’m whaling on a boss, I want to see a full shield refill in the middle of my combo.
The overall difficulty and combat complexity may have hinted at it, but the story and voicelines hammer it home: this is clearly a “Rated E for Everyone” type of game. Didn’t stop me from getting my butt whooped by bosses a few times. It could be a very good introductory beat ’em up for younger generations.
I’m sure they’ll have fun discovering the origins of move sets used in this game. That is, of course, if they grow up to be patrician niche gamers. A fate worse than die.
Like most beat ’em ups, this is pretty short game on its own. Each stage oughtn’t take more than 10 minutes to beat on your first run, totaling in just under 4 hours. That includes fiddling with the unlockables. While testing the online component in Arcade Mode, stages only took 5 minutes to beat with only 2 players out of the possible 4. The amount of enemies and their hit points remained the same. Even with 300 ping and the apparent chaos on screen, everything ran smoothly. The only hitch I noticed was seeing my character get hit by a stun-locked enemy every now and then. That and some enemies don’t know how to navigate around bottomless pits.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a good simple game. It’s laser focused, knows its target audience and delivers in spades. A Saturday morning cartoon made interactive by the fine folks at Tribute games. If you’re anything like yours truly and stuck in arrested development, clinging to nostalgia like a safety blanket – keep an eye on their future releases, they know their stuff.
