Marvel Cosmic Invasion Review – Punching Annihilus One Bug at a Time

2025 has been a great year for 2D action games with plenty of variety across sub-genres. After the wonderful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Tribute Games and Dotemu are back with another beat ’em up, this time with Marvel characters at the forefront.

With a massive roster of iconic characters, some gorgeous pixel art, and another catchy soundtrack by Tee Lopes, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is another fun beat ’em up from the talented studio. Here is what I thought of it after spending around 15 hours punching Annihilus bugs.

The Roster and Why Captain America’s Shield Throw Rules

There are 15 different characters in Marvel Cosmic Invasion, which is an impressive jump from Shredder’s Revenge. It is not unfair to assume that having so many playable characters means they will share movesets or at least play a bit similarly. However, while their base moveset is similar, there are enough differences between each that you can prefer one over the other.

Some characters cannot parry, some cannot deflect, some cannot fly, and so on. The fun comes from finding their strengths and abusing them to the point where you can break enemies before they’re allowed to throw a punch. For instance, Captain America does not have a projectile or anything that counts as ammo. Instead, he throws his shield, which knocks away enemies, keeps them in the air if they are already up there, and ricochets on its way back. This is just one move, yet it has so many properties that you can use it in creative ways during combos.

She-Hulk and Venom are grapplers, and they can also catch enemies in the air and perform another grab. A fun way to use this is to grab an enemy, throw them, wait for them to bounce back, and grab them mid-air to throw them again. You can keep doing this even in the early phases of bosses, and it is as hilarious as it is fun.

Wolverine’s secondary attack lets him leap at enemies, attack them while he is grabbed onto them, and then throw them as well. All three of these can be done together, and he can catch enemies in the air, too. My point is that even though your characters do not have the most complex moveset since it is really just an attack button, a secondary, and a special, the individual attacks have plenty of properties that contribute to fun combos, especially in co op.

With a big roster, it is expected that some characters will feel better than others. For instance, I couldn’t quite figure out how to get the most out of Venom and felt that his kit wasn’t as strong. Maybe it’s just me, but there is some unevenness when it comes to specials in particular. Venom’s special, for example, has such a small area of impact that it’s really hard to get bosses in range, while Phyla-Vell’s special does damage to basically everyone on the screen.

Together Forever, Never Apart

Speaking of co op, this game supports four-player co op. While I only played it in two-player mode, this is where the combat system truly shines. Since each player technically selects two characters, things can get chaotic fast when calling in assists and using all the special attacks together. At times, enemies might not even touch the ground before you are done with them.

The intended way to play the campaign is to pick the highlighted characters so the cutscenes and in-mission dialogue make sense, but you are not required to do so. Following this approach gives you a good overview of all the characters and their movesets. It is the kind of game you want to replay, and discovering the most fun combinations is part of the experience.

You are encouraged to mix and match, and the game is designed so that any combination feels natural, with enough shared lines between characters to make it work.

There are color palettes to unlock for each character, challenges to complete, and the campaign takes around four hours to finish. I think there is a fair amount of content to dive into, especially if you want to complete everything, level up all the characters, and earn all the achievements

What About the Difficulty? Bosses?

Marvel Cosmic Invasion isn’t the most difficult game, at least not the first run. If you stick with a few characters, you’ll level them up pretty fast and blaze through the game without much trouble. If you do, however, pick the recommended characters, then progress can be a bit slow because they all start from level one.

Once you’re done with the campaign, however, you can start playing the arcade mode, where you can raise the overall difficulty and enable a bunch of different gameplay modifiers to make things easier or considerably harder. I think modular difficulty options can be great if you want to push the mechanics to their limit and see how far you can take your character combinations. It can be pretty challenging if you want it to be, but the regular campaign isn’t that hard, especially if you’re familiar with beat ’em ups.

Each mission ends with a boss fight and often with characters you’ll unlock for your roster. Some of these have a gimmick, which is something I really enjoyed, but more often than not, these are your traditional beat ’em up bosses who have plenty of moves that need to be countered in specific ways.

There’s a good number of iconic villains from the comics, some of whom I didn’t expect at all.

Stages, Art, and Music

Stages are varied and feature iconic locations from the comics. From the vibrant path of the Bifröst to the ravaged alien land of the Klyntar, no two locations feel the same, at least visually. Mechanically, however, there are no interesting traversal sections, chases, or rides to mix things up. It is usually just moving from left to right, defeating enemies, collecting resources, and then facing the boss.

That said, the background art and random events make up for the lack of gameplay variety within the levels. You can see the bug invasion taking place in real time and observe how each realm or planet reacts to it. While most of your time is spent crushing bug skulls, it is nice to take a breather and enjoy the details around you from time to time.

The animation quality is solid and clearly influenced by the Marvel vs. Capcom series, with many iconic animations returning for characters like Wolverine, Venom, Storm, and more. The soundtrack by Tee Lopes is upbeat and has a distinctly heroic quality. I enjoyed it as a whole, though no particular track stood out in my memory.

Verdict

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is another fun beat ’em up from Tribute Games that does not reinvent the wheel but delivers a polished and enjoyable 2D action experience. It’s easy to pick up, with plenty of variety in characters, each with their own entertaining specials and secondary attacks for endless combo potential, especially in co-op. The animation is consistently excellent, and the art direction does a great job of honoring the source material. While the levels lack some mechanical variety, there are plenty of incentives to replay the campaign and unlock everything.

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