Marvel characters and beat-'em-ups feel like a natural combination for video games. Superheroes are generally known for constantly fighting villains, and a beat-'em-up is all about punching villains. The combination has created some pretty good games over the years, with the likes of the arcade version of Spider-Man from Sega, Captain America and the Avengers from Data East, and the classic Konami title, X-Men. When Marvel Cosmic Invasion was announced, the choice of genre was met with enthusiasm by those looking for a modern throwback title. The good news is that the final game lives up to the hype, and Marvel Cosmic Invasion is indeed a very good game.

The story goes for a typical video game setup rather than something based on a specific comic. The tyrant Annihilus has escaped from the Negative Zone and is rampaging across the galaxy while taking over the minds of some of the galaxy's big villains to do his bidding. As he approaches Earth, several superheroes try to stop him, chasing him around the world and space to prevent things from getting worse.

Players aren't expecting a lot of narrative depth because the genre isn't known for that sort of thing, and simplicity is almost always better. However, you can expect the game to come with quite a number of characters that don't usually get lots of recognition. You still get to play with the big names like Black Panther, Iron Man and Spider-Man, but die-hard comic book fans will be thrilled to be able to play with the likes of Beta Ray Bill, Cosmic Ghost Rider and Phyla-Vell. Likewise, cameos from Lockjaw and Jeff the Land Shark are cool, but seeing and fighting against characters like Beetle, Knull and Sauron shows that the developers know a good deal about the Marvel franchise beyond the movies and TV shows.

As alluded to earlier, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a beat-'em-up that supports up to four players either offline or online, and most of the conventions that are associated with the genre are present. There are still objects that you can break open to uncover stuff, and even though you can't pick up weapons, you can find random food items that can be used for health recovery, like space hot dogs, alien meat cones, and Galactus ice cream bars. The game has more flying enemies than most other beat-'em-ups, but just about everyone can either double-jump or fly, so those foes aren't as much of a nuisance. Every character can also perform different special attacks, so you have three different attack types in case you want to do more than mash on the same button.

The changes the development team have made to the basic combat system have been inspired by other beat-'em-ups and fighting games. A bit of health can be recovered if you keep fighting back, provided there's some red left in your health bar to indicate how much you can recover before that section disappears. A dodge roll and blocking are available. There's even a parry feature to counter enemies that favor lots of defense before attacking. The different special moves have limited uses, but their respective meters fill quickly enough that you're encouraged to use them as often as regular attacks, rather than saving them for when the screen is flooded with enemies. The most significant change that seems to be influenced by Capcom's Vs. series is the addition of a tag team partner. You can switch between one of two heroes at the press of a button, but the tag feature lets you unleash power moves during a tag. You can also call in your partner to come in temporarily to unleash a special move or free you. The tag addition adds a great deal of depth to a genre that has been simple for decades, and it certainly makes the game feel fresh among its contemporaries.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion features two modes, both of which can be played either offline or online, and there are no performance issues for the latter. Campaign is considered the game's main mode, where you go through a roughly three-hour journey to save the world. The game does this through 15 stages, and everything is presented in a semi-linear fashion, where you'll often reach a fork in the road and choose which level to tackle next. You will have to beat both levels before you get to move on, though. The game lets you choose a duo of heroes before playing each stage, and that's important since the game has a challenge component that is reliant on you completing certain tasks with certain characters to get a bonus prize. The ability to select characters before each stage is also important since you'll gain XP and level them up for automatic bonuses, like more health after completing each stage — regardless of how much they've actually fought at that time. This also applies to the four characters you unlock throughout the campaign, as they are immediately selectable in subsequent stages instead of having to complete the game before they become playable.

Overall, the level design is good thanks to the variety. You have standard belt-scrolling stuff from left to right, and while that includes pits, your double-jump and flying abilities mean that you'll only fall in them if you get knocked down and don't recover in time. Even then, the health loss isn't significant enough to turn the tide against you in a fight. Some levels feature turrets that you can activate by hitting them, which offers a nice change of pace and replaces the lack of obtainable weapons on the field. Each stage displays loads of stuff in the background to provide the sense that you're a small part of a bigger battle, and the game feels more vibrant because of it.

The only knock against the game is the same one that gets levied against any other modern beat-'em-up: It's not very difficult. From the saving to the infinite continues, there are enough things to ease anyone into the experience. Even with the screen flooded with enemies, you'll rarely find any foes that are impossible to take down.  The bosses aren't damage sponges. You won't die until you're a few levels away from the end, provided you have experience with the genre. That's if you're playing the game solo, and it's even more apparent once you play the game with up to three other friends, even with enemy difficulty scaling. The experience isn't boring due to the sizable character roster and the notable differences between the playable characters, but don't be surprised to reach the end credits in a relatively short amount of time.

The game's other mode is Arcade, which can be considered the game's hard mode, even if you consider the three available difficulty presets. This is mostly because of the limited number of continues you can use and the inability to save your progress. The levels are the same as in the Campaign mode, and you can still choose levels at different branching paths, but the cut scenes are missing except for the beginning and ending, robbing some of the incidental dialogue of context. You can't use this mode to level up your characters, so they'll be stuck with their level benefits gained from Campaign mode. You also can't change characters before every level, which makes your initial character choices more important because you have little room for experimentation. Overall, it's a good complimentary mode for those who want a more straightforward experience over the campaign.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion doesn't feature multiple endings, but it has a wealth of unlockables that range from character bios to the complete playable soundtrack. Playing through each mode and hitting everything you can provides the means to unlock stuff, and the unlocks are presented in a grid with no restrictions. There is no hint about which part of the grid unlocks what, so unless you're consulting a guide, expect the unlocks to be random.

Graphically, the game adopts the same style as Tribute Games' last title, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge. That means that characters are a little squat and stocky instead of being proportionally correct, but the trade-off is having more fluidity in movements. The art style does a good job of mimicking the comics within the constraints of the pixel and squat style, so you may wonder whether certain comic book artists worked on certain cut scenes. The game is colorful, with a boldness in the colors that hearkens back to the cartoons, and you'll see that in some of the exaggerated character expressions when they're knocked down or blown up. The game handles a ton of characters and effects on-screen simultaneously without a hitch, and the only slowdown seems intentional, as if the game is trying to mimic the arcade games and old consoles for stylistic purposes, even though the game generally holds a high frame rate.

Like the graphics, the overall sound package is excellent. Tee Lopes has once again done a good job of showing that he knows how to make a banging soundtrack that feels like it was made perfectly for the action, and he does so without a heavy reliance on familiar tunes. The game has a ton of voices for just about every character, and every single performance is absolutely perfect. It's difficult to imagine someone else doing the voices for these characters in future games.

Both Steam Deck players and those on a Linux desktop will find no issues when running this game, so there's no need to pick out a specific version of Proton to fix issues. On the Deck, the resolution is odd since the highest the game can go is 540p. That seems to be more of an issue when displaying the game on anything that isn't at a 16:9 ratio. The sprite-based artwork and the device's small screen aren't hurt by this, and outputting to a TV is fine, but it is interesting to see such a low resolution cap for a game that features no upscaling technologies. The lightweight nature of the game engine means that the title runs at 60fps at all times, with only a few instances of intentional slowdown. Battery life on the LCD version of the Deck is excellent, as you'll get over five-and-a-half hours on a full charge, which leaves you plenty of time to finish the game and return to mop up a few challenges before needing to plug in the device again.

As mentioned before, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a very good title, and Tribute Games shows that it knows how to do a beat-'em-up well. The additions to the standard brawling mechanics make it a deep game for those wanting an evolution in the genre, but it remains simple enough for button-mashers to enjoy. The game runs at a good length and initially seems easy, but that changes once you start unlocking the modifiers. The amount of unlocks and challenges provide completionists with a good reason to return again and again.

Score: 9.0/10