Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a fun game despite its weird problems
- Eric Halliday
- Dec 2
- 6 min read
I recently got my hands on Marvel Cosmic Invasion by the "it boy" in arcade style beat-'em'-ups, Dotemu. I love their previous work. TMNT: Shredder's Revenge absolutely rocked (especially when they let me play as Mondo Gecko AND Mona Lisa), Streets of Rage 4 ate up hours of my life with it's massive amount of insane unlocks. You didn't just unlock characters, you could also unlock the pixelated old school version of the characters that played exactly like their old school counter parts. Oh, and let's not forget Absolum, their own IP that combines old school beat 'em up fun with a Hades like Rogue-like element. Love it.
So from the various first trailer of this game I was there for it. I love me some Marvel beat-'em-ups. Not just X-Men, not just Captain America and the Avengers, but I'm talking Spider-Man: The Video Game. The only game brave enough to make a Spider-Man game where you can play as a tall slender Namor in just speedos. Give them all to me.
And now that I had a chance to play it I gotta say, the good and the bad are causing some divisiveness in my brain between the normal review side of things and the part of my brain that writes our "Old Man Yells at Cloud" articles. So let's take a look at the bad, and then look at the good.
The Bad
Glitchiness
Dotemu games are normally known for being incredibly technical and polished. It's part of what let them become the powerhouse they've become in this realm. But this game lacks so much polish you'd think this was the first game they worked on.
For example, there's a lot of times in which there will be holes in the ground that aren't square. In fact, there's a lot of circular holes in this game but the game does NOT know that. For example, in a stage where you fight off an invasion on the Shield Helicarrier, you find holes blasted through the floor. Attempt to go around the hole tightly at the 2, 4, 8, or 10 o'clock angles and you'll just fall directly through the floor.
Essentially they made a grid based layout for stage layouts and decided the entire hole tile was going to be a pit.
There's also a lot of weird choices they decided to do but not program correctly while still leaving it in the game. Like this point in a stage where you'll encounter enemies that are standing on breakable boxes and cheering, and sometimes you'll break the boxes causing the enemies to plummet. And sometimes they're so enthusiastic in they'll let nothing bring them down, gravity included.
She-Hulk's whole deal
I was so happy when they added She-Hulk to the game AND made her look tough. That's a problem I may or may not have done an entire damn article on over the fact that comics don't make strong women muscular.
But She-Hulk doesn't...act like She-Hulk. She acts in this way that makes me really think they tried to add Deadpool or Gwen Pool and got told "no" at the last second. For reasons the game never explains she knows she's in a video game. She'll comment almost every time her combo counter clears 25 hits on her 25-hit combo. Her line when picking up health items is "Floor food! Classic!" And she breaks the fourth-wall constantly.
For example, in one scene we find out Lady Hellbender is collecting rare animals to "protect them". You pass a massive cage in which characters like Fing Fang Foom and Shuma Gorath can be seen in captivity. She-Hulk yells, "Wow, they went all out on the cameos for this level".
I own five She-Hulk trade paperbacks and she doesn't do this ever.
Also, in the Campaign Mode it'll recommend a team up of characters to bring along that will change up the cutscenes and have their own special dialogue and events if you pick them. I was surprised to see She-Hulk as one of the recommended people to go to the Shadow Lands and fight Sauron. Until I realized her whole thing is they wanted to let us, the player, know that she's thirst AF for Kazar.
Hashtag NotMyJennifer.
Unlockables
When I first played this game yesterday I saw this scene where you could unlock stuff like extra arcade modes and different color schemes for the characters and thought to myself "wow, that's a lot of reasons to keep replaying".
I played through Campaign mode once, however, and found myself with almost the entire grid unlocked and opened up. There's a lot of cool things to unlock in the game, don't get me wrong, like ways to make arcade mode harder, easier, or just crazier. Plus I'm a sucker for cosmetic stuff in games. But I played through Arcade twice and Campaign once and all the characters are either fully leveled up or at least more than half way and I have almost every single thing in the Cosmic Matrix unlocked. That's like the whole reason to keep replaying this stuff.
Alright, now let's get into the good, because, worry not, there's also a lot of good here.
The Good
References and Cameos
This one is weird. It almost made the bad list until I got over myself. The game doesn't really know where it wants to take place in as far as the Marvel timeline. Taskmaster called Iron Man "Tony Stark's bodyguard" but then we'll also have references to things like Jeff the Land-Shark.
It drove me nuts until I just decided to have fun with it because it does lead to a lot of cool appearances. For example, in the Genosha stage if you punch the cell doors in the prison they open and you can even find ones that release Forge and Boom-Boom, (Boom-Boom in her 90's X-Force comic) but then later on you'll also end up dealing with Knull who is a VERY new character.
Though it does give me a lot of situations where I'm like "okay, now let me play as them". Because characters like Phoenix, Silver Surfer, and Phyla-Vell are unlockable after you save them, characters like Forge, Beetle, Jeff the Land Shark, Man-Thing, Boom-Boom and more just vanish.
Classic Fights
DotEmu are often masters at throwing in things you've done a million times in ways that makes it fun. If you're going to do a beat-'em-up, you know you're going to get an elevator level or a techie stage with laser traps. Jungle stages with lava plumes, and some sort of thing charging across the screen you just gotta dodge.
They also throw in the things you don't realize are tropes. For example, the fight against Master Mold is a Grade-A classic giant robot standing in the back ground occasionally punching the fighting area with it's huge fists type fight. It's the thing you've done a million times while still adding some cool twists.
The Cast
Don't get me wrong, the male to female ratio of the character select is still absolute trash. 15 characters, 4 female is a little rough. Especially as characters like Ms. Marvel would be amazing, and Gwen Pool would have matched with what they tried to turn She Hulk into. But that's a different article.
The characters we get though are pretty wild. Like we get characters like Captain America, Iron Man, Wolverine and Storm who are VERY familiar too us, especially considering a lot of their movements look like the sprites were just drawn over sprites from Marvel vs Capcom 2. But we get a lot of cool ones that normally don't get to see the light of day like Cosmic Ghost Rider and Beta Ray Bill.
And if you play in Arcade Mode they'll actually suggest two characters to play as that, if chosen, will give you extra scenes of dialogue and whatnot. And while She-Hulk has been turned into a nonsense machine, you get some cool hangouts like this unlikely pairing.
In closing
Listen, if you made it through "The Bad" and still read "The Good" this game will probably tickle you in some sort of way. It's a fun time despite it's flaws and, while it's definitely the shortest in terms of their many games when it comes to how fast you can unlock everything, it's still a good time.
If you had someone over or wanted to talk with a friend online and just played something that didn't take away from the conversation this is a good hang. You can even unlock a mode that stops the game from increasing the amount of enemies based off how many players so you can turn this into a chill hangout.
If you're looking for a little sometimes snack of button mashing, you could do worse. It's just weird to me that Dotemu didn't do more with this.
Also, goddamnit, Dotemu, give us playable Boom-Boom. She's already in the game in her original and terrible 90's costume and that's what we want/deserve. Give.
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