Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a 2d Beat-'Em-Up for Superheroes

Dotemu has been at the forefront of the revolution recently, and as of late, Retro-Style 2D has fallen back. Recent hits include updates to classic franchises such as Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles: Revenge of Shredder, Metal Sl Bone Tactics and Rage 4’s Streets, while the company’s transplant lineage also includes the Final Fantasy franchise, as well as multiple Neo Geo Geo titles.

The publisher dipped it in nostalgia twice in 2025, first with the ninja gaiden Ragebound and then with the Marvel Cosmic Invasion, the latest collaboration between Dotemu and Tribute Games. After a hands-on time with the new side-scrolling arcade superhero beats at the 2025 Summer Game Festival, the evolution of the revenge built in Shredder Revenge seems worthy of matching the superhero name it contains.

My demo began with me selecting two heroes from a group of available selections: Captain America, Nova, Storm, Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Gate. These seven heroes have unique moves and abilities, a step forward from the revenge of the shredder, and outside of the small nuances, every ninja tortoise you can control basically runs in the same way.

From there, I brought the vibrant duo to the streets of New York, where I immediately began to face the tribe who worked for the villain annihilus. You control one hero at a time and you can exchange them as you like. Each hero has multiple attacks, from fast poking to slow but powerful strikes, and actions they can perform in the air. You can also combine the attack buttons for super attacks at the expense of some health – this is a mechanic trapped in the history of 2D Beat-em-Up and I absolutely appreciate it for seeing it here again.

Choosing the right hero in the Marvel Universe Invasion seems very important, especially because of the unique attributes mentioned previously. For example, Nova flourished in long combat due to his energy wave attacks, while Wolverine prefers to stay intimate with his claws and powerful throwing attacks. You can also switch between two heroes in real time, which allows me to customize my offensive strategy based on what I am currently facing – if my enemy attacks, I need to switch to my long-term attacker.

This adds an extra strategy to each encounter, which helps the entire experience move from “unconscious buttons” to a more measurable approach, thus benefiting the game overall. This also allows tactical decisions – if my inactive personality is really low on health, I can call it a helping of an attack, which gives me room to breathe in particularly busy battles.

Fighting enemies look, sound and feel great, and it makes people feel satisfied when every strike is associated with an unfortunate enemy. Super attacks are particularly flashy because every enemy on the screen is wiped off the screen – I like Storm's power the most because it reminds me of her super action in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, but every hero's super attack has a certain talent.

The demo also had two boss fights, one of which was against the Little Beetle under the influence of one of Annihilus’s thralls, and Taskmaster was his normal mission supervisor self. Both boss fights follow the classic 2D Beat-'Em-up Boss Fighter recipe – the battles are played on stage with a huge health bar at the bottom, while the boss deals significant damage with powerful moves – and offers a nice challenge at the end of each stage.

However, I did notice that there was an extra wrinkle in each boss’s battle: each boss’s health bar had a blue frame around which I had to attack to remove before the red health bar would decrease. This represents a kind of “shield” that prevents me from causing direct damage, occasionally supplementing in different parts of the battle. Shield mechanics add more difficulties in combat – even if this difficulty is only equal to the value of attack for a few seconds – but I'm interested now that in the full release I'm interested in seeing how the tribute continues to iterate over the standard boss battle formula.

My time in the Marvel Cosmic invasion was exactly what I expected: I defeated a bunch of enemies, fought with some cool bosses, and bathed in the wave of 2D nostalgia, thanks to the talent of Tribute Games that can recreate old arcades. Although there are some new elements here, there are a variety of character abilities, extra elements in boss battles, and more – this feeling is still like a game I would have played and loved in my childhood. Make this feeling of nostalgia right, which will take a blow to the Marvel Universe invasion when it was finally launched, and so far Tribute has nailed it.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is scheduled to be released later this year on the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and PC.