MARVEL COSMIC INVASION

DotEmu seems to have found its niche in classic beat 'em ups that the audience receives warmly. After Streets of Rage 4, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge and of course Absolum, all of them successful in critic scores and sales, now it's the turn of Marvel Cosmic Invasion to continue the company's impressive streak.

The game's story, which is admittedly of little importance here, follows the Annihilation event from the comics in which the evil Annihilus emerges from the Negative Zone and threatens the entire universe. Marvel's heroes assemble to stop him by beating him and his minions in every corner of the galaxy, from New York and the Savage Land to Asgard and the kingdom of the king of symbiotes, Knull. The two main game modes in Marvel Cosmic Invasion are the campaign (with linear progression from stage to stage and save progression) and the arcade mode, which is reminiscent of the classic beat 'em ups we used to play as kids on arcade machines with lives and continues. Each stage has its own challenges and secrets, the completion of which rewards you with lore tidbits, new color palettes, various modes for arcade mode and other such goodies. In both campaign and arcade mode we can play with up to four players in total, either in local or online co-op.

Two are the elements that the developers (Tribute Games Inc.) really excelled at: the design of the graphics, especially the characters, and the differentiation of the available superheroes in terms of gameplay. I don't need to say much about the graphics, you can see the result for yourselves in the screenshots. The characters look like they jumped straight out of the pages of 1990s comics and it's clear that the developers' main inspiration for the overall style were the classic Marvel fighting games by Capcom and Konami, which adds a strong sense of nostalgia. The first time I saw Iron Man pull out a huge Proton Cannon for his special move and shout "repulsor blast!" as he bombarded his enemies with repulsors, my mind wandered back to the days when I used to play Marvel Super Heroes with my brother for hours on end. The pixel art on all the characters is fantastic, the animation is wonderful and although the stages are relatively small in size they are full of wonderful details and Easter eggs for comic book fans. The music also takes us back to the 90s with electronic sounds that beautifully accompany the action, although I can't say that any of the tracks particularly stuck in my memory.

The gameplay is also very good and the developers have added greater depth through the additional moves that characters can perform compared to previous DotEmu games. Each superhero has their own style; some are better at close combat, others can fly, others rely on tanking, some have powerful ranged abilities while the defensive options with dodges or parries depending on the character are also interesting. All superheroes are designed in a way that echoes their fighting style in the comics. For example Captain America uses his shield for ranged attacks and defense, She-Hulk fights like a wrestler with powerful strikes and grabs while characters like Spider-Man and Black Panther move quickly and excel at dodging. In both campaign and arcade mode each player chooses two characters that can be switched instantly at the touch of a button and there is also the option to perform assists or combo moves. Overall I was almost completely satisfied with the gameplay and the only issues I found were related to the difficulty level. The difficulty in the campaign could be a little higher for a more interesting challenge and in arcade mode there are difficulty levels available, but I would like to see an extra level between medium (relatively easy) and hard (quite a bit more difficult).

All in all, we have another high-quality beat 'em up game from DotEmu that will take you on a trip down memory lane to the 90s when you used to feed coins into X-Men, Marvel Super Heroes, and Marvel vs Capcom arcede machines. Marvel fans will enjoy it even more because of the impressive work that has been done on the graphics and character animation but Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a very good choice for beat 'em up fans anyway, whether they are Marvel fans or not. A purchase recommendation is a given; the price at which you decide to buy it depends on the type of player you are. The hardcore gamer who wants to upgrade all the characters, complete the challenges, unlock all the collectibles, and "melt" the arcade mode at all difficulty levels and in multiplayer will find plenty of value even at full price. If, on the other hand, you plan to buy it to play the campaign once and leave it at that, then I would say you should wait for a discount as the stages are relatively short and the total duration does not exceed 3-5 hours for a campaign playthrough. In this case, for greater value, you should probably turn to Absolum and its roguelite structure.

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