Dotemu has been on the forefront of a revolution in retro-style 2D throwbacks as of late. Current hits embody updates to traditional franchises like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Metallic Slug Techniques, and Streets of Rage 4, whereas the corporate’s porting pedigree additionally contains the Ultimate Fantasy franchise, in addition to a number of Neo Geo titles.
The writer is double-dipping into nostalgia in 2025, first with Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, after which with Marvel Cosmic Invasion, the newest collaboration between Dotemu and Tribute Video games. After getting some hands-on time with the brand new sidescrolling arcade superhero beat-’em-up at Summer season Sport Fest 2025, the evolution of what the 2 corporations in-built Shredder’s Revenge to this point appears worthy of the superhero names it contains.
My demo started with me choosing two heroes from a gaggle of seven obtainable selections: Captain America, Nova, Storm, Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Phyla-Vell. The seven heroes have distinct movesets and abilities–which is a step ahead from Shredder’s Revenge, the place exterior of little nuances, every Ninja Turtle you possibly can management functioned basically the identical method.
From there, I took my dynamic duo into the streets of New York, the place I instantly started dealing with off in opposition to the hordes working for villain Annihilus. You management one hero at a time and might swap them at will. Every hero has a number of assaults, starting from fast jabs to sluggish however highly effective strikes, in addition to an arsenal of strikes they’ll execute within the air. You may as well mix assault buttons for an excellent assault, at the price of some health–which is a mechanic steeped in 2D beat-’em-up historical past that I completely appreciated seeing right here once more.
Choosing the proper mixture of heroes in Marvel Cosmic Invasion looks like it is going to be essential, particularly due to the previously-mentioned distinct attributes. Nova, for instance, thrives on long-distance fight because of his power wave assaults, whereas Wolverine prefers to be up shut and private along with his claws and highly effective throw assault. You may as well swap between your two heroes on the fly, which allowed me to tailor my offensive technique to the state of affairs I used to be at present facing–if my enemies had ranged assaults, I wanted to modify to my long-range attacker, for instance.
This provides an additional layer of technique to every encounter that helps your entire expertise drift away from “senseless button-mashing” to a extra measured method, which advantages the sport general. It additionally permits for tactical decisions–if my inactive character was actually low on well being, I might as an alternative name them in as an help for a single assault, which gave me respiratory room throughout a very hectic battle.
Gallery
Preventing enemies seems to be, sounds, and feels nice, with every particular person strike making a satisfying “thud” when it connects with an unfortunate enemy. The tremendous assaults are notably flashy, filling the display screen with results as each enemy on the display screen is wiped out–I like Storm’s electrical energy essentially the most, because it jogs my memory of her tremendous transfer within the Marvel vs. Capcom sequence, however each hero’s tremendous assault has a splash of aptitude to it.
The demo additionally featured two boss battles, one in opposition to the villain Beetle underneath the affect of certainly one of Annihilus’s thralls, and one that includes Taskmaster simply being his regular Taskmaster self. Each boss fights adopted the traditional 2D beat-’em-up boss battle formula–battles that performed out in levels, with an enormous well being bar on the backside, and the boss utilizing highly effective strikes for giant damage–and each supplied a pleasant problem on the finish of every stage.
Nevertheless, I did discover one further wrinkle in every boss battle: every boss’s well being bar had a blue body round it, which I needed to take away with assaults earlier than the purple well being bar would lower. This represented a kind of “defend” that prevented me from dealing direct harm, and which might sometimes refill at completely different components of the battle. The defend mechanic added a bit extra issue to the battle–even if that issue solely amounted to some further seconds’ price of attacks–but I am now to see how Tribute will proceed to iterate on the usual boss battle formulation within the full launch.
My time with Marvel Cosmic Invasion went precisely how I anticipated it to go: I beat up a bunch of enemies, fought some cool bosses, and bathed in a wave of 2D nostalgia because of Tribute Video games’s expertise for recreating the arcade emotions of previous. Whereas there are just a few new components at play here–more diversified character skills, further components in boss battles, and so on–this nonetheless appears like a sport I might have performed and liked in my childhood. Getting that nostalgic feeling proper is what is going to make Marvel Cosmic Invasion successful when it lastly launches, and to this point, Tribute has nailed it.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is scheduled to launch later this yr on Xbox Collection X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Swap, and PC.