The worst thing about loving beat 'em ups is that most of them are stranded on arcade boards or long-defunct consoles. Marvel is no exception to this issue, with games like Captain America and the Avengers, Konami’s X-Men, and Maximum Carnage all unavailable on modern systems. But if, like me, you need a fix of sidescrolling co-op bad-guy punching more than you need a fifth Avengers movie, you may be in luck: the team behind the excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge just unveiled the newest arcade brawler from the House of Ideas.
Revealed during today's Nintendo Direct, Marvel: Cosmic Invasion certainly looks the part of an arcade classic. It’s silky smooth pixel art all the way down, with a hand-drawn animated intro straight out of a Saturday morning cartoon. The character selection is refreshingly old-school as well, balancing out heavy hitters like Wolverine and Spider-Man with deep cuts like Nova and Phyla-Vell. Whereas most 2D brawlers have as many characters as there are spots on the cabinet, give or take a couple, Cosmic Invasion will have a healthy 15 fighters to take on baddies with.
That may sound unnecessary, but the game revolves around a tag-team mechanic where each player selects a team of two, which a press release notes should allow for "distinct superpowers and special attacks to create unique team-ups." It’s hard to know how deep the rabbit hole goes, but I felt Shredder’s Revenge lacked a particularly deep combo system, so this sort of potential for experimentation sounds promising.
While beat 'em ups can fall into the rut of being mindless button mashers, a subtle learning curve can go a long way in fostering replayability and spicing up the action with some tactics. Not that best-laid plans last very long in the chaos of a multiplayer lobby, of course, but a full co-op game with four players all swapping between heroes and unleashing half the roster on a screen’s worth of goons sounds like my kind of good time anyway.
This will be the second time developer Tribute Games has teamed with publisher Dotemu on a beat 'em up. The two previously worked together on Shredder's Revenge, and that apparently paved the way for this new partnership, with Dotemu CEO Cyrille Imbert saying in the press release: "After witnessing Tribute Games' unwavering devotion to the fans and passion for beloved characters firsthand throughout the development of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, we knew teaming up with them for a modern evolution of arcade-style Marvel action was the only choice."
With all this, more Streets of Rage, and a Golden Axe revival on the way, the novelty of these games as throwbacks is starting to wear off, but it’s hard to complain as long as they’re good. Cosmic Invasion has a planned release in 2025 and can be wishlisted on Steam.
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