Marvel Cosmic Invasion
Genre: Arcade Brawler
Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local / Online)
The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference
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Review:
Marvel Cosmic Invasion is an Arcade-style Brawler released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. Developed by the folks at Tribute Games, probably best known for making the sublime Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, in Marvel Cosmic Invasion they look to bring a similar style of gameplay to Marvel’s top-tier characters like Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, and… er, Beta Ray Bill? Let’s have a look and see what we’re in for with this one.
Much as with Shredder’s Revenge, Cosmic Invasion starts with a solid presentation, featuring some really nice 2D pixel art visuals with good animation for all of these iconic (and sometimes somewhat less-than-iconic) characters, with plenty of fun background gags through the game’s various levels. I should note that the Nintendo Switch version of the game did have a bit of slowdown I noticed in busy spots, but it wasn’t so bad I felt it marred the game.
This is joined by an upbeat but somewhat forgettable soundtrack, and some excellent voice acting by a voice cast who often reprises roles from other media, such as Steve Blum, Alison Sealy-Smith, and Jennifer Hale reprising their roles as Wolverine, Storm, and Jean Grey from the 1990s X-Men cartoon and its more recent revival X-Men ’97, Josh Keaton reprising his role as the titular character from The Spectacular Spider-Man, Brian Bloom reprising his role as Captain America from The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes… this is a voice cast who are all extremely familiar with and iconic in these roles, and they all pull them off here admirably.
For the gameplay itself, this game has players selecting pairs of characters to swap back and forth between, a mechanic seemingly inspired by the Marvel Vs. Capcom games, and that works well here. you have a mix of fliers, projectile users, big bruisers, and scrapper-style characters, with some decent variety in character types, and with each character having a variety of ground moves, at least one air move, a special move, and an ultimate attack, along with dash, jump, dodge, and parry moves.
The core gameplay here is strong, and players are sure to find at least one or two characters they like. Personally, I found myself drawn to the combo-friendly Captain America and Cosmic Ghost Rider, but also enjoyed Wolverine, and I saw some potential in Rocket and She-Hulk too. But… oh yeah, about that…
The thing with this roster is, it’s a mix of Marvel’s big names and somewhat lesser-known characters. She-Hulk is here but not Hulk. Beta Ray Bill is here but not Thor. And less-dedicated Marvel fans may not even know who Phyla-Vell is. I think opinions will be split on whether the mix of less-known characters in place of established names is a good or bad thing, but it’s worth mentioning here.
Another issue is that some characters seem to have gotten more love here than others. Black Panther has an extremely limited selection of attacks, as does She-Hulk. In a pantheon where everyone is sure to have their favorites, some players will undoubtedly be disappointed that their character of choice is more limited than some other characters.
Another issue is repetitive enemies. Get ready to fight a lot of faceless AIM mooks, a lot of Sentinel robots, and an absolute ton of alien insect enemies. Look, I understand that it’s too much work to make every last enemy unique, but when the common enemies you fight who have the most personality are the AIM mooks whose faces are completely hidden, you have a problem, especially when the Marvel villain rogues gallery has such a wealth of potential enemies. When you’re in the Savage Lands and the only dinosaurs you encounter are stampeding triceratops you need to avoid and Sauron himself, it can’t feel like anything but a missed opportunity.
When it comes to the gameplay, I also find myself a bit disappointed that many of the heroes’ signature attacks are behind special attacks that have a finite number of uses before you run out. That Spider-Man can only shoot his web at enemies a half-dozen times before he can’t fire off any more is absurd – that’s kinda’ the main thing he does, after all. And an Iron Man who can only shoot a few lasers before he’s stuck punching everything just doesn’t feel like Iron Man. A few characters escape this fate, most notably melee characters like Wolverine and She-Hulk whose special moves involve grappling, and somehow Captain America and Rocket manage to keep an unlimited projectile attack while everyone else has to hoard them for special occasions. It just… doesn’t feel very “super”.
On top of all of this, the gameplay just doesn’t feel as fine-tuned as Shredder’s Revenge, with its superb dodge/snap-back and taunt/meditate. Here, the combo attacks you can enable by calling in your assist character are a good addition, but there’s nothing that feels quite as thoroughly thought-out as Shredder’s Revenge had.
In the end, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is still a solid Arcade Brawler, but it’s an uneven one in multiple ways – uneven in its roster, uneven in how much attention everyone in its roster has received, and uneven in some of the gameplay choices that have been made here. If you’re a Marvel fan looking for a good Arcade Brawler that might evoke nostalgia of the classic 1992 X-Men Arcade game… well, this doesn’t play much like that, but even so, I think you’ll enjoy this. For everyone else, I think this is a solid choice, but it doesn’t come close to the peak of what this genre has to offer.
tl;dr – Marvel Cosmic Invasion is an Arcade-style Brawler that has players playing as pairs of characters from the Marvel franchise like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America. This is a solid entry in the genre, but it’s also an uneven one, with some lacking areas in its gameplay, repetitive enemies, and other issues that make this feel a bit disappointing in some places. It’s still a fun Brawler, but it’s well short of the best games in the genre.
Grade: B
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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference
Marvel Cosmic Invasion (Nintendo Switch 2)
Genre: Arcade Brawler
Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local / Online)
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Review:
Marvel Cosmic Invasion released simultaneously on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 with no upgrade path for players who bought the former and want the latter. With this in mind, let’s see how much of a difference the platform makes when playing this game.
In short… not much. I didn’t notice the same slowdown the Nintendo Switch version of the game had. And the loading times were cut down, with the Nintendo Switch version taking 30 seconds to load the main menu and another 5 seconds to load up the tutorial level, compared to 15 seconds and 4 seconds in the Nintendo Switch 2 version. But honestly, I wonder if you’d see these same improvements on Nintendo Switch 2 with the original Nintendo Switch version. You know what? Let me check… okay, it’s close – the Nintendo Switch version played on Nintendo Switch 2 takes 19 seconds and 4 seconds to load, not much different.
In other words, I don’t think there’s much reason to get the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game at all unless you know you’ll only ever want to play it on Nintendo Switch 2 and you can get it at the same price or lower than the Nintendo Switch version. These two versions are so similar it’s not worth worrying about which version to get as long as it will work on your game console of choice.
tl;dr – Marvel Cosmic Invasion is an Arcade-style Brawler that has players playing as pairs of characters from the Marvel franchise like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America. This is a solid entry in the genre, but it’s also an uneven one, with some lacking areas in its gameplay, repetitive enemies, and other issues that make this feel a bit disappointing in some places. It’s still a fun Brawler, but it’s well short of the best games in the genre.
Grade: B
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