I’ll readily admit that back when Dotemu and Tribute Games announced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, I was extremely skeptical. Many had tried and failed to recreate the magic of the classic Konami TMNT beat ’em ups, and even Konami itself can be counted in that number. Between that announcement and the game’s release, Konami revealed it would be releasing a huge collection of classic TMNT games around the same time as Shredder’s Revenge would be hitting. Why would I need a pretender when the real thing was going to be available?
I ate those words, hard. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge wasn’t just worthy of the original games, it surpassed them. It was one of my favorite games of 2022 and in my opinion is one of the most purely fun beat ’em ups ever made. As a result, my reaction to the announcement of Marvel Cosmic Invasion was considerably different. I had no doubt in my mind that Tribute and Dotemu would again deliver the goods. The only question was to what extent it would do so. Would it just be Shredder’s Revenge in a new skin? Would that… would that necessarily be a bad thing? Questions to ponder then, and questions to answer now.
To tackle perhaps the biggest thing first, I would say that in relatively broad strokes, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a lot like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. It’s still a sprite-based scrolling beat ’em up in the classic arcade style, and the basic flow and feel of the gameplay bears a strong resemblance to that game. You get the same choice of campaign or arcade modes, with the former having a leveling system for each of the heroes and the latter presenting a more straightforward experience. Tee Lopes is back making the tunes, and there’s a sweet opening animation. Taking all that into account, unless one has some aversion to the Marvel setting, I think those who enjoyed Shredder’s Revenge would also enjoy this game.
Still, there are a lot of differences here once we go down to a slightly more granular level. The fifteen playable characters on offer here vary considerably in their abilities when compared to the Turtles and their friends, and the gameplay has to take that into account. Some characters can fly, some can’t. Some rely on projectiles, while others are more into hand-to-hand fighting. Some will defend or parry hits while others are more agile and prefer to dodge. Some want to eat brains, others do not. Okay, maybe just the one there. There’s also that age-old problem of how to handle the really cool abilities. Players will want to spin some webs or fire repulsor blasts at their leisure, but if there are no limitations on those abilities then you’ll just have people zapping non-stop.
The flying characters can fly as much as they like, though the play area doesn’t scroll vertically. There are reasons to be up in the air, but there are also reasons to come down. As for powers that could be abused, each character is given a stock of power uses that refills on a cooldown timer. This amount varies from character to character, and some don’t have to worry about this at all. You’re really encouraged to use your full move sets with most characters, and there are a lot of good reasons to practice defending or evading as well. For example, a well-timed block of a projectile by Iron Man will give him a temporary period where he can spam repulsor blasts.
Characters really do play quite differently from each other, even more so than they did in Shredder’s Revenge. You get to pick two at a time and can swap between them as you like, along with being able to call your partner in for a timely attack. The campaign mode encourages you to try out everyone, as each stage has a canon pairing that the cutscenes and dialogue reference. The challenges for each stage are also mainly connected to those two characters. You’re free to choose whoever you like, though. If you want this to be a game about Beta Ray Bill and Rocket Raccoon cleaning up the cosmos on their own, that’s your prerogative.
There’s an additional incentive to play the campaign mode this time, as you’ll earn points that can be used to unlock some fun extras. These include new alternate colors for each hero, modifiers for arcade mode, some lore entries in a database section, and audio tracks from the game that you can listen to at your leisure. You can pretty much grind these out no matter what you do, but you’ll unlock things faster if you use a variety of characters. Might as well, right? The campaign also allows you to see every stage in one playthrough, while the arcade mode forces you to make choices at the various branches. That’s probably for the best, as playing every stage can take a while. The arcade mode feels about the length it should as a result of this structure.
As we saw in Shredder’s Revenge, Marvel Cosmic Invasion is packed full of fan service. Cameos, references, dialogue, and such all poke at the larger Marvel Universe. This is a game very aware of what Marvel means across multiple mediums and video gaming in particular. Some of the color variants are right out of Capcom’s fighting games, even. Comics fans will have lots to chew on, but fans of the movies, cartoons, and video games are also well-served. The core story itself is a wonderful romp through the world of Marvel. The choice of villain and storyline means it can’t be everything to everyone, but it fits in about as much as it can along the way.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbow bridges, though. First of all, if you enjoyed the six-player mayhem of Shredder’s Revenge, I’m afraid you’ll have to get by with just four players here. There’s more slowdown here than I’ve seen in any version of Shredder’s Revenge, which isn’t something I expected to see in the Switch 2 version of the game. I also felt that the game could have used something to break up all the combat. The vehicle stages in TMNT were nice palate cleansers, and there’s nothing really like that in Marvel Cosmic Invasion. I also feel some characters are very conspicuous by their absence, and I can’t help but think maybe a couple of them have been set aside for later DLC. I suppose we’ll see. I’m not too broken up about that, as a fifteen-character roster is also gigantic for a game of this genre.
Marvel Cosmic Invasion isn’t quite the gob-smacking surprise that Shredder’s Revenge was, but I suppose it really couldn’t be. It is, however, a more than worthy spiritual follow-up to that game, and it shows that if Tribute Games wishes to keep working in the beat ’em up space, it still has plenty to offer. For Marvel fans, this is the dream team-up arcade brawler that we never got, doing proper service to characters big and small from the pantheon of heroes. Yes, we’ve seen many of its tricks before, but when the result is this good, I think a second scoop is more than permissible. The only real drag on the game comes from the occasional bits of slowdown when things are at their most chaotic, but it’s not enough to hurt the game significantly. Another proper event for beat ’em up buddies.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Dotemu
