Finally, a game that makes Marvel superheroes exciting again

Superheroes so rarely feel right in modern videogames. The spandex-clad stars of my favourite comics don't grind for endgame loot, they don't waste their time on pointless sidequests, and they don't fight the same grey robots over and over.

Heading into my first hands-on with Marvel Cosmic Invasion, I knew it'd be a good 2D beat-'em-up—developer Tribute Games Inc proved its chops with excellent throwback Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, and I expected to be satisfied with basically the same again with a Marvel skin over the top. What I didn't expect is how properly super it would feel.

Pick any of the game's 15 (!) playable characters, load up a level, and within seconds you're kicking ass in that hero's signature style. Wolverine leaps halfway across the screen to stab enemies to pieces. She-Hulk snatches flying foes right out of the air and chokeslams them down into the pavement. Rocket Raccoon blasts out a furious barrage of lasers, grenades, and landmines wherever he goes.

Despite simple, accessible movesets—everyone basically just has an attack, a special, a defend, and a super move, and air and dashing variants of those—each character feels uniquely powerful.

As Captain America, you're a master of defence and controlling the fight, with long-range shield throws for crowd control, and a sturdy block that can parry with the right timing and deflect projectiles. Spider-Man instead has a far-reaching dodge and a web-swing that can traverse most of the screen through the air, allowing him to constantly out-maneuver enemies. Meanwhile, Nova is a master of keep-away, firing long-range laserbeams, flying above foes' heads, and raining down on key targets with an absolutely glorious divekick.

The tag team system allows those differences to play into your strategy in a meaningful way. You can play as a team of up to four in co-op, but each player also gets to choose two characters, and swap between them at will. You can certainly just pick your two favourites and have a blast, but there are also tactical combinations to be found.

Spider-Man's dodge, for example, makes him excellent at dealing with shield enemies. They can't be damaged from the front and make powerful charging attacks, but he can easily get behind them and pummel their vulnerable backs. But he's not so well-equipped to take on a horde of lesser foes, at which point switching to Phyla-Vell and using her brilliantly wide sword swings to clear the field can make the encounter a breeze. (No, I hadn't heard of her either, but I'm swiftly warming to her.)

Those specialities help give each hero their time to shine and show off—and they make the tag team system feel like a meaningful tool in your arsenal as you fight to keep that perfect combo.

The cherry on top is the crisp, colourful pixel-art animation. With no obligation to make its heroes look realistic or tacticool, Cosmic Invasion can just embrace their personalities with the stretchy exuberance of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Rocket leaps around wildly like a feral animal, Venom drags himself along with distorted arms and warps into different forms, and Storm spins herself into whirlwind drill attacks. It's just so fun seeing these characters so completely off the leash.

Amidst all that creativity and chaos, however, the core beat-'em-up formula is very familiar. Like Shredder's Revenge, it's a modern take on the genre, taking out a lot of the old inconveniences and sprinkling in modern improvements, but it's not experimental in the way that Absolum's mix of beat-'em-up with roguelike is. From what I've played, you walk from left to right, you beat up bad guys, you eventually reach a boss, and then you move on to the next level—just like in the arcades.

In other words, if you're not already on board with the genre, Cosmic Invasion's probably not going to convert you. But that familiar structure does feel like a blessing here—it's simple and comfortable enough that the focus can all be on how the powers and attacks of the heroes break the usual rules, rather than on learning new systems or picking your way through RPG-like progression.

Like a lot of you out there, the Marvel brand doesn't tend to summon a lot of excitement in me these days—but I couldn't be more eager to dive back into Cosmic Invasion and see more of its heroes in action. In a genre all about replayability, I can't wait to beat the forces of evil with every single one of these goofy, exciting, super characters.