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Nicholas Taylor
published 1 hour ago / 206 views
Marvel Space Invasion this is very much a game in the same vein as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge, One of the key features of the return is co-op play, which can involve up to four players working their way through stages of the game together, which can be done locally or online. Personally, I spent most of my time playing locally with a few friends, which for me is the ideal way to play these types of games.
Being based on Marvel comics means there are literally thousands of potential characters when choosing your roster, and although Marvel Space Invasion doesn't offer a playable roster of this magnitude, it features a whopping 15 heroes to choose from, 11 of which are available from the start and the rest are unlocked as you progress through stages. The selection is a good variety of the expected main characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America, mixed in with some very niche and deep cuts like Beta Ray Bill, Phyla-Vell and Cosmic Ghost Rider. On a personal level, there were very few of my favorites in the game, but looking at the cast through an objective lens, it's hard to deny that there is a lot of variety here (though I would be remiss to mention that the game focuses on Annihilus as the main villain). Really should include at least someone from Fantastic Four).
While the gameplay is very similar to Tribute Games' previous title, it definitely adds a few new bells and whistles. Marvel Space Invasionthe main one is active switching between characters. The player chooses two different characters and can actively switch between them during gameplay or simply use the other one to use assist attacks to extend your combos – something that should definitely be familiar to fans of Marvel games, given the company's long history with team-based fighting games, including the famous Marvel vs Capcom row.
This is where the size of the cast really comes into play, and in a genre where the character moves are pretty much the same for the most part, there's actually quite a bit of nuance here between the different Marvel heroes. Some can fly, some have limited ammo that needs to be reloaded, and overall there's a lot of variety in how each character can be played, making replays that much more rewarding. Add to that simply testing how well different heroes interact with each other, as well as having up to three friends join in with their own combos, and you've got some really surprising replay value, even though the campaign itself isn't particularly long (it took me and my friends somewhere between four and five hours to finish our first run through the campaign).
As you play the game, you earn Cosmic Cubes, an in-game currency that can be exchanged for rewards. Some of these rewards are alternate colors for your heroes, many of which are direct references to various costumes from their long history or even in some cases references to other characters, but there are also music tracks, lore pages, and arcade modifiers that can be unlocked. These arcade modifiers provide even more replay value by allowing you to place certain restrictions on replays in arcade mode, where you no longer have continues available (unlike story mode, where you can keep trying even if you die), so adding even more challenges on top of that is definitely aimed at hardcore gamers who want that extra level of challenge.
While the gameplay is definitely aimed at beat-'em-up enthusiasts, there's plenty for casual Marvel fans to enjoy as well, with a variety of different villains and character cameos from all corners of the Marvel Universe. Everything from niche Spider-Man villain Bug to potentially world-class threats like Galactus appears, and even for someone like me who has been a fanatical reader of Marvel comics since my teens, I couldn't quite pin down every character, so like the game's roster, there's a healthy mix of the expected big names and deep cuts.
Overall, it's a great experience, especially when you have friends joining you, and while the price isn't that high, it's a little high for how short the main game mode is. If you genuinely enjoy the genre, or think you and your friends will want to play through the game's 16 stages multiple times, then the game is definitely worth it. However, if you see yourself only wanting to do one playthrough and then move on, you might want to think twice about the cost versus gameplay ratio.
However, I will say that even if you only want to play once in the game's campaign, it's a very fun experience, and if you get creative with combining attacks, you can even do some wild things. Perhaps the most notable event for my group was that one of my friends managed to loop Wolverine's capture on the final boss Annihilus to the point where he couldn't even move during our fight with him. It was a slow process, but seeing the final boss completely helpless in the face of our collective juggling act was a fun highlight of the game, and it's a gaming memory I won't forget anytime soon.
This review is based on the NS2 digital copy of Marvel Cosmic Invasion.
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