Dotemu has been at the forefront of a revolution in retro-style 2D throwbacks as of late. Recent hits include updates to classic franchises like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Metal Slug Tactics, and Streets of Rage 4, while the company’s porting pedigree also includes the Final Fantasy franchise, as well as multiple Neo Geo titles.

The publisher is double-dipping into nostalgia in 2025, first with Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, and then with Marvel Cosmic Invasion, the latest collaboration between Dotemu and Tribute Games. After getting some hands-on time with the new sidescrolling arcade superhero beat-’em-up at Summer Game Fest 2025, the evolution of what the two companies built in Shredder’s Revenge so far seems worthy of the superhero names it includes.

My demo began with me selecting two heroes from a group of seven available choices: Captain America, Nova, Storm, Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Phyla-Vell. The seven heroes have distinct movesets and abilities–which is a step forward from Shredder’s Revenge, where outside of little nuances, each Ninja Turtle you could control functioned essentially the same way.

From there, I took my dynamic duo into the streets of New York, where I immediately began facing off against the hordes working for villain Annihilus. You control one hero at a time and can swap them at will. Each hero has multiple attacks, ranging from quick jabs to slow but powerful strikes, as well as an arsenal of moves they can execute in the air. You can also combine attack buttons for a super attack, at the cost of some health–which is a mechanic steeped in 2D beat-’em-up history that I absolutely appreciated seeing here again.

Choosing the right combination of heroes in Marvel Cosmic Invasion seems like it’s going to be very important, especially because of the previously-mentioned distinct attributes. Nova, for example, thrives on long-distance combat thanks to his energy wave attacks, while Wolverine prefers to be up close and personal with his claws and powerful throw attack. You can also switch between your two heroes on the fly, which allowed me to tailor my offensive strategy to the situation I was currently facing–if my enemies had ranged attacks, I needed to switch to my long-range attacker, for example.

This adds an extra layer of strategy to each encounter that helps the entire experience drift away from “mindless button-mashing” to a more measured approach, which benefits the game overall. It also allows for tactical decisions–if my inactive character was really low on health, I could instead call them in as an assist for a single attack, which gave me breathing room during a particularly hectic battle.

Fighting enemies looks, sounds, and feels great, with each individual strike making a satisfying “thud” when it connects with an unlucky enemy. The super attacks are particularly flashy, filling the screen with effects as every enemy on the screen is wiped out–I like Storm’s electricity the most, as it reminds me of her super move in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, but every hero’s super attack has a dash of flair to it.

The demo also featured two boss battles, one against the villain Beetle under the influence of one of Annihilus’s thralls, and one featuring Taskmaster just being his normal Taskmaster self. Both boss fights followed the classic 2D beat-’em-up boss fight formula–battles that played out in stages, with a giant health bar at the bottom, and the boss using powerful moves for big damage–and both offered a nice challenge at the end of each stage.

However, I did notice one extra wrinkle in each boss battle: each boss’s health bar had a blue frame around it, which I had to remove with attacks before the red health bar would decrease. This represented a sort of “shield” that prevented me from dealing direct damage, and which would occasionally refill at different parts of the fight. The shield mechanic added a bit more difficulty to the battle–even if that difficulty only amounted to a few extra seconds’ worth of attacks–but I’m now interested to see how Tribute will continue to iterate on the standard boss battle formula in the full release.

My time with Marvel Cosmic Invasion went exactly how I expected it to go: I beat up a bunch of enemies, fought some cool bosses, and bathed in a wave of 2D nostalgia thanks to Tribute Games’s talent for recreating the arcade feelings of old. While there are a few new elements at play here–more varied character abilities, extra elements in boss battles, and so on–this still feels like a game I would have played and loved in my childhood. Getting that nostalgic feeling right is what will make Marvel Cosmic Invasion a hit when it finally launches, and so far, Tribute has nailed it.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is scheduled to release later this year on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.