Marvel Cosmic Invasion is a joyous game to play, that much I’ll tell you up front. Made by Tribute Games and Dotemu it’s a proper romp in classic beat ’em up style. Waves of goons assault you from both sides as you punch, kick, and blast your way through. It’s radical, and I mean that in the era-appropriate meaning of the word. In fact, I’m starting to feel strongly that Marvel games are best when radical.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is as much a classic style side scrolling action game as it is as hand-written sonnet to the comics and cartoons of times long past. Characters slap on the ‘ol spandex, Iron Man soars through levels in hot red and yellow, She Hulk charges through the monitor with a one-two punch of green and purple. The eyes are pleased, the ears perk up to bitpop tunes and all is right with the world.

The story, too, is a cartoon level deep cut. Your team of Marvel heroes battle against Annihilus, who assaults earth from the Negative Zone with an army of otherworldly forces at his back. It’s all very Yesterday’s X-Men, a reminder of older joys. You’re thrust into the arms of a space-faring adventure and you don’t care that it’s all a bit rushed. She-Hulk shouts “catch these hands” as they elbow drop from the top of the screen and enemies are sent sprawling across the floor. Ghost Rider, packing a glass space helmet for his skull face, rides a motorbike across the screen with blazing blue tires. A little cheesy? Sure. But who cares? It’s fun.

God. I’m so thankful Marvel is fun again. With this, Marvel Rivals, and Marvel Tokon, the franchise has unchained itself from big-budget movies and triple-A cinematic aesthetics that can rob the franchise of its vigour. What do I mean by that? Marvel at its best is meant to be cheesy, cartoonish. Its characters can lose all charm when you strip their roots away from them. Marvel Cosmic Invasion is the opposite: I’ve had a bigger grin on my face playing Iron Man here than I’ve had in any other Marvel game over the past ten years.

It’s strange too, because I’ve not got a particularly strong personal connection to the era of Marvel that Cosmic Invasion is holding up on a pedestal here. I’m 27 years old, which means I never really got to play the arcade classics. I remember playing a bit of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker, maybe? But even so, I can look at the classics and see the connection, I can see hallmarks of the genre, and see how they’ve been championed here.

The thing is, so true is Marvel Cosmic Invasion’s love for this era that you get a sort of phantom nostalgia playing it. I get it. The game takes you on a ride, and if you stick your hands up and scream like you’re meant to, you’re taken back to a time you could never actually remember.

You just can’t get that feeling if you simply try to emulate the super hero movies. I’m so glad that games like Marvel Cosmic Invasion are still coming out and representing a style of hero media that treats those heroes as what they are. I’d recommend it to anyone, young or old, with real nostalgic memories or mere phantom ones, just as a reminder of what these characters, what these stories, are all about.