The beat ’em up genre is one of gaming’s oldest and most beloved genres dating back to the fun of the arcade days and  having four players crowded around a machine. Now, Tribute Games is holding the mantle as one of the best developers of beat ’em up games with the likes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge a few years ago. At Summer Games Fest last week, we got to go hands-on with their upcoming game Marvel Cosmic Invasion which is shaping up to be something special.

We got to spend about 30 minutes with the game playing through two levels of the game. Then, we were able to choose between seven of the fifteen character roster as the full roster has still yet to be fully revealed. We also didn’t get to play as either of the two new characters She-Hulk and Rocket Raccoon revealed during the Summer Games Fest showcase. From the small roster, each player was able to choose two characters that they can switch between at any time or use the current second character for specific moves at the touch of a button. The overall gameplay is what you would expect from a beat ’em up game, but the developers have fine tuned the formula, and this game feels great to pay as your plowing through screens and more screens full of enemies and boss encounters.

A day before Summer Games Fest, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls from Arc System Works with its own take on the Marvel style. I asked the developers how they decided to go with a more comic book aesthetic for the characters as opposed to going in a more stylish direction. Their response was that they wanted to go more in line with what would fit from a arcade perspective and be similar to the 90s era cartoons. Their big thing was that they wanted to bring attention to and highlight characters they specifically loved like She-Hulk or Nova (who the developer really wanted to make sure had his mullet in the game) From every aspect you can see the effort and love the developers have for the genre and Marvel in general.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion is set to release on most platforms later this year. You can see our full interview with the game’s Narrative Designer, Yannick Belzil, below: