It’s hard to overstate just how highly anticipated Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls was among the fighting game community. In every major circle online and in person, people were clamouring to get their hands on the newest 2D Marvel fighter. Capcom’s foray into the Marvel fighting games helped cement characters like Spider-Man, Hulk and Captain America as icons in the genre. Having played thousands of hours of Marvel VS Capcom 3 myself, literally, I can tell you that I mostly view Marvel as a fighting game property. When I learned that Arc System Works would be taking the reins alongside PlayStation, my ears perked up. I’ve never been particularly great at previous Arc System Works games: Dragon Ball FighterZ, Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, etc. But I knew that a game featuring some of my favourite fighting game icons would be more than enough to bring me in and finally give getting good a proper college try. I am thrilled to say that I have finally made some actual progress, and I’m more thrilled to say that I love this game and I think it’s the best fighting game since Street Fighter 6.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is a 4v4 tag-team fighting game loaded with Marvel heroes and villains. The mainstays are here, including Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and The Hulk. They’ve also included Magik and Peni Parker, who have both gained major popularity due to the immense success of Marvel Rivals. Tokon’s roster is actually split right down the middle. 10 of the characters have previously been in a fighting game, whereas 10 (11 if you count the secret character) have never been featured in a fighting game. Characters like Blade and Carnage have been fan picks to be in previous Marvel fighting games for years. Arc Sys decided to answer those prayers, but they also wanted to throw in a few oddballs like Danger, Loki and Green Goblin to really keep the roster feeling dynamic. Personally, this is an all-timer of a starting roster. We’ve already got Phoenix Cyclops announced as DLC, which makes me excited for every other weird-ass pick they’ve got up their sleeves.
A brand new fighting game tends to live and die through its launch roster. If a game doesn’t have very interesting characters, then people won’t feel compelled to give it a shot. If the game has an overwhelmingly overpowered character that appears on every single team, that isn’t fun to play and can easily turn people off. It’s hard to nail the perfect balance between making each character interesting and unique and making them rewarding and fun to play without giving them too many advantages over everyone else. I think what Tokon does best is it makes every single character viable, interesting, and satisfying to play.
For someone that has been into fighting games as long as I have, there is something so intoxicating about learning the ins and outs of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. While there are many things the game does that others do, it’s also got a bunch of bizarre little mechanics and weirdness that takes some time to learn. Each character has a “unique” button that demonstrates exactly what I’m talking about. It allows each hero/villain to incorporate their specific abilities into their movesets. Captain America turns his shield into a projectile and can use his own attacks to bounce it all over the screen. Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel use their webs and arms respectively to whip themselves across the screen. They can also use them to extend combos and to get out of rough positions. Green Goblin’s unique is probably my favourite, as it calls in the iconic glider that he can then hop on and ride around the entire arena. The number of ways each character can use their unique abilities to add onto their combos and to adapt to situations is what sets Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls apart from other fighters in the current landscape. Each character lets you live out their power fantasy in ways that other fighting games just haven’t been able to match lately. Finding ways to maximize the potential of the entire roster, then using that information to build a team, is complete and utter euphoria.
What does not bring me joy, however, has been the online experience. Fighting games only last as long as their player base lasts, and people don’t want to play a game that has frustratingly unresponsive servers and lag during matches. I received a review copy of the game for my PlayStation 5, but I also decided to pick it up on Steam because I like to play games on my computer. I played both versions for many, many hours (whoops) and have noticed a pretty major difference between them in how their online play works. The version available on Steam requires a PlayStation login to play. I’m not just talking about a login to play online; you have to be able to log in to play offline as well. This means that if Sony ever has any issues with their servers, it will also impact the PC players as well.
I have a pretty spectacular internet connection at my house, and I seldom have issues playing online games. Playing on Steam has been a massive pain in the ass. The game takes up way too much CPU and also has all the Sony stuff running in the background, which causes slowdown. You need a weirdly high-powered rig to run the game at a proper 60fps, but even then it might drop frames every now and then during certain animations. This is a major issue when playing online because everyone has a different PC/laptop with different capabilities. If someone’s game can’t hit 60fps, then it slows the entire game down. It can sometimes feel like you’re playing a game that takes place underwater, and that really hurts the enjoyment. Not to mention the shoddy server problems that are, thankfully, already being worked on. When you put those two things together, it turns Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls into a complete coinflip of a game. Playing on PlayStation and shutting off cross-play means you’re only going against other PS5 players, so everyone is at least on the exact same technical playing field. It just boils down to internet connection at that point, as it does in every other fighting game.
If Arc System Works is making a game, then you know it’s going to have some extremely stylish production and presentation. Even when you aren’t in a match, the menus and UI just pop right off the screen. They’ve got so much readability and personality that can easily be forgotten about when so much work has been put into the gameplay. The music is also a real standout, much like all Arc Sys games. The game’s 21 characters each have their own bespoke theme that really sells the fantasy each one brings to the table. I do wish there were a few more stages, but the ones that we do have are absolutely stunning. My favourite has got to be Asgard, which is littered with rainbows, floating islands and majestic backdrops.
On top of all this, there’s even a really dope story mode told across 5 episodes, each starring a team. The story was penned by Kieron Gillen, a beloved Marvel Comics writer known for his work on Immortal X-Men and Eternals. The game is extremely well written for a fighting game. You can tell that Marvel really wanted the game to mean something to comic fans, and I think that they were able to deliver on that. There’s a particular interaction between Captain America and Green Goblin that I really liked! I also loved every single moment Loki was featured. Loki is on a bit of a character redemption arc in the story, and he’s being blamed Thor having gone missing. He teams up with Blade, Ghost Rider and Deadpool to clear his name, and even winds up turning against the other villains on Doom’s team. It’s a way more interesting and inspired story than I was expecting.
If it wasn’t completely obvious, I think you should absolutely grab Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls if you’re interested – I love this game so much. I can see myself playing it for years to come. It’s apparent that the fighting game community is also in love with the game, and will continue to support it as long as Arc System Works continues to release characters and balance updates for it, much like they have with Guilty Gear Strive. I cannot wait to see what Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls looks like 5 years from now. The game is further proof on top of a mountain of proof that Marvel superheroes just work so well in fighting games. Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls gets an emphatic recommendation from me, and will definitely find itself on my favourite games of the year list in December.
