When I first got my hands on Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, I was instantly impressed with Arc System Works’ impeccable aesthetic and design. For an IP that can feel predominantly western, especially in recent media, seeing Marvel’s most iconic characters come to life in a distinctly Japanese style felt like a breath of fresh air. Wrapped up in this beautiful package is a 2D tag team-style fighting game that tries to appeal to both newcomers and veterans alike, and though the beginner experience can still feel overwhelming at times, I find myself thoroughly impressed with what Arc System Works has done here.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls doesn’t bury the lede. While I enjoyed all that sweet, sweet Magneto gameplay from my hands-on preview, I was more interested in checking out the game’s story mode, referred to as Episode Mode in-game. The game wastes no time in explaining the stakes: The Champion has arrived on Earth and threatens to destroy the entire planet as we know it. To prevent this from happening, Earth must send its best fighters to defeat The Champion and save the world. Episode Mode is broken up into five different storylines, each following one of the factions featured in Marvel Tokon.
I, of course, chose to start with the Unbreakable X-Men, which centers around Storm, Wolverine, Magik, and Danger. The stories are presented via comic book panels in motion, complete with full voice acting, and beautiful animated cutscenes reserved for major moments. The X-Men storyline, in particular, focuses on Storm’s struggle to be a good leader for her fellow mutants, while also reckoning with the undeniable fact that the rest of society shuns them. The storylines are simple for the most part, and rarely feature any in-depth commentary beyond what’s on the surface level, but it works.
Writer Kieron Gillen chose to keep things light and simple here, which I think was the right choice, as Marvel Tokon truly shines once you get into actually fighting other characters. Plus, watching Ms Marvel fangirl over the X-Men and telling them how cool they are is all the commentary I need.
While Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls‘ whole selling point is allowing you to take four characters into battle at once, that can feel extremely overwhelming for a newer player. The good news, then, is that you can get started just by learning how to play one character really well, then adding more characters to your roster and gameplan as you get better.
I started off with Wolverine and Ghost Rider, both of whom are considered a couple of the easier characters to play in Marvel Tokon. The latter, in particular, is a great mid-range fighter who’s able to zone out opponents with his chain and straight up throw a car at them, while also closing the distance quickly. Outside of Episode Mode, I spent a good deal of time in the tutorials learning combos and getting a more solid understanding of how these characters play. And to make things even easier, Marvel Tokon features easy bread-and-butter combos that only require you to press the same button in succession, or three of them in succession for a bit more variety and mix-ups.
This means that I wasn’t constantly getting hung up on memorizing button presses, which is a good thing, considering that things can get pretty complicated pretty quickly once you start thinking about adding other characters to your team.
When a match starts, you only get access to two characters on your team, which means that team order matters a lot here. You get access to the rest of them as the battle progresses when you land certain combos, break through a wall, or lose a round. Each time a team member gets added, your shared health bar gets a little bigger, and you gain an additional Assemble bar that lets you call for assists. This also means that Marvel Tokon attempts to even the field as much as possible. The losing player gets to access more of their resources, which can help turn the tables even in lopsided fights. I appreciated that level of consideration for newcomers especially, as even my competitive battles never felt completely one-sided, or like I never stood a chance.
I mean, I still got curb stomped by vastly superior players, don’t get me wrong, but in those cases, I appreciated the delusion of hope, nonetheless.
What I didn’t enjoy about the assist and tag-teaming system, even during my hands-on session, was that I needed to be quite precise with my button presses in a way that didn’t come naturally to me. I often felt like there was a bit of a delay with calling for assists, and it’s also important to keep in mind that the types of assists are different depending on how and when you call for them — immediately after an attack, or right after blocking, for instance. I’m sure it’s just a matter of practice, but don’t be discouraged if you find yourself struggling with the tag team mechanics. They are rather complex, and it will take you quite a bit of time to get into the flow of things.
Another piece of good news is that Marvel Tokon‘s tutorials are very extensive. There are lessons for each character’s combo, suggested follow-up moves, and more. You can tell that Arc System Works really put a lot of thought into designing each character, and these tutorials truly give you a comprehensive and well-rounded overview of how each one plays, and how they can fit into your gameplan. Like I’d mentioned previously, focus on getting good with just one character first, play a few matches with them to see where your gaps are, then check out the rest of the roster to see how they can help shore up those weaknesses. You don’t even need to master your secondary characters right off the bat either; just having a rudimentary knowledge of their areas of expertise should help tremendously.
Outside of Episode Mode and online play, I was delighted to see that Marvel Tokon also features other fun extra modes like a survival mode that tasks you with surviving against waves of enemies. I used to spend all my time in a similar mode in Tekken 2, just trying to see how far I could get on a single health bar, and getting that experience here again in Marvel Tokon has been very enjoyable. Then there’s Arcadia Rumble, which is a PvP mode where up to eight players gather in an arena, try to collect a bunch of stars, and beat up on each other in the process. This was less my speed, but I could certainly see other players having a lot of fun with it.
Overall, I feel the same way about Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls that I did when I first went hands-on with it. While uncompromising in its vision and design, Arc System Works also makes sure to give beginners all the tools they need to succeed. Coupled with a killer aesthetic and a variety of enjoyable modes, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is a fighting game triumph.
A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. You can check out our review policy here. Reviewed on PS5.
