For many fighting game fans, It’s impossible to look at Marvel Tokon and not think of Marvel Vs. Capcom.
The crossover series defined the crossover tag genre, from X-Men Vs. Street Fighter in 1996 to Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 in 2011. For some who didn’t read comics as a kid, myself included, these games were the introduction to the X-Men, Avengers, and other Marvel faces that fought alongside Capcom’s top characters.
With MvC dormant outside of a recent collection, Arc System Works has swooped in with Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, its own take on the Marvel tag fighter idea. The result is a wonderful fighting system and flashy new look that quickly establishes its own identity, one that is worthy of standing with the giants of the past–although the PC version isn’t as super as the heroes in the game.
Fantastic four
Marvel Tokon’s four-on-four gameplay is its most radical change to the tag format, but not for the reasons I first expected. Previous experience would suggest that each player would choose four fighters, each with their own life bar, and the first player to knock out all four of the opposing player’s team members would win. That’s not how Tokon works; instead, each of the four heroes shares a single life bar, and the first player to win three-out-of-five rounds takes the match.
This is a fundamental and ingenious shift in how the player interacts with their team; one player could choose to keep their best fighter on point and select their assisting heroes to fit that fighter’s style, or they could decide to learn four characters and incorporate tags into their strategy. It allows newer fighting game players to ease into the tag format, while entrenched players can immediately lean into the more advanced elements of the system. For a genre that sometimes struggles to find the balance in catering to new and veteran players alike, Arc System Works nailed it with Tokon’s fighting scheme.
Both approaches are impacted by another interesting design choice. Though you choose four fighters before a match, you only start the match with two active: a point character and one assist character. The other two assists have to be unlocked during the match, either by initiating a wall break (a move which slams an opponent into the boundary, “breaking” it and sending the character to another arena) and “assembling” your fighters in other parts of the stage, or by losing a round and gaining a hero as the next round begins.
While “not having access to all selected fighters” sounds like it could be detrimental to the experience, Tokon once again exceeds my expectations. Limiting heroes is a form of balancing each match; Round 3 could start with one player up 2-0 with only two characters and the other down 0-2 with a full team. Giving the 0-2 player access to all four assists allows them to be more versatile in their approach and perhaps stage a comeback. However, in doing so, that player with the early lead slowly assembles their team, and if the match becomes 2-2, it’s a full-strength slugfest in the final round. Every match is different, yet equally thrilling; I am astounded at what Arc was able to do here.
Controlling each fighter is simplified too, as executing special moves adapts the Super Smash Bros. “button press and directional input” approach. There are some more advanced inputs for those who care to learn them, but the first time you pick up a controller, two buttons will let you perform a unique move.
Assists work the same way, but by holding L2 when the assist emerges, you can switch to that character immediately and continue the combo. I feel like the words “easy to learn, hard to master” were plastered all over Arc System Works’s Yokohama office, because that’s the prevailing sense I get from every aspect of Tokon’s approach, and it’s tremendously successful at it.
Choose your fighter
The initial roster features 20 characters, which is small by tag fighter standards–Ultimate Marvel 3, for example, had 50 playable fighters out of the box–but it’s a number that further contributes to that aforementioned balance. New players have a more manageable pool of character matchups to learn, while veteran players can find their favorites more quickly and move on to honing their skills.
The roster is a mix of expected fan favorites and few interesting pulls, though I would say very few of the selections are truly unexpected. Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Magneto, and Doctor Doom are all here, while Carnage, Star-Lord, Blade, and Loki make their Marvel fighting game debut. The most obscure pull, if I had to choose, is Danger–I didn’t even know the X-Men’s training facility became sentient, so Marvel fighting games continue to introduce me to new characters.
Deadpool deserves a paragraph all to himself. While his inclusion is not a surprise due to his massive popularity, the way Arc System Works has incorporated his fourth-wall-breaking nature is a master class. The character is a tribute to fighting game history in character form, and every match has me pointing at the screen like a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood meme. Some of the references are obvious–yes, that’s Scorpion’s spear from Mortal Kombat, everyone knows that–but I was amazed at just how deep the well of references goes. I doubt many newer players know what Kaiser Knuckle is, but if they see that one Deadpool pose and look it up, then mission accomplished, Arc System Works.
My personal favorite characters are Peni Parker, as I really enjoy her ability to fill the arena with drones as a distraction before moving in for big damage, and Ms. Marvel, whose Dhalsim-like stretchy appendages mean that my opponent is never truly safe anywhere on the screen. Black Panther (the Shuri version this time; sorry, T’Challa) has also proven to be fun, but the one fighter I can’t figure out is Green Goblin; I know the glider is a big part of his approach, but I haven’t yet unlocked the best ways to do that. I suspect I’ll learn the hard way from some player online soon enough.
Rules of battle
Tokon offers a lot of ways to play, in both single-player and online multiplayer, and while mode selection at first seems a bit limited, Arc System Works once again avoids a regular fighting game pitfall by packing these modes with enough activities that they don’t feel shallow. Episodes mode tells five different stories, one for each of the four teams featured in Tokon’s trailers, and each one animated by a different artist. I didn’t need more than an hour to complete each one, and they tell the overarching story of Tokon in fun ways.
The other main single-player offering is All-Star Arena, which is split into two sections: Arena and Survival. Arena is the closest Tokon gets to offering a traditional “arcade” experience: You’ll choose a team, choose a path, and then battle against random teams before getting to the end of your chosen path. Survival is a gauntlet of up to 100 battles, with health regeneration between each match and superpowered “boss” fighters at certain milestones. Both of these are fine ways to hone your skills against CPU teams of varying difficulty, but there isn’t anything here that reinvents the wheel.
Arcadia Rumble takes a different approach, as it mixes standard matches with a small arena-style challenge where players roam around a small area, collecting items to earn points and power up their characters for normal battles, and whoever has the most points wins. It’s enjoyable enough in small bursts, and it makes for a cool party-style experience when a group wants something different from the ordinary online experience, but it didn’t grab me as much as I’d hoped. I’d rather skip right to the fighting; the item-searching part just feels extraneous.
The online experience also checks the usual boxes, with ranked matches, casual matches, and custom private lobbies all on offer. There’s also an Open Lobby, where you explore a chibi-style version of Tokon’s world with customizable avatars and arcade machines where you challenge other players. Exploring the open lobby is neat, as there are some little minigames to find outside of the normal Tokon matches, but the real thrill is matching up with another player and throwing down on one of the open arcade machines. Technically, all of the machines could fill up, but I have yet to see that myself.
I played a handful of matches in each offering, joining up with some friends in a custom room, challenged random players in ranked and casual matches, and explored the Open Lobby. Online connections were strong thanks to the rollback netcode under the hood, and I rarely saw any technical hiccups at all while playing on PlayStation 5.
It’s here where the PC version of Tokon must be mentioned, as its launch has been, to put it lightly, disastrous. Connection issues, choppy play both online and offline, and other issues have plagued PC players since the game’s launch, and while patches have been released that are beginning to alleviate the issues, the troubles they experienced cannot be discounted. As mentioned, I reviewed the game on PS5, so I did not experience those problems for myself, but until those issues are fully resolved, PC players will continue to have a much different experience than I did. If Arc System Works can turn it around, the wait will have been worth it.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls feels like a homecoming. Marvel heroes and villains are once again beating each other up in tag-based battles, and I am loving the experience of jumping in and figuring out new strategies. Rather than lean on old tropes, Arc System Works elected to put its own spin on the idea, and what they’ve cooked up sets a new bar for future tag fighters. Once the technical issues for PC are ironed out, there’s a bright future ahead. With Marvel Tokon, Arc System Works has created the next foundational title for modern fighting games.
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