I have no idea what I was doing in Marvel Tokon but it was fun
You can button mash your way to victory I guess
Made by Arc System Works and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is designed to be simple to play. That’s quite evident in the controls, which does away with the usual three-button punch and three-button kick setup.
Instead, you just get a light, medium, and heavy attack. You get a unique button, which uses your character’s unique skill, a one-button special skill, an assemble (team action skill) button, and a dash button. So basically, you just need to press the three attack buttons, and occasionally the unique skill button, or the assemble button.
That’s really it, and you can get right into the game and perform amazing looking attacks and combos. But if you want to get really good at it, then there’s a bunch of layers to peel away.
I spent about 45 minutes with the demo yesterday at a media event, where I got to try the latest build which features the newest addition to the lineup: Magneto. The game is set to launch with 20 characters, and you pick four to play with.
But while you have four heroes in your lineup, they all share the same health bar, and you can switch between them when you meet certain conditions — you can switch between two at the start and unlock more as the match progresses.
And honestly, even if you have no idea what you’re doing and just button mash away, Marvel Tokon is really quite fun. The game looks great, and using established Marvel characters adds a sense of familiarity since you probably already know just what powers and skills they will have.
For example, Captain America will obviously throw his shield around, while Wolverine will likely slice and dice with his hand-claws. The art is great as well, with a touch of anime — Iron Man’s suit looks almost like a Gundam, which I can honestly get behind.
And then there’s like the ultimate attacks, which are super cool when they are activated. And if you’re behind, you can also use a special summon where all four of your team jump in to try to turn the tide in a last-minute save, which I’m guessing will make for epic viewing when it comes to esports tournaments.
Mostly though, I’m a fan of the super cool stages, which feature a breakable wall to help reset things in case you get stuck in a corner early on. The stages have plenty of detail and easter eggs, such as the the X-Mansion, where you can see the X-Men spectating the fight and doing things in the background.
Set to launch on August 6 for the PS5 and PC alongside Sony’s new FlextSrike arcade stick, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls looks to be a lot of fun for fighting game enthusiasts, and I wouldn’t mind just messing around for a bit even if my fighting game days are long over (I prefer relaxing action RPGs where I don’t have to think in a split second). That’s because the game is really easy to pick up, and looks amazingly flashy to boot. I can’t wait to see how it handles in the hands of the pros.