Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls First Impressions

Arc System Works, Fighting Game, Marvel Tokon fighting souls

After going in depth on the gameplay mechanics last month, Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls had a closed beta this weekend. Lucky for me, I was able to get my hands on it. All I can say is, I had alot of fun and can’t wait to play more of the game. From what I was able to play, the game takes inspiration from Arc System Works’ own Guilty Gear franchise. It also seems inspired by various tag fighters of the past. Some of these seem to be Marvel vs Capcom and BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle and Dragonball Fighterz.

I ended up taking a liking to Dr. Doom and Star Lord out of the playable characters represented.

One thing I noticed however was that early on, it seems like there will be a lot of playstyle variety. This is a good sign as this was something that turned me off from Dragonball Fighterz in it’s earlier seasons as the game felt extremely rushdown centric with other playstyles not feeling as viable.

In my short time with the game I mostly messed with Star Lord and Dr. Doom. Star Lord felt kind of felt similar to how Dante plays in Marvel vs Capcom. He’s feels very powerful due to his stun grenades and the different status effects with his element gun. Dr. Doom was a setplay and zoning focused character who seemed like he’ll take a bit of time to unlock overall. The only character I didn’t get a chance to play was Storm. With this in mind, thankfully no one presented felt like they were doing the same thing. Captain America is an all rounder while Ms. Marvel felt more rushdown focused.

Another thing worth noting is that even when all four characters became available on screen, the game didn’t seem as chaotic as I thought it might be. It’s a tag fighter so chaos is a natural element. Due to the way Arc System Works is balancing the tag system, it kept things from feeling too chaotic. This seems mostly due to the each tag having it’s own individual timer. I didn’t get a chance to really get used to all the mechanics and mostly just winged it to see what combos would work. It seems like you’ll be given alot of creativity in the game.

Another notable thing is in contrast to other current fighters, damage doesn’t seem to be quite as high. If this ends up not being another two touch fighting game, that’ll be pretty refreshing. This is something that’s been disliked by players in other games such as Street Fighter 6 and Fatal Fury.

Hopefully a future beta allows us to go into training mode to really get a feel for the mechanics. This would be really helpful on the defensive side of things as well as to see how cross play between PC and PS5 works. This was a PS5 only beta, although throughout the beta the netcode ran very smooth in every match I played.

For first impressions however, Marvel Tokon has me eagerly anticipating a full release and this seems to be a similar sentiment from the fighting game community at large as well. No official release date yet but Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls is aiming for a 2026 release on PC and PS5.

DeMandre "LetalisVenator" Pressley

A lifelong gamer who enjoys playing on every platform. Eventually, I grew to love fighting games in particular and began to compete and even win competitions for some games, primarily the 2013 revival of killer instinct. Outside of gaming I also have aspirations of being a comic book artist with a few ideas of my own im developing in my head. When reviewing any game I try to keep my mind open and avoid nitpicking too much. It takes a lot for something to detract me from truly enjoying it so I may not focus on smaller details the way some others might do. I enjoy almost any genre, just don't ask me to play horror games or puzzle games.