There is always promise when adapting superheroes into games. These characters live in a flashy world where buildings get destroyed regularly, and an alien invasion is always on the horizon. Typically, the hardest thing about adapting these characters is crafting them so that they pack a punch but not too much. You want the overpowered characters you grew up with to feel just as tough and unbeatable as you remember, but still killable, because what fun is it if you can’t lose from time to time? Well, all the time in my case. In this regard, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls really gets it right.
In Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, you play through a select roster of your favorite Marvel characters, taking on teams in a multi-character tag battle of punishing counters and fast-break combos, trying to see whose roster of heroes comes out on top. If you are me, again, you pick some of those other heroes everybody else likes so you can lose. Come on, Squirrel Girl is IN one of the stories; you couldn’t have her playable right up front. Your Arc System works, dammit, and she is a weird character that creates more confusion than cohesion. That’s like your whole bread and butter!
Ok, I digress about persona preferences; let’s get to the main event. Each one of the characters is brought into the game with unique specials and action-packed combat cinematics that genuinely make you feel as powerful as the sources. Then add to that smashing characters from stage to stage as they destroy pillars or smash through garbage cans, and you have yourself a dynamic fight that makes you forget it is playing out within a two-dimensional screen.
For a tag battler, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is also pretty unique as well. Going into the beta, I thought to myself that the biggest and most drastic shift for the fighting title is the four-person team mechanic. It’s an interesting departure, but not the biggest one for structure, at least to me. Typically, in old MvC games, each tag member gets their own bar of health, making fights a frantic mix of knowing when to push your current character or swap and switch strategy. You get that cushion of each character’s health bar to take risks or try new tactics. If it doesn’t work, keep calm and switch up.
Here, you do not get that benefit, with each character drawing from one health bar. Switching characters changes the moves, the hit boxes, and the defense, but not the damage you are already dealing with. This might create situations where a reaction isn’t just a block or counter to delay damage, but a quick switch is necessary with far more urgency. Throwing out a tag team is also dangerous because if you both get swept up in the attacks, that is a double dealing of damage to one singular health bar, punishing even more than already expected.
If I am being fair, though, this will probably be an unpopular opinion. The four-player teams really did nothing for me. Maybe it’s unfair, but I feel at best they should have launched with more characters to allow it to feel like you have a solid roster to choose between. It’s not like there is a small cast—5 teams of 4 for 20 characters—but once you start selecting a team, it does feel like a small world after all. The added member to the team comp also feels like they only add annoyance at an additional selection, as I feel you could just get away with it there.
This is before we actually discuss swapping characters, which took a little while for me to get used to; perhaps I am in the minority. You can go through a tag and then switch that way or hit a button to do it instantly. There is just a bit of layering in the commands that made me constantly hit the wrong trigger to get the wrong results. What is cool, though, is that the tag attacks are divided into vertical and horizontal attacks, which also require some getting used to, though with much clearer controls.
It’s the verticality that makes Arc System Works an interesting fighting game developer in general. While other games have juggles, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls asks you to follow up your combos or counter an aerial by fully launching your enemy up and smacking them around. These attacks, even if you have no skills like me, are easy to segue from ground to air and back. This helps create a good foundation to get started with, but as quickly as my confidence was built up, multiplayer kicked it back down.
The thing is, the game has a pretty robust combat system once you figure it out. My biggest concern, though, is it might not be the most beginner-friendly. This is a three-button fighter, which should be easy enough to find out. Then on top of that, each of the buttons has a full combo attached that is capped off by a special move. These seem like a great start, but in comparison to some of their other combo set games, these are actually fully a crutch. Learning how to mix and match the three attacks into far more complex combos is a necessity. Yes, I know, this is a basic aspect of fighting games, but what is notable here is the active need to buck the introductory concept of the game to expand it.
All that being said, the game does have a robust set of tools to begin learning how to actually take those first steps. Each of the characters has a training option to run through their sets of combos, and the actual training mode allows you to set just about any scenario you might need to run through. Unfortunately, even for a game with a few menus, these options can be buried a few menus in, making it something you need to know you want and where to get it.
Before any of that matters, though, you will probably start with the Story mode, which Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls actually has. In a way it’s an old-school take on the subject, way more than any I have played recently. You have five campaigns divided up against the five teams that have been announced prior. These are teams like the amazing Guardians with Spider-Man and Ms. Marvel, or the Avengers with Iron Man and Captain America. The coolest part about these narratives is that each has a different art style that gives them that that comic book run feel.
In terms of performances, the characters all have life and personality so if you these are the characters you enjoy in the Marvel Universe, you are bound to feel they did the characters justice. There is also far more narrative, all presented through comic panels that appear dynamically, making still paneling feel engaging, which is impressive. There are also a few high-quality cutscenes in betwwen that mostly help to highlight that promator is the best charapter up in this fighting game. Not to mention you have Nolan North as Deadpool, which continues to be the right choice.
Each of the narratives also has switch-ups to the robust soundtrack, keeping everything fresh as well. When playing the actual fighting game, everything feels pretty much on par with an Arc game, which isn’t bad but nothing new. A mix of hard rock, and uptemp pop that plays across the beat down fests and menus to get you hyped for your next big fight, with slower tracks only coming up in the ending credit sequences.
The issue is that the main stories are also fairly generic tutorials, with the tutorial part feeling redundant after the first narrative. Each is structured identically: one fight for each of the alleys, then fight the promoter, then fight the teams. This is then capped off with a series of fights against the promoter. Additionally, on Normal everything except the final boss was pretty easy to actually beat. The final boss then breaks the mold with a few highly damaging moves that can frustratingly drain you if you pizza when you want to french fry. The interesting cutscenes and narrative, which ultimately devolve into introductions over and over again with some interesting ideas, like Thor being missing, ultimately lead nowhere. This is obviously a plot setup for later, but it feels like a letdown now.
Once you beat this portion, thankfully there are a few different modes in Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls that can occupy your time without the need to go online. That mixed with the training, and there is plenty of offline fun you can have if you are enjoying yourself. By nature a fighting game becomes doing the same things over and over, hoping to make a tiny bit of progress and, next time, getting your blocks more perfect than before.
When you finally do bring your game online, the fun can easily become limited by your skill cap. You need to run ten casual matches to get to ranked and the bigger online experience, and, I’ll be honest, I hate casual in fighting games. Not that I am good enough to rank high, but typically even performing badly ranks you at a place compared to your skill level, whereas casual can get you stuck with players well outside your league. The online lobby has multiple options with customization and freedom to match up with players in your lobby. I only had a few of my twenty or so matches with any severe lag as well, which is the percentage you at least hope to have when you accept that you can’t eliminate it completely.
Verdict
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a competent fighting game, and given Arc System Works’ pedigree, I would expect nothing less. The flashy and over-the-top moveset genuinely makes you feel like you are a superhero smashing up the city in a life-and-death fight for justice. The combat system is robust with plenty of variety once you start exploring off the game’s standard combo paths, but given the structure, this might not be the most friendly fighting game to cut your teeth on. There are plenty of reasons, though, why this is a game worth sinking into and developing your skills, because mastery is well worth it should you be able to achieve it.
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Reviewed on PlayStation 5, Also Available on PC
Developer: Arc System Works
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Release Date: August 11, 2026
Pros
+Great art direction an music
+Tons of training tools
+Fairly enjoyable roster of characters
+Depth of combat should you put in the work to get there.
Cons
-Bland story mode serving mostly as a tutorial
-The 4 person team feels like more work for no gain of the typical 3 person tag team
-Doesn't feel beginner friendly for players just now playing starting fighting games
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Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls
