Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls PS5 review

One clever decision is giving the entire team a shared health bar. Characters are not individually knocked out, so you will not suddenly lose the one fighter you know how to use and be left fumbling around with the other three. I could spend most of a match controlling Spider-Man, for example, while calling on Iron Man, Wolverine and Doctor Doom whenever I needed help. This removes some of the pressure when experimenting with a new team. Once I became more comfortable, I started switching characters during combos and paying more attention to how their attacks complemented one another. That was when the 4v4 system began to make sense.

All the Avengers assembled

At launch, 20 characters are available in the roster. It may seem like it’s not especially generous for a game that allows you to pick four of them in a match. However, that’s far from the truth because the current meta is pretty well thought out. For example, Spider-Man is great for players who like to close the distance, Wolverine is a fantastic close-combat character and Iron Man or Doctor Doom are projectile-based fighters. Then there’s the lumbering hard-hitting brawler in the Hulk. Each are very distinctive in their own ways and picking three as your secondary or backup players require strategies.

Some obvious favourites are missing, though. There is no Deadpool, Thor or Rocket Raccoon at launch, and I suspect both Arc System Works and Sony already know how many additional character passes or DLC are prepared in the pipeline.

Visually, Tokon is a treat. Arc System Works has reinterpreted the characters with a strong Japanese anime influence and they look gorgeous – Iron Man’s armoured samurai design is by far my favourite. The animation gives attacks a wonderful sense of movement, and Super Skills briefly turn fights into scenes you would have expected from a very expensive animated Marvel series.

It can become visually overwhelming, especially once several assists and effects appear simultaneously, but the game is at its most entertaining when it looks as though a comic-book crossover has gone completely out of control. Knocking an opponent through a wall can send both teams into another part of the stage, with the background and music changing along with it. That said, there are only six main stages, which feels a little thin in my opinion. But then again, expect future DLCs to expand on this.

Apart from the standard online matches, Tokons’ Episode Mode (aka story mode) turned out to be far more entertaining than I expected. Its five chapters follow the different teams as they enter a tournament while dealing with a new threat to Earth, and while the plot is hardly Marvel at its most complicated, the character interactions are fun.

Final thoughts

What surprised me most about Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is how easy it is to get a hang of its potentially confusing 4v4 setup. It looks chaotic – and frequently is – but the shared health bar, staggered team assembly and simplified controls prevent it from becoming overwhelming. More importantly, the accessibility does not come at the expense of depth. It did not take long for me to perform something impressive but knowing when to call an assist or switch fighters is not a short learning curve.

However, there are areas where Tokon feels slightly lean at launch. Twenty fighters are not a lot when every match involves eight of them, while six main stages will probably start to feel repetitive after a while. Episode Mode is entertaining, but the game’s lasting appeal will still depend largely on whether you enjoy fighting with other players. And yes, the roster and stage selection already look suspiciously ready to be expanded through DLC.

Still, none of that stopped me from wanting another match. Arc System Works has not tried to recreate another Marvel vs Capcom, and Tokon is better for it. It is flashy, slightly excessive and occasionally difficult to follow, but that to me is also part of the fun.

Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is now available on PlayStation 5 and PC. Click here to buy.