Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls

It’s rare when a fighting game manages to tick virtually every box, from excellent fighting mechanics to fantastic teaching tools to a worthwhile story mode and beyond, but Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls comes about as close as a game has gotten since Street Fighter 6.

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.

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a smart marriage of classic tag fighter staples and modern design, creating an excellent fighter anyone can enjoy.

Innovating on the tag fighter formula, Marvel Tōkon has a little something for everyone. If only the PC version was up to par with console.

Marvel Tokon emphasizes simplicity of control.

A fighting game's impact is difficult to determine at launch due to balancing updates and the community's approach to it. Given the package Arc has delivered here, though, Marvel Tōkon is a more than worthy successor to Marvel vs. Capcom and Dragon Ball FighterZ. I believe it has the potential to become a fighting game mainstay for years to come.

With tremendous visuals and accessible controls, this superhero-themed fighter has the chops to inspire a new generation of champs

A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage.

Fresh gameplay paired with unprecedented production values make for an all-star pairing in Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. An accessible gameplay loop paves the way for impressive depth, hopefully securing this tag fighter's place in the FGC scene for years to come.The dodgy PC port is affecting the crossplay experience at launch, but the PS5 version is flawless and comes highly recommended – with excellent DualSense integration.Meanwhile, the offline experience isn't quite up to the same level as genre frontrunners like Street Fighter 6, but its various comic book storylines are beautifully illustrated and excellently voiced, with writer Keiron Gillen doing a great job with the scripts.This title is a triumph on the PS5, and a reminder that Sony is capable of greenlighting compelling live service games when it puts its mind to it.

This is not how any of us expected Marvel fighting games to come back, but I sure am glad it happened this way.