Making another Marvel fighting game is a surprisingly difficult assignment.
There is history attached to these characters. For an entire generation of fighting game fans, names like Hulk, Captain America and other Marvel icons are immediately associated with Capcom's legendary crossover series. Any new developer stepping into that space has to deal with those comparisons before the first round even begins.
Arc System Works had another problem on top of that.
The studio already has one of the most recognizable fighting game styles in the industry. Guilty Gear Strive, Dragon Ball FighterZ and Granblue Fantasy Versus have made its visual language and design philosophy immediately identifiable.
It would have been very easy for Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls to become "Marvel characters in an Arc System Works game."
Thankfully, it isn't.
Tōkon absolutely carries the studio's DNA, but underneath the spectacular animation is a fighting game with enough unusual ideas to establish an identity of its own. Its four-character team structure changes how matches develop, its assist system opens an absurd number of possibilities, and its accessibility options allow newcomers to have fun without stripping away the depth competitive players expect.
The result is one of the most exciting Marvel games in years.
It just arrives with a few parts of the package noticeably less developed than the fighting itself.
Four Heroes, One Extremely Chaotic Match
The biggest idea behind Marvel Tōkon is its team system.
Having four characters available might initially sound excessive. Traditional team fighters are already chaotic with three, so adding another fighter could easily have resulted in visual noise and endless combos with no meaningful strategy behind them.
Instead, Arc System Works builds the entire match around gradually expanding your options.
You are not simply controlling four characters from the opening second of every fight. Matches begin with a more limited lineup, and additional members can become involved as the battle develops.
Characters can enter after specific round situations or through stage interactions involving the arena boundaries, which can also trigger transitions into another part of the environment.
It gives matches a sense of escalation.
The opening moments can feel relatively controlled. By the later stages, assists are flying across the screen, characters are switching roles and both players have significantly more resources available.
It almost feels like the fight is becoming larger alongside the rivalry itself.
More importantly, Tōkon does not force everyone into exactly the same approach.
Its structure can accommodate players who want to concentrate primarily on one fighter as well as those interested in learning combinations involving two, three or the complete four-character lineup.
That flexibility also helps address one of the oldest issues in fighting games: bad matchups.
If one character struggles against a particular opponent, your team composition gives you additional ways to deal with the situation rather than simply accepting that the matchup is terrible.
It is a clever solution, and one that makes team building feel genuinely important.
Assists Are the Heart of Tōkon
The assist button may be the most important button in the game.
Pressing it alongside a directional input determines which teammate Logan—well, thankfully not Logan this time—your current fighter calls into battle.
Each team position also influences what kind of assistance that character provides. One position may consistently deliver an anti-air option, for example, giving team construction a strategic layer before the match even starts.
Assists cannot simply be spammed without consequences.
Their availability changes depending on what is currently happening. Using them during neutral play is relatively straightforward, while extending an existing combo introduces limitations represented through a dedicated resource beneath the health bar.
Defensively, assists can also be used to push an aggressive opponent away.
But even that has counterplay.
If your opponent anticipates the defensive call, they can respond with their own assist and potentially punish what was supposed to be your escape.
Systems constantly interact with other systems.
That is where Tōkon becomes interesting.
At first, it looks chaotic.
After a few hours, you start realizing that much of the chaos is actually decision-making happening very quickly.
Easy to Play, Difficult to Actually Master
Arc System Works continues the approach it has used successfully in several recent games: newcomers are allowed to do cool things immediately.
Mash Square and you can perform a basic sequence involving members of your team, potentially finishing with a Super depending on how the combo ends.
Triangle and Circle can also produce simplified strings.
Special moves and Supers have shortcut inputs as well, meaning someone can pick up the controller, choose characters they recognize and start doing visually impressive attacks without spending twenty minutes practicing quarter-circle motions first.
That is important.
Fighting games have spent decades struggling with the perception that you need hundreds of hours of practice before they become enjoyable.
Tōkon avoids that problem.
But simplified controls are not the optimal way to play.
Easy combos and shortcut inputs generally deal less damage than properly executed traditional sequences. Players who invest time learning movement, spacing, assists and manual combos are rewarded for doing so.
That creates a good middle ground.
Casual players are not locked out of the spectacle.
Competitive players still have plenty to study.
And there is a lot to study.
The combo potential here is ridiculous.
Once assists, character-specific abilities, launches, extensions and Supers begin connecting together, Marvel Tōkon turns into exactly the type of game that will generate countless training-mode clips of people discovering increasingly absurd routes.
That creativity is essential for any fighting game hoping to survive beyond launch month.
Tōkon has it.
Supers Understand the Assignment
The Super system also benefits from the team structure.
Your meter can reach 150, with different attacks consuming different portions of that resource.
A standard Super costs 50.
More powerful options require 100.
If enough meter remains after performing the cheaper Super, another team member can potentially enter and continue the sequence with their own attack.
Then there is the final comeback option.
During the decisive round that could eliminate you from the match, an additional team-based Super becomes available, bringing the group together for a large coordinated attack.
It is dramatic, excessive and completely appropriate for Marvel.
The game understands that competitive mechanics and superhero spectacle do not have to exist separately.
Every Character Feels Authored, Not Manufactured
One of Tōkon's biggest successes is how individual its characters feel.
That does not only apply to movesets.
Obviously Hulk cannot fight like a faster, more technical character. The roster has distinct tools, movement options and dedicated character abilities that give each fighter an obvious gameplay identity.
But the attention to personality goes further.
Team interactions are contextual.
Characters acknowledge who they are fighting beside rather than relying exclusively on generic "I'm here!" dialogue whenever somebody enters the battle.
Put certain heroes together and their exchanges change accordingly.
Deadpool behaving differently around Captain America is the kind of tiny detail that contributes absolutely nothing to frame data but everything to personality.
And there are a lot of those touches.
Marvel games occasionally treat the license like a collection of recognizable skins.
Tōkon treats these characters like characters.
That distinction matters.
It also makes experimenting with different team compositions fun even outside of the mechanical advantages.
You want to hear how certain personalities interact.
You want to see their animations together.
You want to know what happens when completely incompatible personalities suddenly have to operate as one team.
That level of care helps the game feel like a genuine Marvel project rather than simply a fighting game borrowing Marvel designs.
The Roster Needs to Grow
Unfortunately, putting so much emphasis on four-character teams creates an obvious problem.
There are 21 playable fighters at launch.
Four additional DLC characters are planned, but the initial selection still feels smaller than it should considering how frequently players will be assembling teams.
Twenty-one characters would be a perfectly respectable starting point for many traditional one-on-one fighting games.
Tōkon is different.
When each player may be pulling several characters into their strategy, repetition becomes noticeable much faster.
Certain popular or competitively effective fighters are inevitably going to appear across multiple teams.
The roster itself is well designed.
There just needs to be more of it.
This is probably one of those criticisms that will look very different two years from now if Arc System Works provides strong post-launch support.
But a review has to judge the game that exists today.
And today, the roster feels slightly undersized for the format.
It Might Be Arc System Works' Best-Looking Game
Visually, Marvel Tōkon is absurd.
Arc System Works' approach to cel-shaded 3D models that mimic hand-drawn animation stopped being surprising years ago.
Yet somehow the studio keeps improving it.
Characters move with exaggerated comic-book energy, individual poses look deliberately illustrated rather than procedurally animated, and Supers frequently resemble panels exploding into motion.
The Marvel aesthetic also gives the studio an opportunity to push its visual language in directions that feel different from Guilty Gear or Dragon Ball.
This is recognizably Arc System Works.
But it does not look like those games wearing Marvel costumes.
Stages deserve just as much praise.
They are colorful, energetic and packed with small references for Marvel fans to discover. Environmental transitions also prevent arenas from feeling completely static during longer matches.
There is tremendous visual personality here.
Hopefully, additional arenas arrive alongside future characters because the quality of the existing stages makes you want more of them.
Brazilian Portuguese Localization Deserves Credit
The Brazilian Portuguese dub is another genuinely impressive part of the package.
This is not a localization where only the major cinematic dialogue received attention.
Character interactions during fights have been localized extensively, including smaller reactions and even combat vocalizations that are sometimes left untouched in other games.
It sounds like a minor thing.
It isn't.
When dialogue is translated but grunts, screams and battle sounds suddenly switch back to another language, you notice the disconnect immediately.
Tōkon avoids much of that inconsistency.
Combined with the situational character dialogue, it gives the localization an unusually polished feel.
Where Is All the Offline Content?
The fighting is excellent.
The single-player package is considerably less exciting.
And this is probably the biggest disappointment outside of the launch roster.
You get the expected training content, tutorials and character trials, alongside Survival and an Arena mode that essentially fills the traditional arcade-game role.
They work.
They are also exactly what you would expect.
Arcadia attempts to provide something stranger.
Players control chibi-style characters, collect cards, improve their fighter and eventually battle opponents.
It is different.
Unfortunately, different does not automatically mean good.
The mode never becomes compelling enough to feel like the substantial alternative single-player experience the overall package could have benefited from.
Then there is the story content.
Rather than delivering a huge cinematic campaign, Tōkon presents much of its narrative like a digital comic book broken up by fights.
Visually, it works surprisingly well.
Different teams receive their own stories and artwork, helping reinforce the comic-book identity.
The actual writing is much less memorable.
Most scenarios are predictable, and there are very few moments that make the story itself feel essential.
You play these chapters because you enjoy the characters and fighting.
You probably will not finish them thinking Marvel has delivered its next great narrative.
For a game with characters this expressive, that feels like a missed opportunity.
Online Play Is Excellent — Finding a Good Match Isn't Always
A fighting game's online experience is arguably more important than its story mode.
Tōkon understands that on the actual battlefield.
When connection quality is good, online matches are excellent. The systems translate naturally into competitive play, and fighting another human immediately exposes how much depth is hidden underneath the accessible surface.
The problem is everything that happens before the match.
Matchmaking can take far longer than expected in both casual and ranked modes.
Open lobbies are not necessarily the perfect solution either.
Even when joining the recommended region, connection quality can vary dramatically, and finding a smooth match is more difficult than it should be for a modern fighting game.
Cross-platform interaction may be contributing to some of these inconsistencies, particularly considering the technical issues surrounding the PC version.
Whatever the exact cause, the user experience is the important part.
And the experience needs improvement.
In 2026, players have already seen games such as Street Fighter 6 demonstrate how invisible good matchmaking can feel.
You press a button.
A suitable opponent appears.
You fight.
Tōkon sometimes introduces too much friction between the first and third steps.
For a game this good competitively, that is frustrating.
A Fighting Game Built for the Long Term
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls feels like a game whose reputation could improve considerably over time.
More characters would immediately address one of its largest weaknesses.
Additional stages could make the already excellent visual package even richer.
Better matchmaking and technical improvements could remove unnecessary frustration from online play.
Expanded offline content could make the package more attractive to players who are primarily interested in Marvel rather than competitive fighting games.
Those criticisms matter today.
But they also highlight something important:
The fundamental game does not need to be fixed.
The foundation already works.
The fighting is fantastic.
Arc System Works does not need to redesign Tōkon.
It simply needs to give players more of it.
That is a much better problem to have.
Verdict
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls manages something that initially seemed surprisingly difficult: it makes a Marvel team fighter feel fresh again.
Its four-character structure is not merely a marketing gimmick. Assists, team composition, gradual match escalation and an enormous amount of combo freedom create a system that feels accessible at first and increasingly complex the deeper you go.
Arc System Works also treats Marvel's characters with remarkable attention to detail. Distinct movesets, situational dialogue, gorgeous animation and exceptional presentation give the roster far more personality than a simple collection of recognizable superheroes.
There are meaningful weaknesses.
Twenty-one launch characters feels restrictive for a game designed around large teams. Offline modes are thin, the story content is visually stronger than it is narratively interesting, and matchmaking currently creates more frustration than a major fighting game should.
But those issues surround an excellent fighting game rather than undermine one.
Once a match begins, most of those complaints disappear.
And that may be the strongest compliment Marvel Tōkon can receive.
You stop thinking about what Guilty Gear did.
You stop thinking about Dragon Ball FighterZ.
You even stop thinking about Marvel vs. Capcom.
You start thinking about Marvel Tōkon.
Score: 7/10
Excellent
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls combines Arc System Works' fighting-game expertise with a genuinely fresh team system, outstanding character design and some of the best visuals in the genre. Its launch roster, limited offline content and inconsistent matchmaking leave obvious room for improvement, but the fighting itself is strong enough to establish Tōkon as its own Marvel series rather than a successor living in somebody else's shadow.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is available on PlayStation 5 and PC.
This review is based on the PlayStation 5 version and was conducted using a review code provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Review written and game played by Andrew Louis.
Follow Andrew Louis: https://heydrew.link