The Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls closed beta is over, but I’m still thinking about the game. While everyone was playing Hollow Knight: Silksong over the weekend, I was getting my first hands-on experience with the upcoming Arc System Works and PlayStation Studios fighting game. Based on what I’ve played, it’s clear to see that Marvel Tokon has huge potential.
The closed beta allowed me and the other participants to get a taste of Marvel Tokon’s basic mechanics. And I do mean taste, as even the six or so hours I played felt like I had just scratched the surface. This is one of the most mechanically dense fighting games I’ve tried. That said, it’s also simple enough for the average player to jump in and do cool stuff right away.
Here are my thoughts on the Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls closed beta.
This isn't Marvel vs. Capcom
Marvel Tokon isn’t a spiritual successor to the Marvel vs. Capcom series. If you need to draw parallels, Marvel Tokon is more closely related to Dragon Ball FighterZ and Guilty Gear Strive, which are both Arc System Works games. I’ve heard some say there’s also a dose of Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (another ArcSys game), but I can't speak on that since I’ve never played it. Regardless, don’t expect your Marvel vs. Capcom knowledge to transfer over. It won’t.
Since I’m familiar with Arc System Works games, I had no trouble acclimating to Marvel Tokon’s core gameplay loop. It’s all about finding openings with light attacks, following up with a combo, and finishing with a devastating super move.
Yes, that’s also the basics of Marvel vs. Capcom, but Tokon is a tad slower, allowing you to be more precise with your combos. In execution, it feels like a more controlled Dragon Ball FighterZ.
You have three standard attack buttons (light, medium, hard), a button for special moves, and another for “unique” attacks. There’s also a tag button, but I’ll get to that shortly. Repeatedly tapping any of the attack buttons will initiate an auto combo, with each ending differently depending on the buttons you’re pressing.
For instance, tapping light repeatedly ends with a tag attack, while tapping medium or hard ends with super or ultra moves, respectively.
I have mixed feelings about auto combos. While I like that they allow for easy combos, I don’t like being trapped in an auto combo if I press a button too much.
Right now, there doesn’t seem to be a way to disable auto combos in Marvel Tokon. If you’re a beginner, you probably won’t mind auto combos since they generally result in something awesome happening, but if you want more precise control, auto combos can be annoying to work around.
The game has easy inputs, such as the aforementioned special move button. Pressing medium + hard + the dedicated “assemble” button unleashes your super moves. I actually found this “easy” method difficult to perform since you have to press three buttons at once.
Thankfully, you can do super moves and special moves by performing traditional input motions like in most fighting games. So instead of pressing three buttons, you can perform a half circle on the joystick/D-Pad and press medium and hard, for example.
The beta featured Captain America, Iron Man, Star Lord, Storm, Ms. Marvel and Doctor Doom. Captain America is the easiest to learn due to his basic moves, while Doctor Doom is complex thanks to his ranged attacks.
The surprise character for me is Ms. Marvel, who uses her stretchy limbs to attack from afar or bring opponents to her. This initial batch of characters paints a good picture of how diverse the entire roster will eventually be, gameplay-wise.
Tagging and assists
Marvel Tokon is a 4v4 tag fighter, which might sound wild in comparison to the 3v3 Marvel vs. Capcom 2. However, while you technically have four characters at your disposal, you’re really only playing with one main character and three assist characters. This has its advantages and disadvantages.
You can generally concentrate on learning one character instead of four, since the latter three will only come in to do a quick attack (useful for extending combos, for example). In fact, during many of my matches, I had to remind myself that I could call in other characters as assists.
Unlike Marvel vs. Capcom, where I’m always swapping between characters to replenish their health bars, this game only has one health bar for the entire party. Since that’s the case, I didn’t feel the urge to swap to another character.
The disadvantage here is that, if you’re not incentivized to switch to another character mid-match, it defeats the purpose of this game being a 4v4 tag fighter. I’d actually say Marvel Tokon is an assist fighter similar to Mortal Kombat 1. Perhaps I was playing incorrectly, but most of the folks I fought against barely tagged out, either.
I’m going to err on the side that folks didn’t truly see the depths of the tagging system, especially since there was no training mode to try certain scenarios and combos. But based on my time with Marvel Tokon, my biggest fear is that tagging won’t be a major part of the game… despite seemingly being a selling point.
Smooth online
Except for a tutorial and some CPU matches, most of the beta was against other players. Like other Arc System Works fighters, you control a “chibi” version of your character inside a hub world inhabited by other chibi players. To find a match, you walk up to an available arcade cabinet and wait for another player to join. I’m not a fan of this lobby system, but I’ve grown used to it over the years.
With some small exceptions, almost every match I participated in ran smoothly and felt like I was fighting in a local offline match. This is especially huge since most of the players I fought were on a Wi-Fi connection instead of Ethernet. To paraphrase another franchise, the netcode is strong with this one.
Outlook
Overall, I had a great time playing Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, and I can’t wait until the next beta. Hopefully, we’ll get access to a training mode so we can fully explore the mechanics.
While bashing buttons in online matches was great fun, I want to actually know what the heck I’m doing. And of course, I’d like to try out some of the other characters, such as Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, or others that haven’t been announced yet.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls has a tentative 2026 launch, so it might be a while until there’s another beta, let alone a full release. But given the amount of time we have to wait, I’m sure PlayStation will give us more information in the coming months. I’ll be hanging on every word, because right now, this is easily my most anticipated new fighting game.
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