We grabbed a short session with Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls at the Arc System booth during EVO, and it left a mark. Quick take: it’s fast, readable, and way more strategic than the highlight reels make it look. All footage has been captured on a PS5.
Before EVO, clips made the game seem almost too easy combos flowing like butter. Once we actually played, the truth popped out: the surface is welcoming, but the real game lives in assist timing. You can style a quick confirm, sure, but consistently routing into assists (and out again) is the skill check. Done right, you’re not just extending you’re setting up tag sequences that can crack the stage and swing rounds. It looks seamless in a clip; it takes intention on the stick.
Neutral starts honest: spacing, whiff punishes, clear windows to take turns. Then assists turn the key sandwich pressure, cross‑unders, corner traps. That layered pace is what sold me. Animations read cleanly, inputs felt tight, and even with assists flying in, I wasn’t fighting the camera or the effects. When you get hit, it feels earned; when your setup lands, it feels earned.
Picking a lineup isn’t just “favorite three.” You want a glue character you trust for confirms and a threat piece that controls a lane (anti‑air, long horizontal, etc.). Two simple route plans carry vs. damage already changed how my team played on different parts of the screen. Small swap, big difference.
You can breathe on defense. Pushback and spacing tools let you reset without panic‑tagging. Call an assist at the wrong moment and you donate the turn (and maybe your point). Call at the right moment and the corner becomes your playground. That risk/reward kept our matches tense in a good way.
This is one of those rare fighters that looks fun whether you’re day‑one or day‑100. New players will do cool‑looking stuff without a lab degree. Competitive players will immediately theory craft shells and lab tag‑continue routes. That “fun now, depth later” balance matters.
We only had a brief EVO window, so we still want time with netcode, training tools, and a deeper roster. There’s a PS5 beta in September, and we’ll be on it—testing teams, routes, and matchups for a follow‑up guide.
If you want to see how our hands‑on played out, watch the video at the top as I break down the assist flow, tag extensions, and the stage‑break moments that had us grinning. Drop your team requests or matchup questions in the comments so we can lab them during the beta.
Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls already feels fast without being sloppy, flashy without hiding the rules. If the full release holds that line, we might be looking at something special.
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