MARVEL TOKON, AND THE AGONIZING JOY OF SELF-IMPROVEMENT

i would describe myself as "chronically fighting game-curious". i mean, i've played plenty of Super Smash Bros. in my day (and it is a fighting game, i won't have that debate), but it's very intentionally off doing its own thing. when it comes to the classics that paved the way and continue to form their own rich ecosystem, i appreciate their individual elements, from the craftsmanship of their producers to the talents of their top players. i'll check out the latest trailers and instinctively bop my head to the MvC2 character select, but i can't say i've had any meaningful hands-on experience. for years, the whole genre's always intimidated me just a little too much to dive in head-first.

i am very surprised to tell you, then, that i've been playing a whole lot of Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. it's the latest title from Arc System Works, who's increasingly prestigious portfolio includes turning Dragon Ball Z into a tournament-headlining tag fighter and creating the pinnacle of fucked-up women in video games. now, armed with one of the most iconic stables of characters in pop culture and some please-give-us-a-live-service-hit Sony money, ArcSys have brought their distinct anime-inspired flair to the world of Marvel, opting not only to step into what were once Capcom's shoes, but upping the ante by giving us a ridiculous 4v4 tag team system.

so, if i've been so adverse to going all in on a traditional fighting game before, what makes Tokon different? why have i clicked with a game that, if you lay it out on paper, sounds like it'd be even more of a challenge for a newcomer to parse? what does my affinity for Tokon say about me and the changing ways i interact with the games i play? feels like a fun one to unpack together!

i feel like pretty much every time i talk about a game on here, it's always something where i have to couch my praise in a bit of weird defensive tempering of expectations, because we live in a hell world where nothing is uncomplicatedly good. i'm just gonna get this out of the way first; yes, Tokon has had a bit of a rocky launch. nothing uniquely terrible, and hopefully, nothing the game can't overcome. long story short, the PC port is pretty janky, and i've just somehow lucked into my outdated set-up being one of the ones that can run the game decently, albeit with an egregious CPU usage overhead. this is almost definitely because Sony's demanded some aggressive encryption and DRM, and while there's already been some very helpful patches, what i'm really rooting for is for ArcSys to successfully cajole them into dropping at least some of those layers of 'protection'. the game has already been cracked and modded anyways, so it's not like it actually did much. it sucks, there's a clear corporate culprit, and we're moving on, because i'm here to talk about my own experiences with the game!

perhaps the best place to start is dissecting what's kept me away from the genre in the past. to set the stage, i kind of grew up parallel to a drought for fighting games. by the time i was old enough to hold a controller, the golden age of developers like Capcom and Namco putting out back-to-back-to-back bangers was waning. then, by the time i was old enough to be any good at a video game, the genre had been revitalized, but in a very different context. the landscape had shifted from the communal space of arcades to the burgeoning world of online play, where early netcode and the anonymity of long-distance matches made the experience both inconsistent and impersonal. the points of contact that would've innoculated me to the genre and its myriad of unique quirks were few and far between.

any fighting games i did wind up were things my dad bought to play with his more competitively-minded coworkers, and funnily enough, the one that sticks in my head the most is Marvel vs. Capcom 3. these were already impulse purchases that usually wound up back on the shelf after a few weekends of friendly matches, and my commitment to the whole thing was even lower; lots of fiddling around with fighting CPUs, and not quite wrapping my head around things like "why is jump on the joystick and not a button". it was a cool game that had guys like Deadpool and Super-Skrull and... i'm gonna be real, i think the only guy on the Capcom side i actively knew and liked at the time was probably Zero...? point being, i barely understood it, but i was okay with that.

fast-forward all the way up to present day, and i think that, in a way, those early impressions of the genre stuck with me. the 2010s saw fighting games continue to grow bigger and bigger as esports spectacles, and social media gave the FGC a bigger platform than ever to talk about why they loved these games. it helped my understanding expand as a viewer, but it also made it all the more intimidating to think of myself as a potential player. i could tell you a little bit more about the underlying concepts of what makes a match tick, sure, but that meant knowing i could very much be on the receiving end of all those intricate mechanics. now that i'm generally buying games for myself rather than playing hand-me-downs, the prospect of actually getting into a fighting game felt like a dead end choice; either i'm paying full price to most likely get my ass kicked, or i'm waiting for a sale, lowering that upfront payment at the cost of definitely getting my ass kicked by players with a headstart.

what makes Marvel Tokon so different, then? well, step one is being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. i'd kept a bit of an eye on Tokon ever since its reveal, with just enough knowledge to understand how wild it was that there was a new Marvel tag fighter coming out without even a crumb of Capcom to be seen. every trailer showed off more and more of that signature ArcSys style, and the roster wound up hitting that sweet spot between must-have staples, icons overdue for a game debut, and off-the-wall weirdos. there was a promise from the very start that Marvel had encouraged Arc System Works to really go all-out and deliver a unique take on their heroes rather than recreating what's come before, and i think it really shines through. designing a game around all my favorite superheroes certainly seems like a leg up, but given i didn't go through all this with Dragon Ball FighterZ back in 2018, i don't think the branding is the only key factor at play.

with the game right around the corner and one last weekend-long demo running, i decided on a whim to see if my PC could even handle Tokon. given the perils this port seems to have gone through, i was very surprised that it totally does! even more surprising is that a few of my friends also managed to eke out stable performance, including people who've been gently nudging me to consider trying a fighting game for ages. there really wasn't any reason at that point to not give the game a fair shot, even if i was going in under the assumption that i'd still end up having more fun as a viewer than as a player.

even if it's not the biggest factor of why i like this game, i do think playing around in another company's intellectual space did give Tokon at least a slight onboarding advantage. everyone in Street Fighter or Guilty Gear looks cool, but when everyone looks cool in a lineup of characters you don't already know, there can be a lot more trial and error in pairing their aesthetics to a playstyle. i can tell you as soon as i'm looking at Tokon's roster that Spider-Man is probably the agile acrobatic guy, and Iron Man probably has a lot of projectiles. armed with some helpful official video guides and a few minutes in training mode, i was able to quickly single out Doctor Doom as my main. he's versatile and good at controlling the pace of battle, he has the unique ability to flash-step past opponents, and he's got a super where he shoots an old-timey pistol at you and it explodes into a bunch of Kirby Krackle. what more could you ask for?

to actually delve into the underlying mechanics of Marvel Tokon for a bit, and unpack why the game clicks with me, there's a ton of really smart choices going on that i have to gush about. right off the bat, that 4v4 format obviously seems a little bit daunting, but matches are structured with a sort of built-in pace, meaning you get to start simple and ramp up to full intensity. there's clearly defined roles - your assists are a long-range Shooter, an anti-air Vertical, and a unique Assault - and they unlock in sequential order based on logical points of interaction, like when you break through a wall with a powerful attack. at least at a beginner level, these assists are all similar enough that i can use them confidently, without second-guessing myself too much about whether or not my composition is optimal.

on top of that, Tokon is very flexible about how much you're obligated to use the full team. there's a deceptively high skill ceiling, and top players are already pushing the boundaries of what can happen when you start tagging between fighters mid-combo, but thanks to your team sharing a life bar rather than four discrete HP values, having a single main doesn't feel like too steep a disadvantage. to really pull my team together with a charming little bit of stilted announcer customization, i settled on pairing Victor von Doom up with Ghost Rider, Ms. Marvel, and Carnage as the unlikely "Sugoi! Outlaws". why are they hanging out? don't worry about it.

another major choice this game makes to ease in scrubs like me is the way it incorporates simplified 'modern' inputs for special moves. all your classic quarter-circles and DPs are still in the game, but you can also launch your special moves with a easy combination of the right trigger, a direction, and maybe a single attack button if you're feeling spicy. all of this stuff works seamlessly; there's no toggle between the two styles, and the only thing you have to keep in mind is that the simplified inputs will deal around 10% less damage. it's enough to compensate for the reduced strain of throwing out quick attacks, but not so overbearing that i've ever felt like it's keeping me from winning. my understanding is that these kinds of modern controls can be a little contentious for some seasoned veterans, but i really like them. in fact, i like them enough to take a quick little tangent here to explain why i think they're so good!

fighting games really do feel like speaking a whole other language when compared to other games, and i say that affectionately. not everything has to be for me, and i think it's really cool that there's this whole ecosystem of games informed by a completely different ecosystem and legacy than the genres i usually play. i've heard some very compelling arguments about the virtue behind motion inputs; the physical movement can help you connect to a character's personality or fighting style, or even serve as a kind of soft balancing tool. i really want to stress before i say this next part that i understand how i'm, relatively speaking, a tourist to this genre, and that i don't want any of this stuff to go away.

where i personally struggle with this is that i find "i misjudged that attack's spacing or timing" to be a much more engaging challenge to overcome than "my thumb slipped so i kind of went 626 instead of 623 and did nothing". it's why i'm grateful that games like Marvel Tokon exist, because i think they fill a really interesting and important niche in the space. i think the greatest strength of its simple inputs is that it just doesn't make a big deal about the whole thing; i don't feel like i'm playing watered-down Tokon, or like me and my opponent are controlling fundamentally different games. i get to put more thought into the state of a match and less thought into the precise coordination of my hands, and it feels like i have the breathing room to walk before i try to run.

between the free demo and its approach to game design, everything about Marvel Tokon felt extremely approachable, and it all clicked for me. early on, i stuck to friendly matches with a few of my aforementioned friends, feeling out the mechanics as we all settled into our respective fighters of choice. by the end of the open beta, though, i was enjoying myself enough to play in open lobbies on my own time. after years of being scared off by the complexity of fighting games, i found one that really spoke to me. there's clearly signs here and there of a much deeper experience, with a flexible combo system that goes hand-in-hand with player expression through team composition, but it's also intuitive enough that i didn't feel overwhelmed while i built up some fundamental feel for how to pilot Doom.

having enjoyed myself far more than i expected, i decided i was putting myself on the hook. if having a few days of really positive hands-on experience with Tokon couldn't convince me to buy a traditional fighting game and keep up with it, i don't know what could. i got in there, i played through the game's five charming motion comic stories, and i even cheesed my way through the absurd difficulty curve of Survival mode for the promise of giving Captain America, a character i do not play, a cooler jacket. while i was using those single-player modes as a way to help build my muscle memory and feel for the controls, the hiccups of the game's launch weekend churned in the background, and although i do have friends who've gotten copies, our schedules haven't quite lined up for another night of friendly competition. if i wanted my fix, my best bet was to once again take the plunge into matchmaking. so i did! and lo and behold, i got my ass kicked.

something i can recognize about myself, and another big reason i've never really gotten into fighting games, is that i'm not good at handling losses, or at least, the kinds of losses i experience in fighting games. i like to think i'm at least gracious about it, and i don't make excuses or downplay my opponents, but i get demotivated fast. i've got classic gifted kid burnout, and when i'm not good at something right away, it can feel like an insurmountable wall. maybe if i'd played more fighting games growing up, i would've developed a better mentality about this, in the same way that i did play a lot of FPSes and do feel less stress about losing in those games? regardless of when i got into them, though, fighting games do inevitably ask something of their players. it's built into the deepest foundations of the genre that these games are best played with other people, and that means you're going to be taking one-on-one Ls. enjoyment is intertwined with improvement, so somewhere along the way, you will have to get humble, whether that's by conscious choice or by getting outclassed.

hopping into online play was like getting a bucket of cold water thrown at me. i knew i had control of my character, and that any loss was a reflection of a mistake i could hypothetically correct, but when one wrong split-second decision can lead to half a minute of helplessly getting juggled, it was easy to get overwhelmed and despondent. i was confused by how skilled people were at such a new game, and i didn't get why i had to sit through lopsided matches that felt unwinnable before the game could recognize i was out of my league. most of all, i had a sinking feeling in my gut that i'd been right all along, that i just wasn't ever going to be good enough at this game to make it worth the $60 i'd put in.

i'm here writing a bunch of nice things about Marvel Tokon, though, so you can probably guess that i powered through some of those negative feelings. i'd like to say it's just that i've gotten better at regulating my emotions and persevering through obstacles, but realistically, i know there's a bit of pettiness and sunk cost fallacy going on in the back of my head too. my second wind stemmed from a bit of both, and the more i sit with those impulses, i'm less and less sure they're two separate things so much as two different outlooks on the same neurons getting fired. maybe there's just a dash of venomous "screw this, i won't let this be a waste of money" inexorably stuck within that positive virtue of persistence, and maybe the real growth is in knowing how to balance those proportions out.

whether i was being mature or stubborn, i decided to double down and get good. not tournament-level good, not even very good, but at least sorta good. competent enough to hop on and play some matches for fun instead of getting bummed out or angry. i still got frustrated - sometimes to the point of frantically closing the game out of fear that i might break my controller over one more bad set - but i tried to observe my shortcomings more and pinpoint the ways i could improve my play. i reminded myself that, while the game itself was new, the genre definitely isn't, so if i'm up against people coming into Tokon with expertise, the best way to gain ground is by learning. i put aside my pride and finally found myself looking for answers to questions such as "what the hell is this oki thing people keep mentioning". when an opponent threw out a 40-hit combo that sent me up and down along the stage wall three times... well, i still got pissed out of my mind, but i got it out of my system fast and focused on the fact that if it's in the game and can be used against me, i could learn how to do it too.

when i opened up training mode to try and practice a few bread-and-butter combos i'd sloppily transcibed from YouTube, i expected to be in it for the long haul. my first few attempts were clumsy as i adjusted to the timing of cancelling and chaining attacks. weaving together a "2M → 5M → 2H" felt a bit like learning how to ride a bike for the first time. what i didn't expect was that within an hour of practice, i'd gone from practicing a few hits at a time to fluidly landing a full 18-hit combo, starting from center stage and carrying my training dummy opponent all the way to the edge for a wall break. i reminded myself over and over that i still needed to practice, and that deploying it in a real match against a thinking opponent was an entirely different skill to be honed, but... it felt good! i was someone who could at least sort of do a combo! and i got to feel good about it all over again the next day when i fired up training mode and nailed it in a couple of tries, because that meant it wasn't a fluke! it's almost like practicing helps you get good at things!

it's a very simple principle, and the kind of thing the logical side of my brain holds as self-evident, even if i'm not great at actually affording myself the kindness of "it's okay, you won't suck at this forever, you just need to practice". playing a game that really demands i actually put that into action, and seeing genuine improvement as a result, really opened my eyes to why people are so ride-or-die for fighting games. i mean, i've always loved the cool characters and the flashy combos from afar, but in the most direct, hands-on sense, the excitement of polishing my execution and developing a richer understanding of the mechanics as a result is fascinating.

in a way, it kind of feels like i was always one good push away from falling in love with fighting games. when i think about some of my favorite experiences with video games, one common element that pops up a lot in that history is that "eureka!" moment. whether it was feeling out the surprisingly complex underlying chemistry of Breath of the Wild, or spending days trying to figure out a solution so that my Baldur's Gate 3 party could win an outnumbered battle against Sharran cultists, it's always felt really good to develop a rich understanding of a game's systems, and to then put it into motion. the thing i was too intimidated to realize is that that's fighting games, baby! fighting games are absolutely full of those moments, it's just that they happen at a different pace. instead of watching my strategy play out after hours of deliberation and watching my characters idle on standby, the payoff comes in those do-or-die microseconds when i recognize i know how to manage an incoming attack, or when i realize halfway through a string that i really am landing that combo.

lately, i've been practicing the kinds of corner loops that just a few days ago were figuratively and literally driving me up the wall. i'm noticing little nuances, like how my first assist in the sequence has a lenient timing thanks to a taller hitbox, but the second and third need a subtle delay to ensure a proper hit. in other words, i get to be a nerd about learning something new, and i get direct results out of continuing to learn. it took some initial friction and frustration to push me towards opening my mind like that, but i think Marvel Tokon excels when it comes to making those first few steps approachable enough to draw you in.

it feels weird making this post, because normally, i try to have a pretty complete or at least well-rounded understanding of something before i write about it. fighting games kind of refuse to fit into that mold; for starters, Tokon is still a fresh new game, where people are finding new techniques and discovering how high the skill ceiling can go in real time. on my end, i've still just at the start of my training. i've learned some basic combos, but i still need to work on my consistency, and there's plenty of character-specific tools Doctor Doom has that i know hold a ton of potential. my defensive play is still lacking, and i need to dial in my sense of when it's "my turn", especially considering i've opted to play as a character who's attacks often come out slower than my opponent's. eventually, i could probably stand to learn a least a little bit more about Doom's fellow Outlaws, so that i can start taking more advantage of tagging in and out.

on the other hand, i can definitely see where i've made progress since i started. even if they could still use some practice, i do know some basic reliable strings, and i've noticed that i'm getting better at handling it when they go off-course. i can improvise a decent combo ender rather than panicking and flailing, because i know it's better to get back to neutral than to overextend and have my momentum turned against me. for as much as i love Doctor Doom's tools on offense, i'm learning the value of playing patiently and leaning into his true nature as a zoner. there's a whole lot of hill ahead of me, but i've gotten up to a point where i can start to notice a difference, and optimistically, i'd like to think i'm getting better, both at keeping up with opponents and taking my Ls in stride, even if they're absolute blowouts.

am i a full-blown fighting game convert now? philosophically, it's pushed me closer than ever. practically... ehh, get back to me in a bit. i can say for sure that i love how Marvel Tokon does things, but that's one game, and it's one that's still fresh enough to maintain a diverse range of players across all skill levels, including beginners like me. i've still got doubts about how well i'd handle traditional inputs, but if there's anything this game has taught me, it's to ditch the learned helplessness and go "maybe i could work my way up to that".

regardless of how this game continues to grow - or how far my own exploration of fighting games goes - i think that's something i can always treasure about Marvel Tokon, and the team at Arc System Works. especially with the 2026 i've had, playing it and getting better at it has felt personally resonant in a way that not a whole lot of games manage to hit. i'm very prone to being my own worst enemy, and it's really interesting engaging with a hobby that demands i get over myself. if you can take that first step, the long path of self-improvement starts to feel a lot more rewarding, whether that's in the big picture personal sense, or when i make Doctor Doom toss Star-Lord into the Hulk's big dinosaur cave.