At this point, between the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony’s Spider-Verse, X-Men 97 and all the endless run of comics and games, the Marvel Universe looks fit to burst. But one thing I can always be confident of is that, like dessert, there’s always room for a stylish anime adaptation.
On Tuesday, I ventured over to PlayStation’s Sydney HQ to get hands-on with Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. I spent an hour immersed in this stylish and incredibly easy-to-pick-up world, punching kicking and blasting my way through. I’m itching to play more.
Choose Your Fighter
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is a 4v4 fighting game from the same team behind Guilty Gear, BlazBlue and Dragonball FighterZ — they know their stuff.
Combat is incredibly fast-paced and flashy. I recently reviewed Invincible Vs and can safely say that while Invincible Vs hits harder, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls moves way faster. There’s an incredible number of particles and visual effects flying around the screen. When you include fighters like Iron Man with his lasers and Magik with her portals, it’s even more explosive.
READ MORE: Review | Invincible VS: ‘This Is A Good Time’ (PlayStation 5)
The controls are relatively simple: the triangle, square and circle buttons are used for general attacks, the Adaptive Triggers are used for Ultimate Attacks. X is used for team attacks, where one of your allies joins briefly for a hit or two. You can then follow a button prompt and rotate to another attacking character mid-combo — this is the best. I can really see this playing into competitive tactics to throw your opponent off-balance.
There’s a 20-character roster to build your team of four — these include your poster heroes like Captain America and Spider-Man. However, I’m very pleased to see a few deeper cuts like Peni Parker, Magik, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) and Danger.
The PlayStation team at hand prefaced my playthrough by saying this is an original universe for Marvel fans. Even though Spider-Man’s suit shares similarities with Insomniac’s red, white and blue suit — it’s all original. With that comes some absolutely spectacular character designs; Tony Stark’s Gundam-esque Iron Man suit is a standout. But the recently revealed Blade design is one of my favourites, and I’m partial to a very menacing Doctor Doom and Star-Lord sporting classic anime proportions.
Surprising myself, I really gelled with Star-Lord and Captain America. I usually tend towards villains, but these two good boys were a great mixture of offence and defence. Star-Lord is techy, with different guns for status effects and stun grenades to lock down opponents. While Captain America just feels great to punch, shield throws provide a great deal of variety.
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Punch-up
After selecting your team and launching into a match, the pre-game announcer dynamically names your team, which I thought was a very cool touch. During my time, I played as the Genius Fliers, the Hellbound Elementals, the Sugoi Mechanoids, the Latverian Mages — just to name a few.
The names look to be generated based on your primary hero, and then a second word chosen from your other three. Peter Parker is always the Neighbourhood “Somethings”, while Magneto always leads the Brotherhood of “Something”. It’s a cool little touch that makes each team-up feel unique.
I was able to play through six different maps. Each map includes three zones that you can knock opponents between. This actually plays a part in the tactics of a fight as well. When you begin, your first and second fighters are available to rotate between. But when a stage transition happens, or the first round finishes, the third fighter is unlocked. Same again for the fourth. This was a cool way to show progression in the fight while tying the stages to the fighters.
Every map offers an abundance of detail and some great little nods, like the X-Mansion is full of wandering mutants, and in Wakanda, Wakandans can be seen watching the fight from the sidelines.
The build I played unfortunately didn’t have the newly revealed Blade, Carnage, Deadpool or Loki characters. Hulk and Green Goblin were also suspiciously absent. But I’ll look forward to giving them all a shot when Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls launches on PS5 and PC come August 7th.
Quest Daily was invited to play the game early thanks to PlayStation Australia.
