Marvel Tokon has done something that is brilliant, like become a 4v4 tag fighter. But I want to go back and iterate something for fighting games. 2026 became a year when fighting games had a rocky launch. 2XKO flopped at launch, there are Switch performance issues in Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game, Marvel Tokon had issues for the PC version and SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level, though it's a fan made tag fighter, launched with bugs like Sakura Shinguji not flinching when taking damage. The new patch for Marvel Tokon alleviated performance issues on PC, like dropping frames.
Danger_Bot over on the official Marvel Tokon Discord announced that a patch is coming on Friday, which is today, to include fixes to performance issues on PC and PC and PS5 stability improvements.
And there are reactions to the post that are overwhelmingly positive because the patch they pushed in had alleviated performance issues that became the continuous point of contention. It also have emojis of Marvel Tokon characters. The one with the most reactions is Black Panther. Both Black Panther and Magik came nip and tuck and close to each other.
Today's patch came out and it remedies the issues in the PC version.
All of the reactions are positive, praising devs fixing the frame drop issues on PC. This post has the Wolverine emoji having the most reactions so far to honor his Battle Reborn Suit being available to all players for free and his new game by Insomniac coming out soon.
I will be the first to say that Marvel Tokon became a unique tag fighter in my book. At launch, the game had problems like frame drops and performance issues. It is a good thing I didn't play any of my matches online. Thankfully, a patch came out recently to remedy the respective issues that occured at launch.
So, when you assign your team on Battle Settings, the main menu screen displays the four characters on your team and the color varies by character you make as leader. That is the coolest thing about this. In this case, it is colored blue because Magik is the leader of my team. And I will be the first to say, I am just not a pro with Magik as I typically am with Vi or Akali in 2XKO. But regardless, I had fun with her.
And what is even cooler is that it generates a front cover of your four-person team when you finalize it on the character select screen. It has the Marvel logo with the player number below it, a barcode on the lower left hand corner and the name of your team. I did find me a team already.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Hellbound Shapeshifters, starring Magik, Ms. Marvel, Star-Lord and Green Goblin. But there is one caveat to this. This team is still a work in progress as I am still working on learning Green Goblin's combos since he rides on his glider in his Skill attack to contribute to his C-tier ease of use.
When you used the "It's Mahvel, Baybee!" term when Marvel Tokon was announced, it served as a spiritual successor to the Marvel vs. Capcom franchise. Marvel vs. Capcom has been a long line of tag fighting games for almost three decades, with games like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 being a masterclass in tag fighting. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, however, sold poorly to not have a second season.
But to the general public, there's nothing that can come close to Marvel vs. Capcom 2, until one game that did. And that's Marvel Tokon. Marvel Tokon proved that you can make a new Marvel fighter to be a masterclass to the general public. Again, Tokon is the masterclass of a Marvel fighter to be met with overwhelming positivity. This shows that Marvel has been a product for decades with web-slinging, slicing with claws, causing destruction and so on. The success of Dragon Ball FighterZ allowed Marvel Tokon to come to fruition as the masterclass of a tag fighter because they have rich innovation, right tools and resources and a smaller team within Arc System Works.
But then, something hit me. 2XKO came out, but due to low player retention, half of the team was laid off, contributing to ceasing active development months later all because the team behind 2XKO was large from the start. They knew that a small-scale focused team is better than having a large-scale team. Here's the thing. Look at Marvel Tokon's player engagement. It is high because it was developed by a small team of Arc System Works from the beginning. Now, imagine if a smaller team was developing 2XKO from the start. Upon launch, the game would have an overkill player retention.
Marvel Tokon isn't the only tag fighter that was developed from the start by a small team. Other tag fighters Invincible VS and SEGA vs. Capcom: The Next Level were developed from the start by small teams of Quarter Up and 4CYDE Studios. 2026 now has a trifecta of tag fighters that were developed from the start by small teams that have the tendency to take creative risks and drive a high-to-overkill player retention at launch. However, they have faced a rocky launch like 2XKO did.
Since the game is going to have a ten-year development cycle, that's a W for us and we're gonna see a lot more characters and new content. Now, if there is one thing I want in Marvel Tokon, I would say an online co-op game mode. An online co-op game mode in Marvel Tokon sounds like a great idea to me. It allows four players on the same team to battle against four players, like how KOF and Dragon Ball FighterZ handled having an online co-op game mode to have three players against three players and how 2XKO handled Duo Play where two players work as a duo. Think about it, I can team up with three of my friends and take on four of our opponents. That would be straight up crazy, don't you think?
In conclusion and summary, Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is dope. I loved the comic book stylization and the designs that have a blend of American comics and Japanese manga for characters. I am loving every second of it. These are my first impressions and thoughts regarding Marvel Tokon. Evo France is around the corner and that's where Marvel Tokon will have its first appearance at. And now that the patch came out to fix issues, the real fun starts.
No comments:
Post a Comment