Marvel Doesn’t Need To Fight Capcom Anymore
Marvel has a long history with the fighting game genre. Why wouldn’t it? With their wealth of characters a fighting game virtually makes itself. Developer Arc System Works are the next to see what they can do with this winning formula. A perfect choice of developer with their history in fighting games. Producing the Guilty Gear franchise and its countless sequels. Arc System Works have also delved into licensed fighting games as well. Dragon Ball FighterZ being a fantastic example of what this team can do with a beloved license.
Marvel Tōkon is a 4vs4 team based brawl on a 2D horizontal plane. It’s very much a throw back to ‘Marvel VS Capcom 2’ just with extra team members. Mechanically Marvel Tōkon is a strong contender in this genre. Marvel Tōkon is very easy to pick up using basic attacks that often lead into a link attack, a super move of sorts. Fear not though fighting game elites, Tōkon is still hard to master. Even with a soft combo assist system you need to learn a lot of characters to build a team that works for you.
Probably the most unique part of Marvel Tōkon is team composition. Starting with your Leader which should be your best or favourite character. Players then need to compliment their leader with 3 assisting characters. Depending on how you order the team each character will have a slightly differing role when they join the field to assist. Having anti-air, projectile and power move roles, this is where learning multiple characters pays off. Picking a character you like but who’s vertical attacks do not compliment your play style will hinder you. During battles while using your assist heroes you can switch in to them if you’d prefer to play them in that moment. However in this team based fighting game you have one health bar for your team not per fighter. Making character swaps feel much for strategic for a certain combo. Rather than a battle of attrition as your other heroes may have more health. The team system took some learning, but it’s sheer brilliance shines bright. Having knowledge of multiple characters is far more advantageous than the pure mastery of one.
Now lets talk game modes. You have the standard fare of online lobbies, arcade, arena and finally story mode. I’m focusing mainly on the offline content as I do not subscribe to PS+. That being said the quality of Marvel Tōkon leads me to believe that the online mode will be great. Arcade is very standard for this genre with a number of fights as your selected team and lots of congratulations you’ve done it at the end. The more interesting mode is Arena as its a little bizarre. You create a chibi avatar based on one of the in game characters to tackle a cutesy looking arena. Running around collecting power ups and trying to prevent the other players doing the same. At the end of the round a standard fight commences, with your collected power and buffs active to provide an upper hand. I love the idea of this mode but I can’t get over how disjointed and weird it feels and looks. If it wasn’t for the clear Marvel characters you’d be forgive for thinking its a knock off ‘Mario Party’. It is certainly a very unique game mode for a fighting game.
The story mode allows you to choose from one of five preselected teams. Covering all of the base games characters. The story follows which ever team you select fighting towards to villain of the piece The Champion (Yes I had to google this character too). The Champion wants to fight the strongest planets have to offer and if unsatisfied the planet is doomed to destruction. Now its Earth’s turn. While the plot is bordering on paper thin it is entertainingly told using a combination of anime movies and comic book storyboards. It was obvious the writers understood the characters very well. The interactions that happen in the comic book style get the tone totally on the money. It is worth going through all five of the campaigns seeing the story from the different teams perspectives is fun. Through out the fight in this mode you get to sample all of the characters. The game pushes you to use certain skills, moves and mechanics. It doubles up as a perfect onboarding system for those that are wishing to duke it out with others.
The roster on launch is a rich collection of classic expected heroes and lesser known individuals. We probably all expected Captain America and Iron Man, on which Marvel Tōkon delivers. Peni Parker, Danger and Magik probably weren’t on many pod our predictions. All of the characters have had a slight redesign making them a bit more Japanese Anime and you know what it works really well. Iron Man being slightly more ‘Gundam’, Carnage being more monstrous and so on. The star of the show is Deadpool by a country mile. It is as if Arc System Works wanted to show their love for a genre through one character. To those who don’t know Deadpool is a meta, break the forth wall kind. Arc used this to their advantage to make probably the best referential character the fighting genre has ever seen. Various moves are just taken straight from other games but given the Deadpool treatment, winning with him starts a meta ‘Street Fighter 2’ post battle conversation. Super moves contain jokes about the genre and he is by far the best part of this game. Arc System Works clearly crafted Deadpool as a love letter to fighting games.
Marvel Tōkon is a brilliant fighting game that has a wealth of content at launch. A fun and unique roster to experiment with to build the perfect team for your given play style. Graphically taking something many of us know and putting a satisfying spin on it that just works. While I shower this game in praise though I don’t think it’s Arc System Works best fighter to date. I enjoyed smashing The Hulk with Doctor Doom but found my mind wandering to their older games, Dragon Ball FighterZ in particular. Maybe I just prefer Goku over Iron Man.
