MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, the upcoming team-based fighting game featuring Marvel’s stable of iconic superheroes and villains, is playable for the first time at Evolution Championship Series (Evo) this weekend. To celebrate the game’s first outing in the hands of the public, a 12-minute beginner’s guide was released, giving us our first deep look into the game’s core rules and fighting mechanics.
If you're a fan of fighting games, watching the whole video is worth your time. Presented by the game’s director, Kazuto “Pachi” Sekine, the beginner’s guide covers the game’s mechanics that seem designed to be simple enough for your common Marvel fan, but complex and versatile in the hands of more experienced fighting game enthusiasts.
Here’s our breakdown.
The Basic Rules of MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls
The game sets itself apart by offering 4-versus-4 tag team combat. That’s one more usable ally than its well-known cousin, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but the differences don’t stop there.
Matches begin as a 2v2. Allies are then unlocked in sequence during the course of the match by triggering stage transitions, knocking your opponent into the corner, or after losing a round.
All four team members share a single health bar called the Vital Gauge. As allies are unlocked, the Vital Gauge increases, giving players access to more health. This gives players who can quickly unlock their full teams of four a huge advantage.
Once a player’s Vital Gauge is reduced to zero, the round is over. The player who’s able to win three rounds in a best-of-5 series is the winner.
The Basic Mechanics of MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls
Speaking of gauges, there are three of them that players will have to manage efficiently to help them get the win.
Vital Gauge: The single health bar shared among all members of a team. It increases in value as team members join the fight.
Assemble Gauge: This sits below the Vital Gauge and serves as a player’s economy for assist-based mechanics.
Skill Gauge: Located at the bottom of the screen, it is used to perform special skills.
Each Marvel character's unique skills can be executed with a single Skill Button. Skills can then vary depending on directional inputs made along with the Skill Button.
If you’re old school and prefer to use traditional light, medium, and heavy directional inputs, skills can be triggered that way, also. In fact, utilizing skills this way is designed to deal more damage; this is perhaps the game’s way of rewarding players for increased effort and advanced play.
There are also Super Skills and Ultimate Skills. These are the hard-hitting, cinematic skills that deal heavy damage at the cost of depleting a player’s Skill Gauge. These skills hit even harder when used to finish up a combo.
Now, let’s touch on the game's assist system.
Once a full team of four is unlocked, the type of assist a teammate offers depends on their slot position. The teammate in the first slot will perform a shooter assist, which involves a projectile of some sort. The second slot is for vertical assists or anti-air attacks. And the third slot is for assault assists. Assault assists feature skills unique to the character in that slot.
There are also Crossover assists and Crossover Reflects. Crossover assists are defensive assists in which a teammate is called in to quickly attack and disrupt an opponent's assault. While Crossovers are useful for turning strong defense into offense, they come with a risk. The opposition can utilize a Crossover Reflect to counter a Crossover assist. If they’re able to execute a Crossover Reflect in the last second, it becomes a Perfect Reflect and can actually prevent opponent assists for a duration on top of dealing damage to both the opposition’s lead character and their Crossover assist character.
Needless to say, Perfect Reflects were designed to be challenging, but mastering them will be essential in higher tiers of play.
We’ve touched mostly on the rules and mechanics that we believe set MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls apart from other tag team-based fighting games out there. However, the beginner’s guide offers even more information on some of the more foundational mechanics for a game in this genre. You can find out about Slam Launchers, Assemble Rush, Assemble Smash, and more by watching the full MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls Beginner’s Guide on YouTube.
MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls is being developed by Arc System Works and is expected to launch in 2026.