It’s a good summer to be a Marvel fan. A real good summer. First there came Spider-Man Brand New Day ripping up more box-office records than DC and Christopher Nolan combined (rivals old and self-appointed), making superhero fatigue feel like its been consigned to the ash heap of history along with cassette players and the Spice Girls.
This is not the place to talk about Spider-Man Brand New Day. Other places have that movie pretty well covered. But I will say this: whilst comic book legend Frank Miller praised the movie as ‘the most Ditko movie to date’ – high, elegant praise from Miller, a harsh critic who had famously ripped into Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy; I find myself being awed by the artistic cinematography, the chiaroscuro nighttime shots of New York, Peter Parker and Spider-Man’s always off-centre movement through it all, I find it being the darkest, most Caravaggio Spider-Man film yet. It is the movie that once more made me dream of New York. A dark New York. The New York of The Velvet Underground, of CBGB, of Andy Warhol and Mondrian.
After watching the movie on its premiere date I decided, almost like a religious epiphany, to stop playing Crimson Desert (man, that game is a slog), and take up Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 for another joyous ride. I played New Game+. I put Peter Parker in his Superior Spider-Man costume. And I played very little of the story. I just indulged in New York. I spent most of my time walking on the pavements (I’m walking over here!) looking up and dreaming.
I played Spider-Man 2 in anticipation, also, of Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game (more on that soon), but also as a prelude, or appetiser, for Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls. The game came out a few days ago (August 6th) and since playing the open beta my excitement was stratospheric. And I wasn’t disappointed (though I haven’t yet gotten to grips with Spider-Man’s mechanics yet).
I’m in a mood for hyperboles so here’s one more: I think Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls is Marvel’s greatest fighting games. And, as a bonus hyperbole, it may well hold up as one of the best fighting games of all time.
The reason for my excitement is not unjustified. After all, it had been a long time since any Marvel vs. Capcom was released, and let’s face it, the last two entries were sub-par. All we’ve had to feed on is scraps, like Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics – which is great and entertaining, but a bit too over-indulgent in nostalgia.
Last year’s Marvel Rivals was a disappointment, to me, a strict believer in single player gaming, a loather of purely online gaming, and as someone who laments and despises games that make microtransactions an irresistible temptation within the game. Games like Marvel Rivals, gatcha games, even the Hot Wheels games that my son loves to play, they all make me feel like listening to the Sex Pistols, wailing against capitalism, and maybe throwing a brick through an office window.
Marvel Tokon feels like a pure game (though of course paid DLC and updates and all that shebang are present). A fighting game. 4 vs 4. An intense fighting game. As intense if not more than ArcSystem Works’ own Dragon Ball FighterZ. A beautiful game. My god what a beautiful games. I’ve commented earlier on Brand New Day’s moody, Caravaggesque lighting: Tokon’s colour palette feels as bright and as celebratory as the ceiling of a Venetian palace (check it out). The shading, of both characters and backgrounds, is astounding.
Musically, the game gets it right too. It is hard, pulsing, a perfect heart-raiser for the action, but it is also subtle; there are violins here, there is nuance, you get African beats when you play as the Black Panther, you get 90s style techno when you play as Blade, you get a Medieval-esque tune when you play Loki. This game, like Spider-Man 2 before it, feels impeccably appropriate.
Each character feels unique to use. In fact, learning each character’s move set and MO feels like starting over a new game each time. And each character’s move set feels appropriate. Magik’s portals. Dr. Doom’s shields. Ghost Rider’s red zone. Deadpool’s fourth wall moves. Carnage’s parasite. Just as Spider-Man 2 is the best at recreating what it feels like to be Spider-Man, so Tokon manages to recreate what it feels like to be each and every character, from Captain America to the Green Goblin.
The character roster is also a dream for me. I’ve never played Carnage in a game before (though when I was a small boy I had begged my mum to buy me Seperation Anxiety on the SNES); never played as the Green Goblin or Danger or Peni Parker. And whilst I have played as Blade and Ghost Rider and Deadpool (most excitingly in Midnight Sons), I have never played them like this before. Because of the easy-to-use mechanics ArcSystem Works have introduced, I can turn on these characters’ power sets with an easily remembered, nearly universal, button combination. R2 and R1 gets you a lot of flash in this game. Of course using the unique abilities and powers of Ghost Rider is a very different story than using those of Spider-Man, etc.
At the time of writing, I haven’t even scratched the surface of Episode Mode. Which promises to be good since it was written by renowned comic book writer Kieron Gillen. I’ve just been having fun on single player, recreating iconic Marvel battles, like Avengers vs X-Men, Secret Wars, Blood Hunt, and all the rest. This is what I meant earlier about pure gaming.
Playing Tokon after Crimson Desert has proven a blessing. Crimson Desert is the gaming equivalent of an art lover entering the Louvre and being completely overwhelmed by a constellation of great art that you just can’t possibly get through in one day. And that’s a good thing, of course. But Tokon represents the experience of travelling and happily stumbling upon a small chapel, somewhere on a back road, which has one altar painting that completely takes your breath away, and you spend hours in there just looking at this one painting, unwilling to leave, and when you finally do, you feel like a better person for it.
And the good stuff is only going to keep coming.
Insomniac’s Wolverine looks exciting. My first spark of optimism was lit when it was announced that Wolverine would not be an open world game. Firstly that’s a good thing because of the over-saturation of open world games in recent months and years (cough, cough, Crimson Desert). Secondly and more importantly, Insomniac felt that Wolverine didn’t need an open world game, the same way they understood that Spider-Man needed an open world New York.
Insomniac seem to be getting the character. The trailers have been as bloody as a Mortal Kombat film with the cinematic bombast of an Uncharted game. The fact that the narrative seems to revolve around Bolivar Trask and anti-mutant hatred is also promising: that is when X-Men and Wolverine are at their best, when their stories deal with the Nazi-like hatred and genocidal impulses aimed at all of mutant-kind, which is what makes Magneto such a compelling character to follow over the years (please, please let him be in the game!). Just as Spider-Man’s stories got the best out of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man dynamic (especially the Harry Osborn/Venom combo), so these stories will likely get the best out of Logan and the berserker Wolverine.
It is also exciting to see Wolverine travelling to so many diverse locations across the globe. Madripoor. Canada. And Japan. Yes, yes, Japan. I sincerely believe that the 1982 Wolverine storyline (by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller) that sees him travelling to Japan is one of the best runs in comic book history. If the game is going to even slightly touch on that, that is orgasmically exciting.
Wolverine looks to be one of the most exciting games of the year. Of course, neither Wolverine nor Tokon will win this year’s Game of the Year. That honour is already inscribed, pre-written, sealed and packaged, for GTA 6. And that’s fine. It’s not all about awards. It’s about the experience. You (the player) and the game. That’s it.
Earlier on I mentioned a punk version of me (blame my sixteen-year-old self still squatting inside my head) that loves to listen to the Sex Pistols and wail against capitalism. I shouldn’t be fawning at Marvel’s successes. It’s far, far too off-script and off-role for me. Marvel is, after all, one of the largest entertainment conglomerate on the planet. That can’t be a good thing, can it? On the other hand, I am also a lover of art, whatever shape or form it takes. If Marvel keeps releasing such satisfying, challenging artworks (especially if Avengers Doomsday delivers), I’ll put down my Sex Pistols records (temporarily, of course) and cast my lot in with the enemy. It’s been a real good summer to be a Marvel fan.
Photo by Igor Bumba and Taylor Williams on Unsplash.
