Getting to Grips with System Mechanics in Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls

As I was writing my review of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, I realized System Mechanics deserved its own section, as there’s lots to cover and I have a lot of thoughts – granted as someone who is really learning a fighting game for the first time. Nevertheless, it’s a fairly complex game so let me start from the top down.

Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a 6 button fighting game. You have light, medium, heavy, unique, assemble and tag. You also have six macros – quick skill, quick dash, quick assemble, light+medium, medium+heavy and light+assemble. On the DS5, it uses all the buttons (square/triangle/circle/cross/l1/r1/l2/r2), so you can consider it to be “optimally” a 8 button fighter (quick assemble and the button combos are left unmapped by default). 

Note: For inputs, I’ll write the worded input but also the notation. In fighting games, when people talk about a move, they use notation as a shorthand. Imagine the numpad on a keypad and then consider that to be each direction, so in order:

Some others:

• L – Light
• M – Medium
• H – Heavy
• j – Jump
• A – Assist
• U – Unique
• T – Tag
• x – can be substituted into LMH

Inputs in square brackets denote that they need to be held.

So for example: 2H is down heavy, jM is jump medium. 

‘Raw’ means I’m pressing it in neutral without a preceding input.

Also, worth noting that forward means the direction in which you’re facing the opponent. When reading notation, it considers the player is in Player 1 position (facing right). :]

Some context for the buttons themselves:

• Light – Just a quick jab. In most instances this is the second fastest move a character can use, first being throw. Has the smallest range.
• Medium – A longer punch or kick. Has a longer range and usually the button you want to use to start a combo off of, because medium attacks usually have properties to make the opponent bounce off the air.
• Heavy – The slowest of the three options but also the strongest. A raw down heavy will always launch the opponent into the air. 
• Unique – Each character’s special move (i.e., Spider-Man’s web-zip, Iron Man’s repulsor blasts). This can have a variety of options depending on what button is pressed alongside it (if you’re playing Spider-Man and press unique on neutral, he will shoot his web-zip straight forwards. If you press forward and unique, he shoots it at an upwards angle. If you hold, the zip connects into a kick). 
• Assemble – Calls one of your teammates and does their aforementioned assist (shooter, vertical and assault). If pressed in neutral, it calls each assist in the order listed previously, but you can call the ones you want by hitting assemble plus forward/down/back). If pressed as soon as an attack connects, you get a generic lariat assist (where the assist called moves forwards and attacks the opponent) which is used to extend combos. If you’re above traditional jump height (maybe by using superjump or after 2H) you call an air assist.
• Tag – You can either press this raw or when the pop up appears above the head of a character you call in an assist. Works like assemble where if you press it on neutral it tags in the shooter assist, but if you hold a direction you switch with the character in that slot. 

Macros:

Quick Skill – replaces the need for doing motion inputs. Quarter Circle Forward (down -> down forward -> forward | 236x aka the fireball input in Street Fighter) is mapped to just QS (+ optionally either M or H depending on which version you want to shoot out). Z input (forward -> down -> down forward | 623x aka the dragon punch input in SF) is mapped to QS + Forward. Down Down (down -> down + L/M/H | 2 -> 2x) is mapped to QS + Down. Quarter Circle Back (down -> down back -> back | 214x aka the hurricane kick in SF) is mapped to QS + Back. QS + Unique is your level 1 super (with motion inputs you get this via quarter circle forward + medium and heavy at the same time | 236MH). QS + Unique + Forward is your level 2 super (with motion inputs this is half circle back -> forward + medium and heavy | 63214 -> 6MH). The only caveat to using a quick skill input as opposed to a motion input is the skill does 1000 less damage. 

Quick Dash – Allows you to just dash at the press of a button as opposed to hitting forward forward (6[6]) or back back (44). Pressed raw, it automatically does a forward dash (and if you hold it keeps running. QD + back does the backdash. For characters who have omnidirectional air dashes, a raw input moves the character forward, and pressing it with a direction makes the character move in that direction.

Quick Assemble – Allows you to do almost every light+assemble input with the exception of Tokon Assemble. When pressed raw, it does an armored overhead attack. When pressed with back, it does a parry move. When pressed in the air it does the armored overhead. When pressed while blocking, it does crossover, and if pressed when you’re getting hit by a crossover you can do crossover reflect (and perfect crossover reflect).

Light+Medium – Allows you to dash (l+m is an alternative button combo to dash). Serves the same function as quick dash, however if you input it after a motion, it activates the medium attack version of a skill, something which quick dash doesn’t allow you to do.

Medium+Heavy – Allows you to throw at the press of a button (instead of pressing M+H at the same time – Triangle + Circle by default on the Dualshock 5). Can also be used when doing motion inputs for Level 1 and Level 2 supers.

Light+Assemble – Allows you to do everything Quick Assemble does with the addition of your Tokon Assemble (Level 3 super) when you input quarter circle forward.

As far as my own gameplay is concerned, I almost never use Quick Dash (only when I’m playing Iron Man, or another character that can do omnidirectional air dashes). I do use Quick Skill though, especially in combos where I have to do two motion inputs back to back, and every time when I do a level 3 super (which in a motion input context requires half circle back -> forward -> medium + heavy, I can’t pull that off on the Dualshock 5 d-pad consistently). I just don’t trust myself to not drop the combo, but I’m sure with enough practice I can manage not using the motion input. I’ve had the quick dash macro swapped for the light+assemble macro personally.

Lots of button explanations, now lets get into how these buttons factor into the actual meat of the game.

If you press either of the attack buttons four times in a row it automatically converts into an autocombo, regardless of if you mix up neutral attacks with down ones. Depending on the last button you press in the auto combo (ie, LLLL or LLLM or  LLLH) a different skill will come out. Light autocombo ends with your whole team coming in to attack your opponent, and in the chance you’re in a game losing position, your Tokon Assemble is added to it as long as you have 150 skill gauge. If you press Medium as your fourth button, you do your Level 1 Super at the end if you have 50 skill gauge. If you press Heavy as your fourth, you do your Level 2 Super if you have 100 skill gauge.

Within the mix of neutral and down combos, it is worth noting that if you do a neutral attack into a down attack and keep holding down, it wont convert to autocombo (but also at the same time your down attacks create distance that you can’t cover with another down attack of the same type usually). 

That being said, the maximum number of times you can press an attack button before it converts into an autocombo is 2 for Light and Medium and 1 for Heavy. At the third press for Light, it automatically does the second kick from the second medium press before the team attack, and then on the fourth press it does one of the character’s skills. At the third press for Medium, it does a skill, and then the fourth does the Level 1 Super.  For Heavy, the second attack does a skill and the third does a Level 2 super.

Medium and heavy can both bounce the opponent into the air, allowing the player to transition to air combos. It’s important to note that continuing to press heavy (or light or medium) after a down heavy allows the player to keep an air combo going, because down heavy is the universal anti-air and air launcher. If you keep pressing heavy after down heavy, it causes a homing jump which makes the player automatically follow the opponent into the air, and then the fourth attack (if it’s a neutral heavy) sends the player flying down – this is true in instances of raw down heavies and combo’d into down heavies. You can also do a homing attack after down heavy by pressing light and medium too. 

In the air, you have access to the air versions of attacks and certain specials and supers (you can check which ones by pausing and going to the command info screen). Heavy attacks have a forward variation which can bounce the enemy further for another combo string in the air. All of this to say that as a beginner you might be mashing, but the better you get at the game you’re meant to do precise inputs to pull off the actual cool shit.

As far as offense goes, it doesn’t end there. Your unique is also a tool in your offense– Spider-Man’s web zip lets you close gaps, Iron Man’s shoots out his repulsor blast, Captain America throws his shield, Green Goblin’s switches his stance and puts him on his glider, etc etc. Light+Assemble on the ground is an universal overhead, in the air it’s an armored attack. 

As I explained in the buttons section, your assists also have different functions depending on when the button is pressed. On neutral, they do what they’re meant to do in that specific position. After an attack connects they do the generic lariat assist which is your combo extender, and in the air they have another variation.

When you’re doing combos, there’s a combo gauge that fills up on your side of the screen which maxes out at 10. For every normal attack (LMH) on the ground, it increases by 1, and in the air it fills by half. When you call an assist it goes down by 2, and when you use an EX move (the heavy version of a special) it doesn’t fill up at all. If it maxes out, the bar goes red and forcibly ends the combo. There’s more nuances to it as slowly figured out by the community, such as how there’s a secret style meter. Point being, to truly work with the combat system, you have to use a combination of everything in your arsenal to really maximize the damage you can do to your opponent. In the current meta, this game is easily a two or three touch game, because you will get decimated in a round by two or three well defined combos. 

There’s also another gauge right on top of that which measures hitstun, which is the amount of time you have to hit the opponent with another attack before they can tech out of it (a few frames where they’re invincible and can get out of the way). In some fighting games, such as the MvC series, there’s something called hitstun decay, where the same attacks gradually cause less hitstun so you can’t loop them forever. In Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, there is no hitstun decay, the combo automatically ends when you’ve filled out the combo gauge. 

The game doesn’t state this outright, but your damage does decay the longer your combo is. Your first hit does 100% damage, and every subsequent hit after does 20% less damage, until your 6th hit onwards where you do 10% damage. 

There are also certain specials you cannot use repeatedly, which if you do the game automatically maxes out your combo gauge and does a combo break.

You can cancel normals into other normals but only if you’re going a tier above, not below. Which is to say you can do Light->Medium->Heavy, or Light->Heavy, but you can’t do Medium->Light. 

Defensively, you have a few options too. You can block while standing, do a crouch block, and block in the air. You press back on the ground to block on the ground and back in the air to block in the air. You press down back to crouch block. Standing block blocks high and mid attacks, but leave you vulnerable to lows. Crouch block blocks mids and lows, but leaves you vulnerable to high attacks. 

When you’re in a blockstring, you have a couple of options to get out of it. You can:

• Wait for a gap in the offense and hit back, or call an assist, or jump and dash out
• Hit light+assemble / quick assemble to do a crossover counter
• Hit back + light + assemble / back + qa to do a counter. 

The usual strategy for the first one is to hit them with a quick jab (light), although if you keep mashing light a good player will use it against you, so you need to time it right. 

The second can be countered by the player also pressing light+assemble to do a crossover reflect. If they hit it in a specific timeframe (when you hit crossover there’s text in the back that says crossover that slowly fills up, hit it when it’s almost fully coloured) they do a perfect crossover reflect which prevents you from calling an assist for a duration of time. 

The third has some startup and can be predicted if done too many times.

Depending on the character, they also have some other defensive mechanics baked into their skillset. For example, Spider-Man’s z-input special is Spider-Sense, which lets him do a counterattack. However, that move specifically has a long buildup and recovery, so it isn’t safe to spam and can be easily countered. 

Then there’s the neutral game. For the uninitiated, neutral in a fighting game is when both players have distance and aren’t stuck in a combo. It’s when you’re moving around, blocking, throwing out your assists, etc etc. It’s your turn when you attack them, and similarly it’s your opponent’s turn when you’re on the defensive.

When you’re attacking a defending player, you can do 4 normals (light/medium/heavy) before the combo ends and then it creates distance. You can extend your blockstring by calling an assist and then using a special, before continuing to do your normal. 

When you call assists, you need to have at least one assist gauge. If you call an assist on neutral

Now that I’ve explained the mechanics, (wow that’s a lot lol), let’s get into my thoughts on said mechanics.

Firstly, I’m mixed on autocombo just being permanently on. I appreciate that it forces a player to learn to not mash, and “punishes” them if they do autocombo (an autocombo will max out your combo gauge and usually comes out to at most 30,000 damage, when you’re capable of doing more than that by using well thought out combo strings). But, I would also appreciate the attacks just starting to whiff if you start to mash.

From a developer perspective, I understand that mashing allows a new player to do cool shit without much effort, but I don’t know if it really encourages a player to go past that. I mean on some level yeah, if you really want to learn the game has combo challenges and level up challenges to encourage experimentation, but for the casual player it ends at autocombos in most cases. 

I feel the same way about the Quick Skill macros (even as I use it too). There’s intuitive motion inputs like quarter circle forward and quarter circle back. Something like a z-input is intuitive if you’re using an arcade stick, but if you’re using a d-pad it’s harder to pull off. I think if the game (and this broadly applies to fighting games at large) taught you step by step how to at least do the main motions (in the case of this game: quarter circle forward, quarter circle back, z-input, down down and half circle back -> forward), it would go a long way into making players actually learn. 

Because here’s the thing: a motion input can be inherently risky when you’re doing it in a combo. What if you input it wrong and mess up your whole flow? You might have it memorized (qcf and qcb is muscle memory to me now), but in a match where so much is filling up your mental stack already, that’s another layer to keep track of. Now sure, with quick skill you’re in the same boat, you need to know if you want to just press that button for your qcf, or press it + back for your qcb, or it + forward for your z input, or it + down for your down down, but that’s still a simpler input than doing the motion input. That in turn I feel like adds to the design decisions when designing a character, because difficulty of execution comes into play, and I wonder how much that affects design.

Look, here’s the truth. Motion inputs feel fucking cool to pull off, particularly because the motions are equivalent to the motion the character pulls off. To go back to SF2, quarter circle forward for fireball is essentially how Ryu moves too, raising his arms from below to shoot it. Z-input for Dragon Punch is how the uppercut happens too, the arm goes from forward to down and then upwards. Quarter circle back for hurricane kick works the same way, you gotta wind back before spinning. 

It’s the same for this game too. Again, using Spider-Man as an example, his web shot is the fireball equivalent. His dragon punch being spider-sense works, because he moves his head in the way you do the z-input. His hurricane kick being his arachnid assault works because he has to wind back a little before hitting the opponent. Down down being his web bomb, well, he has to pull out the web bomb and throw it, I suppose. His level 1 super being qcf + mh works too, because he quickly lunges forward and does a series of attacks. His level 2 being half circle back -> forward + mh also works because he pulls himself back before shooting himself forward and attacking. Point being, motion inputs really do feel like you’re actually doing the motions and that’s another level of immersion that you’re missing out on by having quick skill be an option that players use.

Secondly, I don’t mind that you have to make blockstrings as opposed to just mashing a button when your opponent is defending. It forces the player to come up with unique solutions and I think that goes a long way in terms of player expression.

Thirdly though, I think the assist spam in neutral is rough. Essentially, you can spam call assists in neutral, and if they don’t connect it won’t count as using your assist gauge. The result of this is that you can spam it over and over again, and also it’s something that isn’t punished as hard. This is because while an assist is on screen, if the opponent hits them, they get damaged in the form of grey health. This is health that you can get back by damaging the enemy. However, after a certain period, the assist becomes invulnerable even if they’re on screen. On the player’s end though, you can only tag in after an assist if the assist hits the opponent (even on block), so you can’t just spam assist into tag for a potential mixup if the attack whiffs. 

Fourth, I think the way perfect crossover reflect is designed now is odd. Crossover itself is fine, if it succeeds you reset to neutral and can keep going. Reflect is the like the offensive equivalent of tech’ing a throw, you both lose an assist gauge and then keep going. However, if on perfect reflect, both players have 1 bar of assist, it goes down to 0 for both players with the defensive player in disassembled state where they cannot call assists for a duration of time. However, after that duration, they get all three assist gauges, while the player that pulled off a perfect reflect is still at 0, so they’re at less resources and thus behind. Hence, the player isn’t rewarded for that well timed reflect input. I think to make it work, you either have to reward the perfect reflecter with an assist gauge refill, or have it so the disassembled player has to rebuild assist gauge from 0 after they’re out of that state. Given the pace of the game, the former makes more sense than the latter to me, because it also introduces even more risk/reward to crossovers.

But aside from that, I like the rest. Matches consist of three rounds. Each player starts with one assist, 25 skill gauge (which can go upto a maximum of 100) and 80000 HP. When you unlock another member of your team, which you do by using a skill at the wall to cause a wall break (or splat!) or by losing the round, you get 10000 more HP, another assist gauge, and a max skill gauge of 125. Once you unlock all three characters, your team reaches your maximum potential and gives you 100k HP, all three assist gauges, and a max of 150 skill gauge.

Your game plan then, is to unlock characters as fast as possible. If you unlock a character during a round, your HP does not jump up by 10k, but you get 10k in grey health instead. The increase applies during the round. The more assists you have, the longer combo strings you can make. 

If you are in a position where you’re about to lose the game, you can then and only then do Tokon Assemble (your level 3 super), given that you have 150 skill gauge. You can do this either by mashing light for the autocombo or quarter circle forward -> light+assemble. 

From there comes the question of how difficult this game is, since your team has 4 characters. The game can be played as a 1v1 with three assists, but of course, the more characters you can pilot, the better. Optimally now in the meta teams are designed in a way where you’re good at piloting your point character and your first assist, so that you can switch in and out for mixups. Of course, as the lifespan of the game goes on, I’m sure there’s going to be crazy tech involving all four of your team. 

It is also worth noting that swapping into characters and then others doesn’t preserve their initial spot on the team. For example, if you have Spider-Man on point, Iron Man on assist, Captain America on vertical and Wolverine on assault, and you switch to Iron Man and then Captain America, Iron Man will now be in Vertical position. The point I’m trying to make is that theoretically I’m sure people will find ways to optimize teams where you can switch these pieces out on the fly and do things differently and make it work, which I’m excited to see.

Some references that helped me understand fighting games and the mechanics some more:
Dustloop, the wiki for Arc System Works fighting games
The Fighting Game Glossary – An Invaluable Resource that I always go back to when I’m confused about some terminology
Sajam – Fighting Game Commentator and Content Creator
GimR’s Lab – Fighting Game Content Creator