8 Years Later, Marvel Tokon Team’s Amazing Dragon Ball Fighting Game Still Holds Up

Arc System Works has another hit on its hands in Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. It survived a rough Windows PC launch on its way to half a million copies sold and an 86 on Metacritic, though reviewers have largely only played the PlayStation 5 version. The anime-inspired fighter pits 21 of your favorite Marvel characters against each other, and breaks new ground for the genre with its four-person teams sharing one health bar.

Those 4v4 matches are a departure from traditional tag fighters, especially as you have to unlock access to half your team members over the course of a match. If you’re not vibing with Marvel Tokon’s new mechanics, or just want to revisit a classic fighter from yesteryear, well, that’s exactly what Arc System Works has cut its teeth on. In between Marvel Tokon bouts, I’ve been enjoying the studio’s Dragon Ball FighterZ, one of the best Dragon Ball games around.

Dragon Ball FighterZ was released in 2018 and immediately became a favorite in the competitive scene, and among fighting game casuals such as myself. It has a very deep gameplay system, but you don’t have to study under Master Roshi to be able to have a good time. Like in Tokon, FighterZ has an autocombo mechanic, so even the newbiest of newbs can have a good time beating up Frieza and ending a combo in a flashy move, like Goku’s Kamehameha.

Some special attacks are a bit tougher to pull off as they require you to precisely roll your thumb on the D-pad or get the timing of your button inputs just right. Once you get a handle on that timing, however, you’ll be kicking Frieza’s ass in no time. (I just don’t like that guy, OK? He did my man Vegeta dirty.)

Mechanics like Vanish Attack, Dragon Rush, and Super Dash allow you to quickly close the distance on an opponent, something Marvel Tokon’s sluggish characters could benefit from. Put all your combos and movement tools together with assist attacks and you’ll feel like a badass in no time.

While fighting games are largely known for their PvP modes, there’s enough offline, single-player content in FighterZ to keep a casual solo player coming back for more. Its story mode lacks the excellent character development in Marvel Tokon, but nonetheless it still serves as a good introduction to how the game’s various characters play. (Plus, you’re gonna want to beat it anyway to unlock the game’s original antagonist, Android 21.) Arcade ladders offer increasingly tough bouts, and are your path to unlocking (deep breath) Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku and Vegeta. You can even turn FighterZ into a 1v1 (or 2v2) fighter through its versus mode to really zero in on learning a specific character.

Image: Arc System Works/Bandai Namco

The base game launched with 24 characters, and has almost doubled in size since with various DLC additions. With Dragon Ball Daima’s Super Saiyan 4 Goku joining earlier this year, FighterZ has 45 total combatants. Just like a Mortal Kombat game, picking up Dragon FighterZ several years after it came out is a worthwhile investment for players primarily enjoying offline modes. While Dragon FighterZ still retails at full price eight years after launch, it and all of its DLC frequently go on sale. In fact, at the time of this writing, you can snag the Legendary Edition, which includes all its DLC, for $27.49 on PlayStation.

Recent years have given fighting game aficionados plenty of new games to try out, and Dragon Ball fans have also been eating well with the 3D arena fighter Dragon Ball Sparking Zero. Just make sure you save some hard drive space for Dragon Ball FighterZ, because it’s still worth every gigabyte.