Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is a delightful surprise

I'm still catching up on a lot of the gaming announcements from Summer Game Fest, and so far, the reveal of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is one of my favorites.

I've never been a big fighting game guy (I'm just not that good at them), but I've always admired Arc System Works. Everything that team works on – like BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, and Dragon Ball Z – are just beautiful works of art. You can always count on an Arc game having top-notch animation, deep fighting mechanics, and a lavish, colorful art style.

So to see them bring that expertise to a Marvel fighting game was a really cool surprise.

To this day, one of my favorite stories I've ever written was about the time I got to visit Arc's office in Yokohama. Back then, the studio was celebrating its 30th anniversary and thinking about what it would take to keep it alive for another 30 years.

They talked a lot about passing on their knowledge to the next generation of designers, and if the mini PlayStation documentary about Marvel Tōkon is any indication (with newer names and faces from the studio that I don't recognize), it seems like that's exactly what they've done. I'm excited for them!