[May 13 Editor’s Note: The 4Gamer interview has been amended, clarifying that the original information was incorrectly provided. Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls does contain playable story battles. The original article follows.]
The upcoming Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls is bringing the superheroes of the Marvel universe into an Arc System Works fighting game, complete with a beautiful illustration-based art style. The included “Episode Mode” gives players a new original story to explore from the Marvel Universe, but a new interview from 4Gamer just revealed a major catch: there’s no actual gameplay.
We’ve learned, via machine translation, that the Episode Mode has “enough content to provide nearly 10 hours of gameplay in total” in the form of “a story using motion comics”, but when asked further about if there will be matches to play in between, producer Takeshi Yamanaka gave a resounding “no.”
Elaborating further, he clarifies “once you start Episode Mode, the story will progress even if you leave it alone. You can fast-forward by pressing a button, or pause and enjoy the illustrations at your leisure, but it’s designed to be enjoyed in the same way as reading a comic book.” All this points towards Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls not actually having a playable story, but rather a watchable one.
This is sure to leave many scratching their heads, as the Marvel universe has often proven itself to be a great place for interactive and playable narratives. However, Arc System Works opted to focus on the 10-hour comic approach as “Marvel is all about comics.” They push to make the motion comics more interesting by “adding sound and movement”, along wih PS5 DualSense controller vibrations.
This isn’t completely out of the ordinary for the developers, who have also taken a similar approach with the visual novel-based campaign for Guilty Gear Strive. The arcade mode in that game does offer slight story elements, but it remains to be seen if Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls will follow that trend or only offer the 10 hour-long comic book experience for those interested in story.
As coverage of this interview is relying on machine translation, we’ll be sure to bring further updates should more context or information be provided about Episode Mode. For more breaking gaming news, keep your eyes on GameObserver.
