Respawn Monday #11: Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, Street Fighter 6 Week
It was a fighting game weekend for me as I attended the Street Fighter 6 Yasmine launch celebration event in the Philippines, plus starting playing Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls that just released last Friday. Befor that, a revisit of Street Fighter 6 to learn Yasmine, so imagine how tired my hands are from all the button pressing, but it was all worth it. Some thoughts.
Street Fighter 6 Year 4 Begins with Yasmine
I went back into the fighting game groove, re-installed Street Fighter 6 the day Yasmine was added into the game to not only try the new DLC character for Year 4, but to see where the game stands after leaving a couple of years ago.
It felt like riding a bike. As soon as I cleaned the arcade stick I bought on Street Fighter V launch (yes, that old), I booted up SF6 and started going to town with Ranked matches. No warm up for me, but I did go for Ryu, my main when I used to play extensively.
The combos still flowed, my neutrals seem to be on-point, and the rust and issues are clear but will correct themselves the more I play. Finding a match takes literally seconds and netcode remains rock-solid. Street Fighter 6 still feels like a well-maintained fighting game machine with an active player base that continues to keep playing.
I’m having a blast, but in my corrent rank of Diamond 5 with Ryu, it was sweaty almost every match. I love the tension this game gives, the possible mistakes you make because of the pressure a player can feel in the corner. I forgot this feeling, and it was slowly getting less intimidating when going against players that have been playing since launch.
I have no plans to reach Masters, one of the highest ranks in Ranked, but it’s good to know that I still understand the fundamentals of the game, so I applied that on Yasmine, learning her through training mode.
Yasmine is fun to pilot
Yasmine is not the usual character I play as I’m used to having a fireball option to zone players, which is why I went for Ryu, so it was a massive adjustment on my part as her moves aren’t natural to me. It took me hours but I eventually established a good bread and butter combo as my go-to when I see an opening, and understand the pros and cons of the moves Yasmibe has in her arsenal.
Her pressure game is insane and fun to do. Simple for veterans, but inviting to newcomers or even returning players. She can flip around, have an anti-air that dares anyone that approaches from the skies, and cool supers that put you in a good position when you land it safely.
As for her character design, she’s great both in looks and personality. Probably a bit too much in terms of the color choice and the Philippine flag to really make sure it’s clear she’s Street Fighter’s first Filipina fighter. They even bothered to give her Tagalog terms during her emotes or when she loses. For example, she sometimes screams “Kuya” when losing a round, a word that translates as “brother”, as she learned how to fight through him and their grandfather. I haven’t jumped into her arcade mode to learn more of her backstory as I’m focused on player her, but as a Filipino, it’s great to hear words only Filipinos can understand when she speaks or when checking her move list. It’s also a treat when foreigners try to pronounce each move, especially content creators.
I’ll give myself time with the game and will share my full thoughts on Yasmine and the state of SF6 soon, but it’s great to experience game now on its fourth year, still alive and just as fun as I remember.
I’ve also shared what I thought of the Capcom-hosted event for Yasmine’s celebration launch. Below is the final round of the local tournament.
Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls - Currently Being Played as a 1v1
During the weekend, I started my run of learning everything I could about Arc System Works’ new game Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. I can’t provide a full review of the game just yet as I haven’t delved deep through the game’s story mode called Episodes as I’m too focused on finding the right team that fits on how I play, going through training mode, and do online matches to understand and aborb the game’s many gameplay systems.
On my first day with it, I realized something: this can be easily played like a 1v1 fighting game with assists. As much as it’s a 4v4 fighting game, Tokon doesn’t punish you for simply focusing on one character for the whole match and treats the remaining characters in your group as assist tools. For the whole weekend, most of the people I fought against online focused on one character, which I think is understandable as it’s unlikely players have the confidence to play all 4 characters in their team. We are still trying to get ourselves comfortable with a handful of characters, so that makes me excited about how the game will feel in a couple of weeks when there are more players with more than one character capable of taking out half of your life bar in one combo.
What I also noticed is how terrible the online connection can be when playing against PC players. With me on PS5, given the issues and problems PC players are facing right now, it feels like I dodged a bullet, but i’m not immune to how bad the game’s PC version actually is as there’s a likely chance I will have a disconnect or some lag issue against a player playing on their PC. This is only my experience on the Asia servers as others may be experiencing something entirely different, but I’m hearing online chatter that some are experiencing similar cases, which is why turning off cross-play could be a good band-aid solution to keep online games consistency smooth in the short term.
I’ be sharing more about Tokon, but despite the PC port and it’s online issues, this is looking to be a complete fighting game package. Training modes has all the bells and whistles to set up what I want to practice on, challenge modes to test a player’s ability to execute combos, tutorials for almost every aspect of the game, story mode, online mode hubs, and a rather extensive replay mode.
Look out for final verdict on Tokon soon, as well as how it feels to play SF6 in 2026.
Respawn Monday #06: Diablo IV, Dead by Daylight Sweats, and Sony going Discless
Respawn Monday #07: Palworld 1.0, and the Black Flag Open Seas
Respawn Monday #08: Palworld has taken over my life
Respawn Monday #09: Palworld Tokon Fighting Souls Beta
Respawn Monday #10: Mistfall Hunter is an Extraction Soulslike Gem
About the Author - Carlos Hernandez
Carlos Hernandez is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Too Much Gaming, where he writes about video games, reviews, and industry news. A lifelong gamer, he would do anything to experience Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time again and has a love/hate relationship with games that require hunting for new gear to improve your character.
Arc System Works nailed Tokon and showed once again why they are one of the best in the genre. While it’s too soon to know if this game will perfectly fill the tag team Marvel void in the fighting game community, it launched with a respectable package perfect for everyone.