Polygon columnist Ethan Gach argues that Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, a new fighter from Arc System Works featuring characters like Spider-Man and Blade, undermines its own appeal with a poorly designed tutorial. Despite praising the game's stylish art, varied movesets and dramatic matches, he says its onboarding overwhelms newcomers by cramming every mechanic into a single long tutorial, leaving players unable to retain what they've learned once they move into actual matches. This matters because it echoes a long-standing weakness across the fighting game genre, where dense tutorials continue to deter more casual or mainstream players from a genre that could otherwise appeal beyond its dedicated fanbase.

The tutorial teaches every mechanic, including blocking, Link Attacks and Assemble Assists, within roughly the first half hour, but the writer found much of it faded from memory once he reached the single-player story mode, particularly finer details like counters. He compares the experience to a similar frustration with Invincible Vs, and contrasts both with Street Fighter 6's World Tour mode, which gradually introduces techniques through side-missions, allowing players time to absorb and practise each move before learning something new. Despite the tutorial's shortcomings, he says he intends to keep playing Marvel Tokon, since its accessible combo system still motivates him to learn deeper play over time.