The release of Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls has been wildly successful, but so has the launch of another fighting game — Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game. The two titles have been doing wonders in the fighting game scene for very different reasons, both adopting well-known IPs but having different gameplay approaches. Although each fan of the genre has their preference, there’s no denying that the online systems in Avatar Legends are leagues above Marvel Tōkon‘s, even if the former game is still in an unfinished state.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Already, Marvel Tōkon has sold incredibly well in its first week, earning lots of praise for its 4v4 action with iconic Marvel characters who all have distinct gameplay identities. Meanwhile, Avatar Legends may have a smaller roster, but the robust classic 1v1 action of that game is presented with beautifully drawn 2D animation meant to emulate the Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra series. Avatar Legends has fewer features than Marvel Tōkon, but it feels more like a classic arcade title than the much larger production made by Arc System Works with Marvel Games.
Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game Has Far Better Online Functionality Than Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls
The one glaring difference between Marvel Tōkon and Avatar Legends is how the Avatar fighting game prioritizes speed and functionality for its online modes. Although Avatar Legends is lacking some features, such as Ranked Matches or the ability to spectate matches or have multiple players in a lobby, the matchmaking is solid at its core. You get entered into fights fairly quickly in Avatar Legends, dropping you right at the character select screen to get right into some competition. With full crossplay support across multiple platforms, you can connect with almost anyone in Avatar Legends too.
In contrast, there is a lot of fanfare tied to Marvel Tōkon‘s online matchmaking, including many obstacles that prolong the experience more than it needs to be. Once players have their team of four characters ready, they have to join one of several lobbies across multiple servers if they want to do casual or ranked matches. From that point, it takes quite some time to discover someone to play against, with games a considerable amount of time to load before competition can begin. Although the main netcode is stable in Marvel Tōkon, there are some problems that can’t be ignored.
Marvel Tōkon’s PC Problems Only Add To A Growing List Of Matchmaking Issues For Players
Marvel Tōkon‘s online functionality is a mess right now, largely in part due to the PC version of the game. As of this time of writing, there are still many ping and performance issues on PC, even after a recent patch aimed to alleviate those setbacks for Steam players. The layers of PlayStation authentication, such as a mandatory PSN account that blocks the game in over 100+ countries, stifles the online modes while causing frame drops, stuttering, and sometimes even causes crashes.
This even impacts PlayStation 5 players due to the crossplay features enabled for Marvel Tōkon. For example, a PS5 players could get matched up for a Ranked game against a PC players, whose performance problems will lead to one-sided rollback and heavy lag. Turning off crossplay on PS5 to fix this issue is a sad outcome, as it prevents PC players from finding matches in an environment that already has a long wait time. Player vs player queue times are long enough without the PC version messing things up, meaning PC competitors may be only able to get a few games within the span of a whole hour.
Compared to the rapid pace of match discovery in Avatar Legends, Marvel Tōkon is vastly inferior when it comes to online modes. This is in spite of the wonderful presentation of Marvel Tōkon, whose highly detailed lobbies are packed with customized player Avatars and other Easter Eggs for its own charm. Yet, at the end of the day, the best part about online features in a fighting game is being able to challenge players quickly and decisively, without having to leap over hurdle after hurdle to reach actual matches.
The Absence Of Certain Online Features Actually Creates More Engaging Competitions In Avatar Legends
Avatar Legends‘ Casual and custom lobby matchmaking modes may be incredibly limited compared to Marvel Tōkon, but this actually creates a more dedicated atmosphere. Without Ranked Match, which has players only interact for 1-3 matches before gaining points and moving on, players are encouraged to compete against each other until they feel like stopping. This gives players more time to learn match-ups, grind games, and otherwise rematch endlessly with people they’ve never met. Even though Marvel Tōkon has arcade cabinets in its online lobbies, this experience in Avatar Legends is far closer to an authentic arcade outing.
The unique systems of Avatar Legends are the bare minimum, but by removing arbitrary hierarchies, players have more room to discover each other organically. This obviously isn’t for everyone, as matches can wildly swing between a brand-new fighting game player and a skilled veteran at the drop of a hat, but it does feel more “old-school” as a result. With Marvel Tōkon continuing to struggle with its online features, this approach in Avatar Legends: The Fighting Game creates a far stronger fighting game environment than its AAA counterpart.
More Gaming
-
Courtesy of Square Enix and Disney
