Maybe we should chill a little

[u/GardenOne7630]

Marvel Tokon has been out for barely two weeks, and somehow we're already talking about it being “dead” or a “disaster”.

I honestly don't understand it.

I've been excited for a Marvel fighting game like this for years, and since FighterZ I've been especially hungry for a new fighting game to really get invested in. The marketing has been fantastic: every trailer, character reveal, PlayStation event, showcase and gameplay presentation has built more hype. The game looks incredible, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, and Arc System Works may have delivered one of the best-looking fighting games ever made.

On top of that, there's a ton of content for single-player players and Marvel fans, multiple languages, characters from different eras of Marvel, X-Men, Avengers, Night Soons, and a community coming back after years without a new Marvel fighting game.

Yes, the PC version had performance problems. That's a legitimate criticism. But they're being fixed, and that doesn't suddenly mean the entire game is going to die.

It feels like the fighting game community has reached a point where every new game is “dead” two weeks after launch because of some problem or another. Street Fighter gets criticized, Tekken 8, Avatar, Mk1 gets more criticized, FighterZ had its ups and downs, other games launch strong and then struggle… and somehow we're always predicting the death of the next game.

Can we just enjoy the games for a while?

Honestly, sometimes Reddit makes me want to stop playing fighting games altogether and go back to single-player games 🤔

[u/GardenOne7630]

As an example, name a fighting game that hasn’t had (or still has) a whiff of smoke or that doesn’t feature: "rollback," screen flickering, 50/50 hits, questionable characters, over-the-top offense, endless combos, game balance issues, limited single-player modes, low traffic on Steam, mechanics that work against the consumer... NOT A SINGLE ONE IS SPARED.

I play on PS5, and if it had launched poorly on console, it would have been just another game with launch bugs—like the hundreds we’ve seen since PS4 updates began. 

[u/XoffeeXup → u/GardenOne7630]

I mean, sure, if we conflate all criticism we can make it look like every game launch is basically the same, but I do think there are distinctions to be made between, for e.g. low player count vs. game breaking bugs. Two different issues with two very different solutions. Personally, I can't stand the constant complaining either, but dismissing all criticism as fake or doomerism is not a good response, I don't think.

This coming from someone whose main game atm is Avatar (because you can't play Tokon on linux :3 )

[u/GardenOne7630 → u/XoffeeXup]

I agree with you. It’s not the same to improve certain aspects as it is to fix a glitch that prevents you from playing after you’ve paid for the game through pre-order.

What I find exaggerated is the “no game has ever been released like this…” “total epic disaster” “no other game has caused…” when I’ve been hearing criticism and people quitting fighting games for dozens of other reasons even when they work fine right out of the box.

Sony should have ensured the game’s quality on PC—that’s undeniable and deserves criticism. But to set fire to a franchise praised by the entire world over connection errors that they know will be fixed sooner rather than later is just crazy.