This may not be true for everyone but there's a steam thread who suggested a user who struggled to run the game at 58 fps on the original version on performance mode whereas they can run the game perfectly fine on the cracked version with full quality. I personally thought this didn't mean much but it intrigued me to try it - what's to lose on testing if the game actually does run better on the cracked version.

The findings - during the beta i was on pure performance mode with my cpu resting at about 40-60% usage - sometimes the game would have fps bugs where i'd have to close the game and reopen it to attempt to fix it. Sometimes loading the shaders helped, sometimes it felt worse which makes no sense. Since i did not purchase the game, i cannot test the patch that was applied without the crack being applied on removing the DRM protection. But interestingly enough what i did find was that:

1. I was able to run the game smoothly at 60 fps
2. I was able to max out the settings on full quality and have the game running smoothly during combat
3. I did not need to load-up shaders at all to get really smooth performance
4. There are still some stutters while performing supers (level 1, level 2, and tokon attack)
5. The ui has so much frame drop and so much stutters - it's kind of wild.
6. Audio during wall splats, and crushes seem to mess up the audio recording in OBS - might be performance related based on the last patch saying audio was causing performance issues.

We are almost able to narrow down that the DRM protection, the heavy encryption this game uses is a notable part in why this game runs terribly on PC but in reality, there are still 6 instances of sony SDK that do take up resources via task manager (seems to be small) and the EAC issue where that normally affects game performance aswell and as an anti-cheat it still doesn't keep them out.

The picture attached was me directly opening the game, there is a first initial spike while loading into the actual match - i waited just enough time for that spike to disappear and took a screen shot. The spike in the picture is when i paused the game so you can easily see the values.

There are two YouTube videos i took of gameplay which i will list them down here so you can also see for yourself.

https://youtu.be/8X45znTWGcM

https://youtu.be/ZDx5f9nNUq4

For most people who do not "lag" in online matches i highly suggest you check your frametime profiles (red graph) because if you are stuttering alot, you are indeed part of the issue that is giving your opponent's 8 frames of rollback/lag.

Forgot to put my specs in ....

GPU - GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

Processor - Intel i7-14700KF - if you have an older bios version - you must turn off intel turbo processing for this game because of UE5 oodle errors and potentially XMP Ram.

Memory - 32GB DDR5 Ram - 4800 mt/s

One thing to keep in mind - linux can't play and 100+ countries are still banned because of PSN requirements, is this really worth it?

EDIT* - I have and will add frame time graphs for different fighting games when im looking for something to do

Here is SF6's Frame graph - https://youtu.be/rBXD_tFvkSY

In this review - i will cover things i liked and things i did not like about the game and things to be careful of in the future. I have just over 20-25 hours in the game, i tried to see as much as i could and watched others play it on the side. (snake eyez, jwong, TNS tournament, a little bit of diaphone, vesper arcade etc.). For each point i will give a W for a win (good) - an L for something that is a loss (bad) which needs some work and i will label personal gripes as not super important to the games health as a personal opinion (O).

1) Artwork, Music, Visuals, UI, Voice Acting - 100/10 - W

This game has one of the best/better ui's out of tekken 8, city of the wolves, streetfighter 6. Everything is clean, organized - you can also set quick modes set to your home screen so you don't have to go searching, can actually assign a button to enter training mode much faster or even the story mode if you are doing a playthrough. The music in this game is also very good overall, sure there are some osts you may not fully vibe with but overall, the music is top tier. The visuals for moves, specials, tokon attacks - unique moves were well done and i like that there are unique quotes between characters, and that you can set different voice acting for different characters - you can choose what you think sounds best for you on that character.

2) Story mode - W

I can't speak for the entirety of what the story mode will bring. From what i saw after the beta on snake eyez stream - it looked very interesting had voice acting and a nice comic book effect to telling the story. Won't say much about the story itself because its incomplete but from what i saw i think this is a W for casual players.

3) Room Matches - Battle Hub Mode - W

I will say this is both a positive and negative for me only because of the upcoming point on pc optimization. The room matches when i played with a friend were pretty smooth, but another friend joined and it was a very bad experience, and the spectating option wasn't working. I still see this mode as a net positive because of how big these rooms are i think there's like 8 computers which easily held 16 players in a room for the beta. I think the battle hub mode is just a better version of streetfighter 6's battle hub mode and looks way better, a lot of effort went into this mode and while it may not be for me ...... i can still appreciate its value to many of you.

4) Character Choices - W

After now playing them in game or a vast majority of them - i think they did a decent to good job selecting characters for most to enjoy - the only characters i had no interest in is peni parker and ms marvel. The only reason why i don't like peni is because im just tired of big hitbox characters nothing personal against peni.

5) Optimization On PC and Bloatware after Uninstalling - L

I think this is painfully obvious that the optimization on pc has plagued the beta for the time being and honestly i'm not 100% sure I can say what the problem is but it seems like arcsys did not test the pc version at all. The other issues with this is that the game is heavily encrypted, has the playstation software install on your pc, has easy anti cheat which is KNOWN for bad performance and has the obvious DRM - anti piracy stuff that comes with almost every game. I don't think 9 days is enough time to fix alot of these issues and will hurt the launch.

The other thing is that when you uninstall the easy anti cheat software has to be manually removed and the playstation SDK you installed so for those who are not going to purchase tokon day 1, keep in mind that this will take up about 1.5-2 GB of space on your computer.

I also feel like if pc optimization is not there on launch, console players will just start blocking pc players / removing crossplay which pcs player count is going to be lower than console for sure.

6) Matchmaking/Netcode - L

Don't worry, this is not to complain about high-skill vs low-skill / unfair matches. What i'm here to talk about is how bad the matches felt because of the bad pc optimization. Commonly online with many different people you would encounter people with 8+frames of roll back and i just could not play through that amount of lag and that i can't lie has somewhat made a more negative opinion on the game. What i will say is that there seems to be one-sided roll back involved in this game which basically will hurt one player significantly more than the other. If you constantly run at 60 fps and your opponent can only pull 50 fps..... it will MAKE YOUR game auto correct to match theirs...... and that means they do not feel any effects of teleporting/stuttering to the level you will feel it. Something is very wrong here because people commonly blame people's internet when the ping between both players is 30-50 ms but 8+ frames of roll back.

7) Assist Characters and Tagging with Visual Clutter - O

I don't want to state this as an objective problem, but it could be more of a problem than an opinion. I will state this more as an opinion. I feel like the assist system seems more watered down from Fighterz, and the reason why i believe this is because you are locked into having a support for shooter, a support for air attacks, and the assault support which covers all the scenarios in a general match. In Fighterz you could have a wide combination of assists that either are all shooter (beam based) - or meele based (assault/air extenders like wolverine) and they had those type c assists which were stronger than normal assists but recovered slower. Tokon kind of just forces you to have all situations covered instead of building your team strategically and maybe at the higher level play this opinion turns out to be wrong as these are initial thoughts on assists.

Tagging - i feel like tagging in the game seems weird because most characters combos start with the same normals and get linked / sauced together with slightly differing special attacks which make the characters feel similar. For the vast majority of the player-base switching off your main that you have labbed is not going to make a whole lot of sense when you barely labbed the other characters. The only time i think it makes sense to swap is when you're playing against someone who's REALLY good at zoning and your character doesn't have enough tools to deal with it.

I have labbed a few specific scenarios to where you use the tag to mixup your opponent:

Tagging in neutral is -25

Tagging in neutral when the assist is called in after the move goes off is -1.

I basically recorded my opponent using the assist (ranged) dash over to cross the enemy - do a short combo string into swap - into more of a combo string. Alot of this pressure gets instantly removed by doing an assemble assault (drive impact - light+assist - back input) - and it's very unlikely that someone keeping you in block stun is going to let up. This pressure becomes nullfied for 0-1 bar and will do 0 bar drive impact does 6k damage and when you consume a bar for follow up will do about 17k damage.

Objectively speaking when labbing the same scenario - i let the opponent get me into a block string so i could try assemble crossover. This move while it looks very good for defense is really better for the offensive player especially if they have the timing down for a perfect crossover which doesn't inherently seem hard to do. If a perfect crossover occurs your whole team's assists are nullfied for about 10-12 seconds.

I guess .... i'm not really seeing value in tagging outside of hit confirmed combos and maybe small match up differences especially when this is advertised as a tag fighter.

Final note, you can have 8 characters on the field and all their abilities when they whiff there's alot going on with the screen lots of animations i saw some funky encounters that i don't even know what happened.

8) Character Frame Data and Combos - L

I think characters combos visually have the sauce but i don't think there's alot of execution or differences in the combos structures themselves outside of special moves as that is the biggest difference between characters. Most of them share VERY VERY similar frame normals lights are all practically the same - the mediums are very close to being 1:1 outside the range of the move - the heavies - 2H is the same for every character i didn't lab alot of characters heavies as i did the lights and mediums but even alot of those are super similar. Across 6 different characters and im assuming i could most likely get to 10 characters but using storm and magik as examples.... i could do the most basic combo and get 40-50k damage without supers.

Examples:

Magik: medium - heavy - qcb light -> wall splat -> medium-heavy-qcb light -> assist -> medium heavy qcb light -> assist -> medium heavy qcb light -> assist -> medium heavy qcb light -> cancel right away to tokon attack = 76-80k damage depending on how perfect you executed the moves as you can cancel some moves earlier doing less damage.

Storm - medium-heavy-qcb light -> assist -> medium-heavy -> assist -> medium-heavy -> assist - medium-heavy-crouching heavy -> jumping medium - qcb heavy -> wind up -> wind towards wall near the bottom to wall splat -> medium-heavy-level 2 = 70k damage.

From what i saw from others - you do 4 attacks in the neutral and you launch do the same thing in the air -> hit down -> assist -> do something from there which pretty much applies to every character.

The TLDR on this section is; i feel like the game is homogenized more than i would like it to be. Personally, would of loved more normals - differing frame data moves to separate someone with good lows vs bad lows ..... good anti airs vs bad anti airs.

The R1 - unique ability button does provide differences to characters but i don't think it's enough, some characters feel way more unique than others.

9) Controls, Quick Inputs, Assist Input - L

I feel like the controls have you fighting your controller vs you are enjoying the feel of the execution. There is a video with chris_F and he shows how small the margin for error is on the dp input - basically playing on pad (PS5/xbox/dpad controller) the odds of you always preforming a clean DP is very low especially with how fast paced fighting games are. Even 1 frame of accidentally going down back will cause a DP to turn into a QCF special using Magik as an example..... her uppercut sword move vs a fireball which would make you super punishable if you whiffed. I had this happen to me MANY times. I would have recorded my own video footage but the game optimization for pc was abysmal.

Marvel Tokon Beta Impressions: The Good, The Bad, & What Needs Fixing

Time stamp - 13:00 - 16:00

The assist input seems to be extremely tight with combos and it's kind of awkward sometimes to use them and it's almost like they want you to mash the assist button, but mashing the assist button also makes it so 2 of them could come out which you definitely do not want to have happen. He also covered this with examples in the video.

Quick inputs seem to be more useful in combos especially when using two qcf/qcb specials in a row. As an example, storm has a lightning loop where she can use medium thunder into light thunder and for some reason i cannot link this move together with the QCF inputs. I have found a workaround but its very awkward:

QCB medium - Quick input lightning

The buffering window seems to be VERY small, and I think there should be slightly more leeway for this across every character.

10) Command Grab Moves and Grappler Character(s) - O

I will not jump the gun yet until i see the hulk but some initial impressions is that command grabs as a whole seem bad in this game. I have spoken to a few people who've played the game who said dooms command grab isn't so bad and heard something about magneto but not much for anyone elses.

This is a personal thing that i hope they will bring a grab character into this game but i fear as that may not happen based on how i'm seeing command grabs work in this game.

Light command grab on storm for example is a 26 or 28 frame startup and i know you can do fancy stuff like wind forward into the opponent but the problem i have with this is why would you do that?

Thows themselves do 16k damage and leave you -22 or -23 on whiff..... whereas a missed command grab is atleast -60 and it only gets worse from there and the DAMAGE is only 17-19k.

Other games using sf6 for example, a standard throw does 1200 damage- let's use manon as an example - she has long range, medium and short ranged command grabs. The long range one has a longer startup, the shorter range has a quicker startup, and the damage for her command grab is 2k. Every command grab she does she builds up a medal which eventually her 6th command grab does 3700 damage. The risk vs reward is clearly there which i dont believe is present in tokon.

Both command grabs outside of the lights in tokon have similar startups, similar recovery frames, and your extremely negative on whiff. To only do an extra 12% damage ..... for something that risky makes no sense to me. I think with magneto and doom it makes more sense because i believe there's is comboable. Ontop of the low damage reward, you reset to neutral like a throw.

11) Modern Controls, Dash Button, Not Enough Buttons - O

Yes we have gotten to this point in the post where i must talk about modern controls as its a way to onboard new players but i do feel like the execution seems extremely simple and whether truly bad long term? Who knows we will have to wait and see. The reason why i bring it up is because of the limited number of normal attacks that exist in a character's kit with alot of the buttons being homogenized - everyone has crouching medium kick, which is a strong poking low, launcher (2H), the exact same lights just animated differently. I would like there to be more complexity in the controls..... as personally i don't feel hyped when i hit something like i do in tekken , streetfighter, avatar, fighterz .... etc. I have the same critique for 2XKO which is very similar to tokon controls.

Personally, i dash with the dpad and think that some of the buttons on the controller are going to waste. This is going to sound controversial but i think having an extra button having more normals/command normals for the game in replacing the dash button / quick inputs.

Did you guys know that if you can use inputs to get each version of your special to come out? you can quick input a light thunder, medium thunder or heavy thunder...... which i think with how the input reader currently is, it's just really annoying using classic inputs then having to use quick input.

12) Cost of The Game - L for PC / O for console

This is more going to apply to PC players than console players because this game just operates significantly better on console than it does PC. But with a game costing 80 CAD for the base game not including taxes and then adding in the first season pass in the deluxe edition comes out to 120 CAD. With the current performance of this game i am just not convinced that this game is worth that amount of money just based on that alone. If the game was operating perfectly fine even with alot of the bads with game i feel exists.... at least it's very justifiable for you to purchase it. You also have further skins, and future battle passes to consider with this game.

13) Final Thoughts - Compiling it All Together

This game looks amazing, the characters look amazing, the music is amazing, the story looks to be set up in a very good way and there are tons of social aspects in game that i saw people interact with on stream in the battle hub area, there is a lot to like about the game. The animations of attacks are wildly sharp - the supers are great, the tokon attacks are also great but long (maybe shorten them?). There are some issues resulting from the input reader, characters feeling the same combo structure wise which i believe are minor but add up with other significant problems like the PC port optimization, the net code and the one-sided roll back that is in play for this game. I hope they have rage quitting penalties in place and i hope they do address smurfing because on pc with family share - you can have up to 5-6 accounts with 1 purchase of the game. I also think while EASY anti cheat preforms bad, it still needs an anti-cheat and im not sure which one they should use instead of EAC.

For me personally - i felt like this game was a 5/10 because of the extreme PC issues, i even had to turn off turbo mode for my 13/14th gen intel processor because of stabilization issues and turn of XMP ram and it did run smooth still but even if i made those adjustments the matches felt HORRIBLE.

If i remove extremely negative things from my experience and objectively put a number of where i think Tokon sits out of 10 from the beta i would say it's probably a 7/10. Hopefully this number doesn't upset y'all as i do believe i tried my best to be fair in this review of the beta.

Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions or things you agree with or disagree with on my thread.

For pc players still looking to play on launch, i pray for your soul that the game is optimized. as i think i will be sitting this one out until they figure out PC optimization.