Fatal Fury 2 (alt) [Arcade] - play as Axel Hawk
57This is a playthrough using Axel Hawk in the Arcade version of Fatal Fury 2. Read on below for more information...
Axel is the 2nd boss. He is an unplayable character in all original NeoGeo versions of the game (MVS/AES/CD).
===== ABOUT AXEL =====
He is an over-confident boxer who fights with his hands down. Even though the two do not look alike, there are some elements in some of his moves which suggest that he may have been "inspired" by Balrog from SFII: World Warrior. Like many boxing characters in fighting games, this guy cannot kick.
===== GAMEPLAY =====
As he is a non-selectable character it means that he isn't meant to be controlled by a human player... and when he is controlled by a human player it really does show because in gameplay, there are a quite a lot of moves and animations/sprites missing for certain moves. Here is the information on him, as follows:
---- In the original version of the game, Axel does not appear on the character select screen.
---- In this alternate version of the game, his VS screen portrait image is taken and copied into the character select screen (on the right). He is also made selectable here. It's done in a way where it looks very authentic!
---- He can duck, and has ducking Normals.
---- He does not have a proper animation for crawling forward, instead he just "slides" forward.
---- His jumping Normals are all the top-down punches, with speed differences in the Light and Strong versions. The Light version of this attack can hit twice. The punches looks similar to Balrog's ones in SFII WW, CE and HF.
---- His HP Taunt has him disappear for a split second as this feature is not meant to be used by a CPU-controlled Axel.
---- He does not have any animations/sprites for the specific back and front plane stances, walks and moves. Instead, he just disappears. This is because he is not meant to appear on any other background stage besides his own one (USA). On his own stage, it is not possible to switch planes so therefore no "plane animations/sprites" were produced for him.
---- When he is opposite his opponent in the planes (he has no animations/sprites for these), his rolling is glitched meaning that he cannot complete the roll to the other plane. You can tell this by his shadow on the ground.
---- In this alternate version of the game, when you win a round with him, he uses Andy's name.
---- In this alternate version of the game, when you beat the game with him you get Andy Bogard's ending. This was done to stop the game crashing.
---- After you beat the game, after the credits, when get to enter your name it shows Axel's VS screen portrait correctly.
---- His Bust You Up special move is a series of dashing punches where if blocked, inflicts a lot of chip damage. This can be compared to Balrog's dashing punches in SFII: World Warrior (which probably inspired SNK for the move).
===== OTHER INFORMATION / TRIVIA =====
---- His character design, along with his mannerism and overall fighting style, is heavily based on former heavyweight champion George Foreman.