Fatal Fury 2 (alt) [Arcade] - play as Laurence Blood
30This is a playthrough using Laurence Blood in the Arcade version of Fatal Fury 2. Read on below for more information...
Laurence is the 3rd and penultimate boss. He is an unplayable character in all original NeoGeo versions of the game (MVS/AES/CD).
NOTE: Continues were used for this playthrough. Unwanted losses are cut out to save time and to keep video sizes to a minimum.
===== ABOUT LAURENCE =====
As a Spanish bullfighter/matador and being one of the unplayable bosses, he was (and probably still is) often compared to Vega from Street Fighter II... some even claimed that he was a rip-off. SNK most likely took inspiration from Vega when designing Laurence of course, but the two characters do not look anything alike nor do they play alike. However, it is worth mentioning that Laurence is armed with a saber (whereas Vega is armed with a claw) for one his special moves, and he also has some moves which are similar to Vega's... which include his Bloody Cutter (where he rises and home drops onto the opponent with a cape strike, similar to Vega's side-wall Barcelona Attack), as well as a low sliding sweep kick that knocks the opponent over.
===== 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, Laurence does not appear on the character select screen.
---- Despite being a non-selectable character, he actually has an alternate colour palette. He is the only boss in the game to have this.
---- 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 all of his ducking Normals are kicks, even if you use the Punch button.
---- He does not have a proper animation for crawling forward, instead he just "slides" forward.
---- His jumping forward/backward Normals are all flying kicks, which hang and do not retract. Just like Vega, Sagat and Bison's jumping kicks in SFII: World Warrior.
---- His neutral jumping Normals are his cape attacks.
---- His HP Taunt is a quick dodge move. He is invulnerable during this move.
---- 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 (Spain). 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 the Bonus Games, if the time runs out (meaning that he does not complete the round), sometimes the game doesn't progress.
---- In this alternate version of the game, when you win a round with him, he uses Joe's name.
---- In this alternate version of the game, when you beat the game with him you get Joe Higashi'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 Laurence's VS screen portrait correctly.