Streets of Rage 4 (2023 Update) - Mania+ S-Rank 1CC (Axel)

I've been playing with Axel on and off over the last week or so, and I finally got a decent S-rank clear with him. At first I was mostly using his default moveset, but after switching some of them out, I found this setup to be much better. His dragon punch does a lot of damage, and you have enough invincibility on landing to chain it into his roll attack - which is also invincible. So you can repeat that loop over and over to get through big groups of enemies, as long as you hit someone with your roll to refill a bit of your health. And honestly, while this is still fun, I'm starting to feel like they messed up the balance in this game. Fundamental beat 'em up skills have been minimized in favor of overpowered invincible attacks that you can just spam repeatedly. Maybe earlier versions would end up like that anyway once you got really good at it, but I felt like they hit the balancing sweet spot a while ago, and they've veered off course with the last couple updates. Mania+ exacerbates this too with all of the extra enemies in it.

But really, this is just a small complaint, because like I said, this game is still fun as it is. The scoring almost necessitates such powerful characters too because one mistake can cost tons of points. And I'm going to keep playing anyway, lol.

I'd like to do S-rank runs with all of the main characters (& SOR3 Roo), hopefully it won't take too long. This run still had some huge mistakes and bad strategies, but I'm getting more comfortable with everything the more I play (of course).

0:00 Stage 1
7:45 Stage 2
16:45 Stage 3
22:06 Stage 4
28:17 Stage 5
37:27 Stage 6
47:00 Stage 7
51:13 Stage 8
58:47 Stage 9
1:06:48 Stage 10
1:13:56 Stage 11
1:24:21 Stage 12
1:38:37 Results

Streets of Rage 4 Mania Playlist (All Characters):    • Streets of Rage 4 - Mania 1CCs  

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Beat 'em Ups (e.g. Final Fight):    • Beat 'em Ups  
2D Action (e.g. Metal Slug):    • 2D Action  
STG/Shmups (e.g. Dodonpachi):    • STG Replays