AXEL STONE

I love Streets of Rage and the last one that came out a year and a half ago is one of my favorite games in the last years, one of the very few examples of a game that actually delivers its full potential while keeping faithfull to its origins. And i love Storm Collectible figures, each one of them i bougth has been perfect soo when they release Axel Stone a year ago and i wasnt able to get him i was really dissapointed. 

Tough better later than ever, i was able to correct that and got Axel just before his price started to get too high and i am damn glad i got him. He is really stuning! Aside of the pretty box Storm Collectibles figures always have, this guy is on the same scale as the rest, being as tall as Terry and can stand on his own. He is articulated on the head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrist, chest, waist, legs, knes, ankles and half feet, every single articulation is a double joint or a ball joint, soo the movement range is absolute.

Also, since the shirt around his waist is made with soft plastic, it dosnt get on the way of his movement, tough the only issue i got is on his feet; the ankle ball joint is inserted on his shoe, soo while it can be moved backward a lot, it stops at the front of the feet pretty stronglly, soo Axel suffers the same issue Kazuya have: sometimes he fall backwards. Moving his legs can fix it and let him stand tall, but this is a small issue that gets in the way sometimes.

Soo, given Axel simplistic design, his range of movement is complete and perfect, he can take any pose you want and given he is a martial artist, he actually have a lot of pose options. I take way too many pictures of him and i had to delete a lot because they were too much for an antry on this blog. Really, the playability is endless on this guy.

The sculpt is brillant. Since he have such an anime look on the game, Storm decided to keep that look and mix it a little bit of realism as well, giving him a kind of statuesque look, his face feature are soo chiseled, and sharp, almost like a marble sculpture tough his eyes are soo full of life, soo big, shiny and livelly, this is deffinetly one of the most handsome figures i ever got.

His body struncture is really nice too, not as wide as he looks on the game (almost like a Capcom character) but he looks pretty athletic and spectacular on the chest area. Both his blue shirt and the one on his waist are made with soft plastic soo they have a pretty nice texture and i love the look on his snickers very detailed and very 90s looking.

The paint is as elegant as the sculpt, his skin tone is correct (unlike Haohmaru and Kazuya) and the paint on the beard dosnt mix with the skin at all, an impresive feat given the sculpt division is soo small. Like i said, his eyes are amazing, deep blue and looks weit and realistic. The rest of the figure keep the paint at minimum since all sections are cast in the dominant color, giving him a pretty vibrant and almost cell shading look that fits perfect on him. 

Tough something odd, his shirt paint is peeling off since the material is soft plastic, the paint cracks and peels off pretty easy. I dont understand why Storm painted the shirt tough, maybe the plastic color wasnt rigth?? The peeling off is mostly on the neck area for now, soo it gives him the look of an old shirt, but i am afraid it invades wider areas. The shirt on his waist dosnt suffer this issue tough.

Now the accespryes, this figure is trully heavy loaded, i think this is the Storm Collectibles figure with the most accesorys i ever seen, more than even Terry. He have four extra pair of hands aside of the closed fist: a pair to hold accesorys, an open palm pair, a two fingers pair and a claw shapped pair. All hands can be exchanged pretty easy and while they help a lot of give him personality, the most used pair will always be the closed fist.

He have two extra heads: one on a snarling expression and another one screaming, both can be exchanged with no issue. The sculpt and paint on this extra heads is as brillant as the basic head, with the wrinkles on top of his nose and each teeth sculpted and painted independently and a pin tongue in the screaming head, the level of detail is soo perfect.

He also have an extra hair piece. Yhea, i know is weird, just like Lobo. The hair section can be removed on all heads actually and this extra hair is a replica of all other hairs tough in a closer looks, its actually a little different....its moving to a side, like if Axel is jumping or throwing a punch, the hair moves with the motion. Its a little difficult to see the difference but is there and helps a lot for poses with heavy movement.

He have, not only one, but three different battle effects!! Lobo didnt had any effect and this guy have three different options! All of them flames cast in transparent plastic with orange, yellow and red tones. Two of them are a huge flame that moves on a half circle pattern, one smaller than the other one. The bigger one have some wild sculpt and spikes on the front tough this one is for the starting of Axel special move, while the smallest one is the end section of the special move animation.

Then the third flame have two tails that twist around Axel arm for an upper cut punch. All of them fits nicelly into Axels closed fist tough the twisting flame have some issues fitting on his arm. Despite of this, all of them are spectacular looking.

Then there is his weapons, because onlike Ryu, Jin, Demitri and other fighting game characters, Axel use pretty much any kind of junk he finds liying on the floor (actually, he is not even a fight game character at all!!) soo unlike the other Storm figures, he comes with A LOT of weapons.

He have a silver bomerang with a pretty cool looking design that only appeare at the beggining of the China Town stage. Also from that stage is the three spikes Sai, a weapon pretty natural for the ninjas, this item coud actually fit on any TMNT figure.

Then there two knifes, the normal basic knife and the butcher knife. Both have a very different handle, even painted in different color and while both looks brutal, the butcher knife reminds me a lot 80s toys, tough in the game it only appeare, again, at the China Town stage.

Then theres two bottles, one complete and another broken. Both are cast on dark green transluscent plastic and the complete one actually have bubbles inside, some kind of liquid. The broken one is the actually weapon and is perfect for any bar fight.

Then theres a sword, a katana with a beautifull blue handle. I dont remember exactly where this particular weapons appeare tough i am pretty sure is, again, in the China Town stage, on Shiva´s temple. Tough i have to say, this katana dosnt fit Axel at all, it feels too ligth and small for him.

The weapon that fits him perfectly is the baseball bat. Is huge and heavy and the orange paint on it is soo nice it actually looks like wood. Tough is a little bend, despite being cast on hard plastic. I dont know if this was an issue of this particular figure or if Storm made it intentional to give it the motion of movement.

And finall, he have a HUGE Naginata. This thing is actually divided into two and requieres assembly. Is the most brutal looking weapon, specially with the deep crimson tone of the staff tough i got the feeling is a little too big for Axel. Thsi is deffinetly the weapon i like less from his arsenal and, again, this belongs to China Town.

And while Lobo had absolutelly no background, Axel dosnt have one printed background BUTH TWO!!! This is the first time i see Storm printing two different illustrations in a single background and was such a nice surprise!! One shows the dark alley from the begining of the game, with the tattoo neon sign while the other shows a section a block later with a sex shop (???) and a much more colorfull palette. Both looks like they came from an animated cartoon from the 90s.

This figure was actually expensive, i give it a lot of tough getting him, but considering this is the only merchadise out there for Streets of Rage 4 convinced me, but also given how many weapons he have, the fantastic articulation system and how handsome and sexy looking Axel is, the quality is much more higher than the price.

Pretty much every single figure i got from Strom Collectibles touch perfection or gets pretty damn close, every single one of them impress me more than the last one. The only thing that could make this guy much better and fun is having a partner, i really hope Storm make a Blaze someday or any other character actually, Streets of Rage 4 deservs as many figures as Mortal Kombat. Too bad Storm dosnt belive it.