Okay, so I happily play MMX: Command Mission and this dude called Axl pops in. A rather cool-looking dude, with a nice Blue Magicish ability and NEAT GUNS.
Now, I remember X7 bringing a THIRD playable character to the roster, but there’s no real info on him. Anyone wanna tell me things about Axl, like his ( default) weapon(s), origin, abilities, etc, and why he’s a Class S Maverick Hunter?
Is he yet another Reploid ready to go Maverick at any second?
Tell me - I must know.
Try playting X7. There’s a PAL release for it, and the game isn’t so fucking awful that you can’t at least play through it a few times.
Then try playing X8. There will be a PAL release eventually.
In other words, not much worth knowing is known about him. He’s a mystery, wrapped in an enigma.
EDIT: Since you asked nicely, I’ll add in the gameplay mechanics of Axl
X7:
Weaponry:
Axl has rapid fire. He also has a ‘copy shot’. If you deal the final blow to certain enemies with the copy shot, you can change into them for a short time. His special weapons that he gets for beating bosses are the exact same as X, but some of them replace his normal guns (Like having the fire special weapon out makes his normal gun a dual pistol set, or other ones make it a grenade launcher or something else).
Abilities:
Axl comes standard with an air dash (Ever since X7, all characters start out with an air dash), a commando roll (dash, then press the dash button again), which makes him invulnerable during the roll; you can also fire while commando rolling. He has a hover, which keeps him in air for a short while; it can be executed by pressing and holding jump. Axl stays stationary in air while firing weapons for a short time, then eventually starts falling to the ground.
Overall:
Axl is CRAP in X7. He plays like a Megaman X junior. In fact, he pretty much is there just to keep X’s spot warm until you can recruit X. 
Let’s look at the facts:
Rapid fire is utterly useless against bosses
Copy shot is as strong as one frickin bullet, and you can’t fire more than one at once. Killing an enemy with it is more trouble than it’s worth, and copying what few enemies you can is not practical for actually going through levels; it’s pretty much just there so you can walk over spikes to save a scientist. It’s complete bullshit.
His special weapons are the exact same as X; the special weapons that changes his normal attack are ‘ok’ but really overall not worth it in comparison to X’s charge shot.
The commando roll is completely useless in 3D environments, because you can just move to one side or the other if a projectile or enemy is coming at you. It is pretty useful in 2D environments, but there’s seldom ever a reason to use it anyways. Sure, you can fire while doing it, but since you’re rolling, you can’t lock onto anything, and it just goes all over the place (Remember, X7 uses a lock on system for aiming at enemies).
Axl’s Hover is completely unintuitive; it’s just not natural. You jump and hold the jump button. So, you can only do it at the top of a jump. Yay, useful. You can’t go into a hover off of a wall jump, you can’t start hovering if you fall off of something, you can’t hover if you dash before you jump. You can almost not use the hover at all! Worse yet, X’s armor gives him a glide; most people will tell you Axl’s hover is better; it’s not. Axl’s is FASTER, sure, but it doesn’t get the distance that X’s glide does, and X’s is easier to control (Just press the jump button when you’re in the air).
Axl’s being stationary in air is not a saving grace.
In conclusion, there’s absolutely no reason to use Axl instead of X in Megaman X7.
X8:
Weaponry:
Axl has rapid fire; every 8th shot works like a charge shot in the way that it breaks shields on enemies with barriers. He also has a ‘copy shot’ . If you deal the final blow to certain enemies with the copy shot, you can change into them for a short time. Instead of getting an enemy’s special weapon upon beating a boss, Axl just gets a new gun which does something similar. For example. upon beating a certain boss in X8, X will get the missle attack, which explodes. Axl will just get a Grenade Launcher that has the same explosive properties. The guns take up no special weapons energy. Axl can aim his shots in any direction.
Abilities:
Axl has a commando roll (press down and dash simultaneously), which makes him invulnerable during the roll. He has a hover, which keeps him in air for a short while; it can be executed by pressing jump in midair. Axl stays stationary in air while firing weapons, but eventually starts falling to the ground. He also stays stationary on walls when firing. Axl does not start sliding down the walls after a certain time. Axl recieves 1.5x damage when he gets hit.
X7/X8 differences:
Rapid fire is much more useful because the rapid fire combos bosses; in other words, you’re no longer slowly chipping away ONE line of life when you fire at a boss with Axl.
You don’t have to CHARGE the copy shot in X8. UGH.
He doesn’t have X’s special weapons anymore; they took the idea of changing his normal weapon and just did that.
Copying enemies in X8 uses Axl’s weapons energy; in X7, you just had a special bar for that. You can also withhold transforming, and even revert if you want, and then change back later.
You can no longer fire while doing the commando roll 
Not like it was all that useful anyways
Hovering is more like X’s hover in X4. It’s easy to do, and more useful now, because you can do it when dropping off of walls, jumping off of walls, falling off of stuff, etc. You no longer only have to hover at the top of your jump either.
Staying stationary when firing on walls was a new, and very nice, touch.
Overall:
Axl is very good in X8. He is a mobility character. He’s meant for using all the neat abilities given to him, like his hover, commando roll, and his aim, to avoid getting hit. When he does get hit though, he takes quite a lot of damage Let’s look at some comparisons between him and X which make him quite a different, and sometimes even more useful (or less :/) than X in certain ways.
The rapid fire allows Axl to break shielded enemies, like X can. Surprisingly, it’s faster to break shields with Axl than it is with X.
Rapid fire actually deals damage to bosses, putting him on par with X for fighting bosses with his normal weapon again. Don’t think that X can’t hang, though; his charge shot is a force to be reckoned with. Its power makes up for his lack of mobility.
Axl can aim his shots in X8, and X cannot.
Copy shot is more useful in the game, because you can actual revert from your transformation.
Axls guns are much different from X’s special weapons . They take up no special weapons energy, and usually can fire faster than X’s special weapons! However, X can now charge his X buster while firing special weapons, so it’s kind of a tradeoff.
Commando roll is much more useful in a game that is done entirely in 2D environments. Though, for some reason, I can’t get it to work… It worked perfectly in the DEMO, but with the GAME, I can’t seem to evade anything. I have no explanation for this, but appearantly it works for other people I asked. The commando roll provides a wealth of opportunities in escape routes that neither X nor Zero get.
Hover is GREAT in this game. It’s no longer hard to do, and X no longer has an armor that gives him a BETTER VERSION of it The whole ‘stationary in air thing’ gives him a really nice edge, because he can evade and counter much safer than X can.
Axl stays stationary on walls when he fires. Much safer than X.
Axl can’t take a hit like X or Zero can.
All in all, the way X8 was done, was that X is the power in long range, and Axl is the mobility. It really depends on what the situation requires, but Axl is definitely a powerful asset in Megaman X8.
The.
End.
Axl is the third playable chracter in X7 and X8. His origins are all covered inX7, and developed in X8. X7 is pretty good, the only problems with it are the reploids (they are very hard to rescue since they die so easily) and the lock-on makes the 3D areas sort of bad. The game looks great though and is still a lot of fun. Bottomlien is that Axl is the third playable character in X7.
Axl stuff, read at your own risk. Axl is the prototype for the new generation of reploids and can’t go Maverick. Axl was a part of a new group of Maverick Hunters that was formed when X quit called Red Alert. He didn’t like how they were changing and left and joined X and Zero. Now he’s just like X and Zero…only crappy. SG may beg to differ with the X8 version.
Wait a sec, when did X quit MH?
Just in the beginning of X7. He’s tired of all the fighting since it seems to never end. Whine whine, bitch bitch. Red Alert comes in to fill the void. However, after rescuing 64 (half) of the reploids, X decides that there is no option but to fight and end the war. X is once again a Maverick Hunter and they all lived happily ever after.
Zero and Axl are the best tag team for me in X8. I prefer Axl over X because of his rapid fire shots and hover ability.
So, he’s the proverbial new kid (When it comes to tricks… and his stamina too, apparently) on the block. Thanks go to all of you. The X8 one seems to be the one in CM too. What with being an S class…
Still… since he’s a Reploid, does that mean he can go Maverick too?
Read my spoiler. The only way to explain it contains spoilers, which are explained in my first post. Also, that isn’t the best of questions to be asking, because then you could ask that of all the Mega Man X heroes, except maybe X. Also, the none spoiler answer would be no, Axl can’t go Maverick since he isn’t an animal. Only animal reploids go Maverick.
Whoopsie. I do disagree about the animal part though; Watch Vile, Agile, Serges, Violen, Bit and Byte and there’s plenty to go around - And don’t forget Dr. Doppler either. And most normal enemies you meet in stages.
Not to metion good ole Sigma and the big brother of all Mavericks: Zero Omega. Besides, even X can be affected by the Maverick virus, as shown in X5.
As long as we are talking about this, I want everybody’s (Who finished Megaman Zero 3) opinion: I can bet my ass that Weil is actually Willy and that Mother Elf is Iris. Whatcha think?
Seraph your the second person who I have met that thinks The Mother Elf is Iris I really don’t know what to say about it I never played the game but know more or less what happens,as for Weil well He does look like that scientist dude in X6 that is often mention is Willy or something like that,so it could be.
The normal ones, I take those to be just normal robots like in Mega Man, but you are right about those guys. I forgot all about them.
SE, the difference though s that when X came into contact with the virus, he didn’t go Maverick, it hurt him, but he wasn’t Maverick.
I was thinking, I guess I am also wrong about Zero since X and Zero were created at about the same time and weren’t released for awhile. The difference is that reploids are based off of X, not Zero.
Gate? Nah, I don’t think he has anything to do with this.
Weil says that he is (Or at least was at some point) human. As for the Iris/Elf thingie, it’s more of a hunch than anything else since Zero says that “He remembers her” and there aren’t really that many female characters in the Megaman series anyway. And go play the game already! It’s awesome!
Info: Well, everybody is sorta on edge during the second half of X5, even to the point of X and Zero accusing each other of turning maverick and fighting in what was probably the stupidest match in the whole series. You are right, after all, for some reason X never goes berserk.
I read somewhere (Read: Not reliable source) that at some point X develops some kind of antibody to protect himself from the Virus, does anybody have any idea if this is true?
I read somewhere (Read: Not reliable source) that at some point X develops some kind of antibody to protect himself from the Virus, does anybody have any idea if this is true?
Well I don’t know if he’s inmmune but I do know that Dr.Light left him in a capsule for a reason,and that is to make sure that X will never go maverick,he needed to be there for at least 30 years(not sure if correct number of years)but was found at most 100 years later,thats why I think he is so resistant to the virus.