Interrupting forward-A special

I have a Genesis and SOR2.
When you are in the middle of a forward-A special (example: Axel's flurry of punches) in SOR2 you are able to cancel it at any time by pressing A, immediately executing the "A" special.
So if you get surrounded while doing Axel's special flurry combo, you do the giant dragon 360 punch to get out of the jam.
But in SORR it doesn't work... once you start the forward-a combo, you are trapped in it.
Is there a setting I'm missing that would fix this?

Your memory is mistaken I think. I just fired up SoR2 US Genesis and BKII JP MegaDrive and tried it in Normal and Mania, and you cannot cancel an offensive special prior to the move finishing. If you are attacked and interrupted by an enemy, you can immediately choose to use a defensive special, but you cannot use Axel's (or anyone else's) offensive special and cancel it at any time with a defensive special. Same rules apply to SoRR.

When you use anyone's offensive special you commit to the full animation. Nobody in the original games has an offensive special you can cancel into a defensive special. Same applies to SoR3 Genesis as well as SoRR.

ah yes, that's what I was talking about. When you are attacked mid combo the offensive special is interrupted and you can immediately us the defensive special.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoxalvLxngs

In SORR, Y. Signals keep sliding into me while doing combos. I'm not able to transition to the defensive special as effectively as I used to. lol

Um, if you get hit by a Signal's slide you are immediately knocked down in SoR2 as well as SoRR (Signal slides are a knockdown in every single SoR game), therefore it is impossible to use a defensive special (or any other kind of attack) until you stand up again. Again, there is no difference in how SoR2 and SoRR behave here.

The only difference between SoR2 and SoRR in how the defensive special works as an interrupt. In SoRR, if you play with the Gauge instead of health drain on specials, if you use an offensive special with a character who can be interrupted and get hit from behind by a non-knockdown attack such as a Galsia's punch, if you attempt to defensive special immediately after being interrupted you will suffer large life drain due to the low Gauge meter. This means that you have to commit to the offensive special more when you use it, and be more careful about not getting surrounded when you do use it (which wasn't an issue in SoR3 where all characters had full invulnerability during offensive specials). However, with the Gauge mode, you can actively use either your defensive or offensive special much more without having to worry about life drain. In a situation where you could be surrounded, you should save the Gauge for a defensive special (and keep yourself from being surrounded with jump kicks, blitzes, back attacks, etc).

The Gauge also prevents you from spamming the defensive special repeatedly to use it as a dodge or to cheap out bosses, but with vertical rolling and diagonal running you are far more mobile in SoRR, so spamming defensive special isn't ever necessary in SoRR (and the Gauge refills quite rapidly if you do want to abuse the specials safely).

SoRR plays best with the Gauge on in my opinion, but if you dislike it and really want it to work identical to SoR2 you can set the game to Timer only which will change specials to SoR2 health drain behavior.

Okay good, so SORR is actually perfect and it's all been in my head. lol That's a relief.

I noticed when playing SOR2 that Zamza will routinely try to interrupt a grand upper via slashing, but you can still break through his slashes if you keep attempting it. I don't think I've tried this in V5 yet. I'll have to see if it's the same.