There's a character called Axl Low, as in Axl Rose. A character named Goldlewis Dickinson has a move called down with the system. Sol Badguy, the main character of the games, his real name is Frederick Balsara, which is Freddy Mercury's real name (sol's favourite hobby is listening to queen). There's a legendary weapon called "The Outrage", which is named after a Japanese metal band, the singer of which does the vocals for 90% of guilty gears music, including the one in this song. There are heaps more but this comment is long enough.
Axl seems to have a grunge thing about him in Strive. He's always sulky and his theme is "Out of the Box" which is likely a reference to Alice in Chain's 'Man in the box' Gamma Ray has multiple references in Ky (Kai Hansen/ Michael Kiske=members of the band), Ky's theme Holy Orders, Magnolia Eclair and Roar of the Spark has riffs from Gamma Ray songs
The only way is if you literally last most of each around or every single second and maybe go into a “duel final” which is when in the third round both players drop to zero on a trade
@@gbtygfvyg I think it's rather interesting, I think another commenter I saw once put it best, the only time you'd hear the later parts of your character's song in the game is when labbing with them in Training Mode, a solitary moment where you get to know them, both mechanically and personally.
Jesse, ALL of the moves, character names, character music themes, are references to music. EVERYTHING IS A REFERENCE in Guilty Gear. I'm not kidding nor exaggerating.
Lol, Zato has a move called "Breaking The Law" and Testament has one called "Unholy Diver". Music references drip from this game, it's part of it's DNA
Okay time to comment about how awesome this song is from a storytelling perspective: Zato initially was a big bad for the Guilty Gear series, general foul bad guy who leads a secret world organization, his main power was a forbidden beast (eddie) that he summoned via sacrificing his vision, he was cruel, a murderer, and generally just a bad guy. One of his subordinates he is rather close to, Millia, kills him, he dies slowly as Eddie takes over his body for a while in lore, however eddie eventually dies too, Eddie and Zato always being at odds it was a spiteful death too. Zato was brought back via the first test of a resurrection spell, however there was a hitch, he experiences 0 emotions now, his sadistic pleasure is gone and he now feels nothing, he also reflects and realizes a lot of the wrong he did, people close to him he hurt, etc, he also has to deal with eddie again and they don't start off on good terms per se. He eventually reconnects with an understandably shocked Millia and soon realizes that helping her and being alongside her makes him feel things again, and it hurts because of how cruel he was to her. The theme starts with two very different styles, the screaming metal representing eddie, and the piano and softer section of the song representing zato, it's two characters, and both their themes have to share the same song time. The sing lyrically is about Zato's lament on his life and how he has a new purpose yet many regrets as he gains a conviction and newfound morality and care for those around him. Zato is a very complicated character yet they represented not just him musically but his entire story and eddie's too, this theme is a masterpiece for sure, and imo the best guilty gear song.
I heard they were also planning on killing him off permanently. Some people say it was because his former voice actor died but not sure how accurate that is.
Some corrections : Zato wasn't slowly dying while Eddie was piloting him, he was full-on dead, he was puppetering a corpse and that's why he wanted to find a new host so he wouldn't die with him (which is why the character was called Eddie in X/XX series) Eddie and Zato actually became good friends after dying. Eddie has always been a very self-inquisitive character and dying with Zato allowed the two to talk together and Eddie became relatively chill after experiencing death. He now imitates Zato's emotions for him (which is why he seems so emotive in Strive). The rest is spot on.
@@chipslight738 for the first one, I am referring to his death scene where eddie was slowly taking over, as well as his life struggling with eddie. And I thought it was implied they started out rough immediately after revival? May be misremembering that slightly.
the song also touches upon the inherent disconnect zato now has between who he was before he died and who he is now and whether or not he can be considered the same person now as he was then
You listened to Roar of the Spark, which is about the character Ky Kiske, who's signature move is called "Ride the Lightning". There is also a character called Slayer.
About the comment “Guilty Gear is an album that comes with a game.” This is something that goes FAR back as well. When Daisuke made the original Guilty Gear game in 1998 for the PlayStation, he purposefully shafted a lot of the sound quality of the in game voice lines and sound effects. Why? Because he used AS MUCH of that CD as he could for the soundtrack. Listen to the soundtrack for that game and you will hear some quality stuff. Listen to the voice lines, and you will hear them compressed to SHIT. The man never compromised on his vision, and it’s even more than just an alb and a fighting game bundled together. The story mode for Guilty Gear Strive isn’t like traditional fighting game stories where you play out the in game fights when they happen in between cutscenes. It’s just a straight 4 hour long ANIME MOVIE. When you spend $60 on this game, you are getting an Album, a fighting game, and a 4 hour long anime movie all in the same package. The game is insane.
3:56 .....wow, Daisuke is a genius if he managed to do that to someone who never played Guilty Gear, and you even got that before the actual Elton John part, impressive You are absolutely correct btw
as a guilty gear player, if I had those memories wiped and listened to the songs again, I think I could devise most of the lore from just the songs themselves.
This song is poly tonal, and poly rhythmic. Meaning 2 tones and 2 different rhythms being played at the same time. Listen to the guitar and the drums in the first half of the song. Then the sync up by the end. Just like you have to control 2 people in different rhythms when playing zato. Diasuke is a fucking genius.
On top of a lot of the stuff already mentioned. Johnny dresses in all black with a cowboy motif as a reference to Johnny Cash. May is named after Brian May. There is a character named Venom after the famous black metal band. There is a character named Kliff after Cliff Burton. Many move names like Napalm Death, Gamma Ray, Heaven can Wait, Under Pressure Ky Kiske is named after members of Helloween. And finally Daisuke actually takes riffs some some of his favorite music and incorporates it into the soundtrack. An example you can check out is Napalm Deaths "Breed to Breathe." And Guilty Gears "A Solitude That Asks Nothing In Return."
Happy to boost such an amazing track. One of the main themes of it is duality (In terms of the character's personality throughout the games, his alignment and also the fact he had another living thing inside of him. GG's wild), so the start of the song layering the very ending of it (with the piano) over the start of it was a nice touch. Daisuke's brain is next level.
Adding to the facts about Daisuke, he also was the voice actor for the main character of the series, Sol Badguy, for quite a while as well. Like, seriously, Daisuke *is* GG.
The character Testament is 100% named after the band. They are one of the original characters from the first game, when the series somehow had even more references. They weren't in the last game, Xrd, but were recently brought back to the series in the latest DLC of Strive. Their theme is called "Like a Weed, Naturally, as a Matter of Course", in case you want to check it out.
Part of what makes the Guilty Gear Strive songs so awesome is that they're songs first, and fighting game songs second. You can listen to any character theme from Strive, completely out of context, and still get plenty out of it. Also, there are actually two songs from Strive longer than this: Necessary Discrepancy (the theme of Ramlethal Valentine) and Mirror of the World (the theme of Baiken). Both are also definitely worth a listen.
Sol's a walking Queen reference, his name is Frederick Bulsara, and when youthink about it, he's Mr. Badguy. His first theme is named after the first track in their first album, his headband literally says "Rock you". His weapon Junkyard dog mkIII is a hilariously layered reference to a wrestle that used "another one bites the dust" as their entrance theme. His favorite thing is a vinyl of sheer heart attack. And those are just the Queen reference, he's got references to judas priest, napalm death, iron maiden and hammerfall. It's hilarious.
This song is awesome since it does the polytonality which is heavy in character with Zato since gameplay wise he is a Puppet character as in you control two characters at once himself and Eddie, his shadow. Fun fact. His name is Zato-1 which would be pronounced Zatoichi in Japanese. Which is a reference to a certain blind swordsman. Zato himself is blind.
Daisuke Ishiwatari has always cared alot about the music of Guilty Gear, going as far back as even the very first game. He sacrificed the audio quality of the sound effects and dialog to keep the music as uncompressed as he could for the first game.
In terms of Daisuke's involvement it deffinatly seems he's still very involved in the characters and obviously the music. But I'm not sure how much he's been involved in the development side, it's not clear.
I think i saw him say, in the anniversary stream i believe, that it's still him that does all the writing, music and characters buy gameplay he consults other people To have different perspectives.
Guilty Gear has many metal references, but here are some of my personal favorites. A character is named Slayer, named after the band Slayer with Tom Araya. Elphelt Valentine is a character that walks around in a wedding dress fighting with a bouquet of roses and a shotgun (Guns 'n Roses) And Raven's theme Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds uses the same riff as Testament's DNR. And there are many, many more. There is actually a video about this stuff on RUclips!
You need to listen to Mirror of the World, it’s probably my favorite song in Strive. Also, as for metal references in the game that you asked for, there’s a character in older Guilty Gear games named Slayer. Not sure how much more obvious you can get then that.
Been getting back into Strive recently - it's a great game with an even better soundtrack. Half of the OST is on my running playlist and it just doesn't get old! Look forward to you getting to the likes of Mirror of the World, Armour Clad Faith, Out of the Box, and What Do You Fight For
Apparently the reason why zato's theme has 2 songs in them represent his lore The metal one is eddie which is zato's shadow while the short soft song is what remains of what makes zato who he is despite losing all of his memories but still has the feelings he had for millia
If you're into Metal and hard Rock, Guilty Gear is one helluva franchise to get into. One thing to point out though, Testament may have been one of the earliest unsubtle references alongside Axl, Sol Badguy and the game yelling SLASH at the end of each fight, they were the first boss players would fight before facing Justice.
Guilty gear is full of musical references every character has tons of them and if you want a good list of them another youtuber HurtboxTV has a video showing a bunch of references up until the most recent game
Great reaction! Zato's theme is one of my personal facourites, i would recommend checking out CloudDrop's uploads of the gg strive songs, they show a bit of gameplay and they have lyrics for all the character themes
Slayer alone has like... 3 Queen refrences? He's got a move called Under Pressure, one called It's Late, one called Dead on Time, and his Instant Killed is called All Dead. Daisuke himself has a signed copy of the album Jazz by Queen.
Off the top of my head, there's character names such as Testament and Abba, then zato has Eddie, which is a reference to the mascot of iron maiden. Sols favorite bad canonically is Queen. Ky Kiskes main super move is called Ride the Lightning, referencing Metallica. there's a character named Axl Low which is a dead on guns n roses reference. uuuhhh and the ranked mode in Guilty Gear Strive is literally referred to as the "Stairway to Heaven". where top ranked players fight inside a celestial heavenly body away from the rest, and multiple rank tiers are named after songs from bands like whitesnake and general 80s vibes.
My favourite theme in GG Strive and also one of my fav characters. Love how like in other songs too Zato's journey and personality are so greatly represented in his theme. Just love it
Zato's story in the Guilty Gear universe is kind of a psychotic rollercoaster. As leader of the Assassin's Guild, he basically ruled the underworld, and was madly in love with one of his assassins, Millia Rage (another playable character in GG). But she wanted to leave the killing behind and live a normal life, which he couldn't accept. Problem is, both of them had so-called "Forbidden Beasts" in them, with Millia gaining prehensile hair, and Zato gaining a living shadow called Eddie. After his death, Eddie takes control of Zato's corpse and drags him around trying to find a better host so he doesn't rot away with Zato. But in a miracle, Zato becomes the first person to be brought back from death thanks to an experiment by Faust - sadly, he no longer has his soul, leaving him utterly devoid of emotion. All he can do now is rationalize how he would act based on his memories, and find a new purpose in life. Eventually, he does find this purpose in his reunion with Millia, dedicating himself to her safety and happiness, but she's not exactly happy with that.
So Testament isn't "new" he's been around since the original Guilty Gear, however, he hasn't made an appearance in the new "3D" GG games(Xrd, Rev2 and Sign) he's a new DLC character in GG Sign
some character name references: Venom, Testament, Slayer, Sol Badguy (Freddie Mercury solo album Mr. Bad Guy, and his real name is Frederick Bulsara, the last name being Freddie Mercury's last name at birth), Milia Rage (Meliah Rage), Zappa, Chipp Zanuff (Chip Z'Nuff of Enuff Z'Nuff), A.B.A. (Abba), Axl Low (Axl Rose), Zato's minion's name is Eddie (name of the iron maiden mascot), Kuradoberi Jam (basically a japanese reading of Cloudberry Jam), some move name references: Bridget's moves Kick Start My Heart, Starship, Shoot the Moon. DIzzy's Gamma Ray. Ky Kiske's Rising Force, Ride the Lightning. Milia's Silent Force, Secret Garden, Winger. Slayer's Under Pressure, Undertow, Footloose Journey, Dead on Time, All Dead. Testament's Warrant, Grave Digger, Master of Puppets, Seventh Sign. There's plenty more, as well as sometimes references to songs musically in the songs Daisuke creates, like the intro of Zato's Xrd theme, 'Black Blank blah-blah-blah', sounding just like the intro part of Venom's Bloodlust. There's also some videos that go through some of the known references as well as some that aren't so clear cut ruclips.net/video/plli7jslF08/видео.html ruclips.net/video/2DDMwXsc-cc/видео.html
Always recommend the cloudrop's videos for the guilty gear strive character themes, as they include lyrics, edited gameplay and a character portrait (which you've watched a few times)
It's more a Theme for two character, Zato and Eddy. There is a lot of backstory to unpack with these two but more or less we have played one or the other in every game they show up in. The last bit of this theme is more for Zato, as he has no memories at all, and only feels anything when around one other character in the game. The rest of the song is more so for both them when working together or more Eddy then Zato at least. For a fighting game GG has a massively large story that is in the background.
I'd love to see your reaction to the video "what does each character theme mean" it's great, they are all pretty deeply personal to each character in strive.
HurtboxTV made a video listing every music/metal reference in Guilty Gear and that video is 30 minutes long because there's that many. Pretty much every character and their move names are references in some way.
You have Axl Low, Mr Badguy, the moves Ride the lightening, Down with the system, every round ends with an SLASH, the floating Zepp empire (Led Zeppelin), the ranking syatem ingame is a stairway to heaven, Slayer and a bunch of his moves, they are just everywhere
thx youtube for not giving me a notification for this video anyways, big lore dump time. Zato=1 is a spaniard who was the leader of an assassination syndicate during most of the prior events immediately leading up to when most of the guilty gear games take place. he wields one of the 6 forbidden beasts named such because they are products of a group of spells developed by humanity that were deemed unfit for human use. there were 666 spells devised by humanity and of those, 6 became forbidden to use, hence the 6 forbidden beasts. the beast that zato wields is named eddie and exists as zato's shadow and he sacrificed his eyes in order to wield it as these beasts require the user to sacrifice something of themselves in order wield them and over time, those who wield these beasts must eventually give themselves over to the beasts completely as these beasts are parasitic. Zato, during his life, came to have political aspirations and used his power as leader of the assassination syndicate to manipulate the political system of the US through various means. as leader of the organization, zato eventually discovered millia rage, an orphan russian girl who he took a particular liking to and abducted her to train her as an assassin. it can also be inferred that zato manipulated millia to become a plaything for zato, with him even going so far as to force millia to accept a forbidden beast. this one is named angra and exists as millia's hair. as time went on, zato eventually lost control of himself due to eddie's nature as a parasitic beast and not long after the beast consumed all that was zato, millia, resentful of what zato tried to turn her into killed him believing zato was still himself and seized control of whatever was left of the organization he had previously lead and converted it into an information brokerage agency zato was later resurrected after some time but found himself devoid of both memory and emotion save for some lingering, instinctual attachment to millia and sought her out. millia, despite being displeased to see zato alive again, saw that the zato before her was not the man she had known and showed sympathy toward the man's pitiful state of being. she took him and made him into her secretary and he now works for her as it is the only way zato is capable of feeling anything resembling human emotion it is implied that zato, since his resurrection, has learned of the man he once was and, knowing how much people have done to undo the consequences of his actions in the life he once lead is currently trying to help them do so despite not fully understanding if he is himself trying to atone for himself or if he's genuinely not the same person trying to make right the mistakes of someone else. edit: it is agreed that even in life, zato likely truly did care deeply for millia but he could just never express it in a healthy way being the kind of person that he was
So something really fucking cool about this piece is that it couples alongside another character's theme, "Love the Subhuman Self," in that in the last line of this song you may notice a second notable voice joins the main singer, Zato in this case. A feminine voice, that of Millia Rage, who was a woman that Zato once held many strong feelings for before his death- his return coming at a cost of his memories and self, yet deep down there is still something there, and Millia's voice joining him in this last line, suffice to say, has a great deal of symbolism to it. Just a small detail, I think it's fucking cool as hell that it's such a small touch yet so telling of his character.
My favorite for how deep the references go is the Ryu of Guilty Gear -- Sol Badguy. His name is a reference to Freddy Mercury's nickname Mr BadGuy. But the real gear-heads know that Sol Badguy isn't Sol's real name, which is Frederick Bulsara.
This song had some of the highest turnaround for me in terms of opinions go on it. I didn't like it at first, but after deep diving into GG lore thanks to Woolie's excellent Heaven or Hell Guilty Gear lore series I can say that this is one of my favorite works by Daisuke. Pretty much all of the character themes tell a story of their respective character, and Zato's story is one of emotionlessness, darkness, and a desire to feel again. That final part that sneaks in at the end is one of the most emotional gut punches when you realize that Zato finally has found purpose. Thanks to Millia, he can feel again. He wants to be there for her from now on, to be her "shadow" so to say. Absolutely brilliant.
caught up with all reactions I was interested in. I know you don't do youtube requests but I'm going to request some anyway (kept it to just 10, could have been far, far higher): - Killer Instinct Touch me and I'll break your face (Orchid's theme) - Killer Instinct I'm back to rise (TJ Combo's theme) - Killer Instinct Hinnamatoom (Thunders theme) - This is true love we're making Capcom vs SNK 2 - Kingdom Hearts Simple and Clean orchestral version - Final Fantasy X Someday the dream will end - Final Fantasy 9 The place I'll return to someday - Guilty Gear Strive Love the subhuman self (Millia's theme) - Policenaughts end of the dark - garou mark of the wolves rock howard theme
This is Huber. If you ever need a Guilty Gear ambassador, you can always drop me a line. Guilty Gear is dripping with rock and metal inspiration. This theme's character has a stage inspired by Testament's Souls of Black album cover. The list of rock and metal influences are endless.
The best part about missing out on GG music is you can react to it live here, it's really good for your channel to be blind to these OSTs; just don't deprive yourself for the sake of the channel though.
Johnny imo has the best theme. If you havent checked the music for DUSK... you're missing out. Chipp Zanuff named after Enuff Z'nuff and originally looked like Billy Idol.
If your interested about guilty gear and the many metal references within, "Hurtbox" has made a youtube video where he attempts to explain most of guilty gears metal references, i say most because theres too many to do them all... guilty gears whole aesthetic is defined by the gothik style of 80s metal combined with a loose scify setting.
if you want a good synopsis of all the guilty gear games up to Strive without having to play them all, you should check out "Woolie VS" who made a multi part video talking about the whole story line that was backed up by Daisuke himself. its called "Guilty Gear Lore: Heaven or Hell" and there is 7 videos ruclips.net/p/PLiSdC6Lp8c7OkrBhzdQsQhGL_7jT0cSTv
"This is a very long theme for one character." True, but there is a reason Guilty Gear has the constant meme of it being a $60 album that comes with a free game.
There's a character called Axl Low, as in Axl Rose. A character named Goldlewis Dickinson has a move called down with the system. Sol Badguy, the main character of the games, his real name is Frederick Balsara, which is Freddy Mercury's real name (sol's favourite hobby is listening to queen). There's a legendary weapon called "The Outrage", which is named after a Japanese metal band, the singer of which does the vocals for 90% of guilty gears music, including the one in this song. There are heaps more but this comment is long enough.
Don't forget that Goldlewis' title is "Secretary Of Absolute Defence" a.k.a. S.O.A.D. which is also the abreviation of System Of A Down.
To add to this theres also the fact that Sol's current name is also a Freddie Mercury reference to his solo album "Mr. Bad guy".
Also, Giovanna has a move called Sepultura which is a brazillian thrash metal band.
Axl seems to have a grunge thing about him in Strive. He's always sulky and his theme is "Out of the Box" which is likely a reference to Alice in Chain's 'Man in the box'
Gamma Ray has multiple references in Ky (Kai Hansen/ Michael Kiske=members of the band), Ky's theme Holy Orders, Magnolia Eclair and Roar of the Spark has riffs from Gamma Ray songs
Don’t forget that the lead singer of Outrage is also the director of the Guilty Gear games.
fun fact, this theme is so long that you won't hear the last part where it becomes soft in a normal match.
also this song's lore is big sad.
The only way is if you literally last most of each around or every single second and maybe go into a “duel final” which is when in the third round both players drop to zero on a trade
not so fun i guess then
That's how all the songs are. Most of the songs are somewhere around 5min along but most GG matches are like 2min at the most.
The best gage for how long a match is going honestly is Baikens theme. If you have a fast match then you wont even get to were it kicks off.
@@gbtygfvyg I think it's rather interesting, I think another commenter I saw once put it best, the only time you'd hear the later parts of your character's song in the game is when labbing with them in Training Mode, a solitary moment where you get to know them, both mechanically and personally.
I ONCE HAD SOME, SWEEEET MEMORIESS
ITS WORTH REMAINS THE SAME
HOW CAN I REMEMBER THOSE MOMENTS, SWEETHEEAART?
TELL ME,
*TELL MEEEEEEEEEEEE*
IF THEEEEERE WAS A MAAAN WHO CAAAAAAN, MAAAAKE ANYTHIIIIIIIIIIIING
@@tacocatyay8740 GIVE ME THE TOOLS TO LIIIIIIVE IIIIIN THE PAST
Jesse, ALL of the moves, character names, character music themes, are references to music. EVERYTHING IS A REFERENCE in Guilty Gear. I'm not kidding nor exaggerating.
Its like Jojos
@@hamzahax Also there's a ton of Jojo nods in the animations and VO, haha
@@HandOfVecna1188 "You thought it was Dio, but it was me, ZATO=1 >:D"
@@RasenCore >:D? More like >[]D
@@kairolink genius
Lol, Zato has a move called "Breaking The Law" and Testament has one called "Unholy Diver". Music references drip from this game, it's part of it's DNA
The main characters name is just a huge reference lmao. Look into sol badguy’s name, literally Freddy mercury lmao.
Okay time to comment about how awesome this song is from a storytelling perspective:
Zato initially was a big bad for the Guilty Gear series, general foul bad guy who leads a secret world organization, his main power was a forbidden beast (eddie) that he summoned via sacrificing his vision, he was cruel, a murderer, and generally just a bad guy.
One of his subordinates he is rather close to, Millia, kills him, he dies slowly as Eddie takes over his body for a while in lore, however eddie eventually dies too, Eddie and Zato always being at odds it was a spiteful death too.
Zato was brought back via the first test of a resurrection spell, however there was a hitch, he experiences 0 emotions now, his sadistic pleasure is gone and he now feels nothing, he also reflects and realizes a lot of the wrong he did, people close to him he hurt, etc, he also has to deal with eddie again and they don't start off on good terms per se.
He eventually reconnects with an understandably shocked Millia and soon realizes that helping her and being alongside her makes him feel things again, and it hurts because of how cruel he was to her.
The theme starts with two very different styles, the screaming metal representing eddie, and the piano and softer section of the song representing zato, it's two characters, and both their themes have to share the same song time.
The sing lyrically is about Zato's lament on his life and how he has a new purpose yet many regrets as he gains a conviction and newfound morality and care for those around him.
Zato is a very complicated character yet they represented not just him musically but his entire story and eddie's too, this theme is a masterpiece for sure, and imo the best guilty gear song.
I heard they were also planning on killing him off permanently. Some people say it was because his former voice actor died but not sure how accurate that is.
Some corrections : Zato wasn't slowly dying while Eddie was piloting him, he was full-on dead, he was puppetering a corpse and that's why he wanted to find a new host so he wouldn't die with him (which is why the character was called Eddie in X/XX series)
Eddie and Zato actually became good friends after dying. Eddie has always been a very self-inquisitive character and dying with Zato allowed the two to talk together and Eddie became relatively chill after experiencing death. He now imitates Zato's emotions for him (which is why he seems so emotive in Strive). The rest is spot on.
@@chipslight738 for the first one, I am referring to his death scene where eddie was slowly taking over, as well as his life struggling with eddie.
And I thought it was implied they started out rough immediately after revival? May be misremembering that slightly.
the song also touches upon the inherent disconnect zato now has between who he was before he died and who he is now and whether or not he can be considered the same person now as he was then
" imo the best guilty gear song "
thats a weird way to write requiem
You listened to Roar of the Spark, which is about the character Ky Kiske, who's signature move is called "Ride the Lightning". There is also a character called Slayer.
And testament!
Not even to mention that all of the ranked floors are named after popular metal/rock music
Slayer's XX theme "Haven you got eyes in you head?" slaps real hard
About the comment “Guilty Gear is an album that comes with a game.”
This is something that goes FAR back as well. When Daisuke made the original Guilty Gear game in 1998 for the PlayStation, he purposefully shafted a lot of the sound quality of the in game voice lines and sound effects.
Why? Because he used AS MUCH of that CD as he could for the soundtrack.
Listen to the soundtrack for that game and you will hear some quality stuff. Listen to the voice lines, and you will hear them compressed to SHIT.
The man never compromised on his vision, and it’s even more than just an alb and a fighting game bundled together. The story mode for Guilty Gear Strive isn’t like traditional fighting game stories where you play out the in game fights when they happen in between cutscenes. It’s just a straight 4 hour long ANIME MOVIE.
When you spend $60 on this game, you are getting an Album, a fighting game, and a 4 hour long anime movie all in the same package. The game is insane.
I wish the people who made Strive are eating good.
3:56 .....wow, Daisuke is a genius if he managed to do that to someone who never played Guilty Gear, and you even got that before the actual Elton John part, impressive
You are absolutely correct btw
as a guilty gear player, if I had those memories wiped and listened to the songs again, I think I could devise most of the lore from just the songs themselves.
This song is poly tonal, and poly rhythmic. Meaning 2 tones and 2 different rhythms being played at the same time. Listen to the guitar and the drums in the first half of the song.
Then the sync up by the end.
Just like you have to control 2 people in different rhythms when playing zato. Diasuke is a fucking genius.
On top of a lot of the stuff already mentioned. Johnny dresses in all black with a cowboy motif as a reference to Johnny Cash. May is named after Brian May. There is a character named Venom after the famous black metal band. There is a character named Kliff after Cliff Burton. Many move names like Napalm Death, Gamma Ray, Heaven can Wait, Under Pressure
Ky Kiske is named after members of Helloween. And finally Daisuke actually takes riffs some some of his favorite music and incorporates it into the soundtrack. An example you can check out is Napalm Deaths "Breed to Breathe." And Guilty Gears "A Solitude That Asks Nothing In Return."
Ramlethal’s theme “Necessary Discrepancy” also incorporates or at least is a reference to “Bitches Crystal” by ELP
Happy to boost such an amazing track. One of the main themes of it is duality (In terms of the character's personality throughout the games, his alignment and also the fact he had another living thing inside of him. GG's wild), so the start of the song layering the very ending of it (with the piano) over the start of it was a nice touch.
Daisuke's brain is next level.
Adding to the facts about Daisuke, he also was the voice actor for the main character of the series, Sol Badguy, for quite a while as well.
Like, seriously, Daisuke *is* GG.
The character Testament is 100% named after the band. They are one of the original characters from the first game, when the series somehow had even more references. They weren't in the last game, Xrd, but were recently brought back to the series in the latest DLC of Strive. Their theme is called "Like a Weed, Naturally, as a Matter of Course", in case you want to check it out.
Part of what makes the Guilty Gear Strive songs so awesome is that they're songs first, and fighting game songs second. You can listen to any character theme from Strive, completely out of context, and still get plenty out of it.
Also, there are actually two songs from Strive longer than this: Necessary Discrepancy (the theme of Ramlethal Valentine) and Mirror of the World (the theme of Baiken). Both are also definitely worth a listen.
Sol's a walking Queen reference, his name is Frederick Bulsara, and when youthink about it, he's Mr. Badguy. His first theme is named after the first track in their first album, his headband literally says "Rock you". His weapon Junkyard dog mkIII is a hilariously layered reference to a wrestle that used "another one bites the dust" as their entrance theme. His favorite thing is a vinyl of sheer heart attack. And those are just the Queen reference, he's got references to judas priest, napalm death, iron maiden and hammerfall. It's hilarious.
This song is awesome since it does the polytonality which is heavy in character with Zato since gameplay wise he is a Puppet character as in you control two characters at once himself and Eddie, his shadow.
Fun fact. His name is Zato-1 which would be pronounced Zatoichi in Japanese. Which is a reference to a certain blind swordsman. Zato himself is blind.
Daisuke Ishiwatari has always cared alot about the music of Guilty Gear, going as far back as even the very first game. He sacrificed the audio quality of the sound effects and dialog to keep the music as uncompressed as he could for the first game.
Testament has a move called unholy diver which is kinda funny because the move is a crow diving at you.
In terms of Daisuke's involvement it deffinatly seems he's still very involved in the characters and obviously the music. But I'm not sure how much he's been involved in the development side, it's not clear.
I think i saw him say, in the anniversary stream i believe, that it's still him that does all the writing, music and characters buy gameplay he consults other people To have different perspectives.
He still composed and writes the lyrics for the music. Besides the Korean ost, he’s made every soundtrack besides the story modes bgm.
He's the director of the game so at least if there's something he isn't directly involved with it still probably needs his approval
Guilty Gear has many metal references, but here are some of my personal favorites. A character is named Slayer, named after the band Slayer with Tom Araya. Elphelt Valentine is a character that walks around in a wedding dress fighting with a bouquet of roses and a shotgun (Guns 'n Roses) And Raven's theme Worthless as the Sun Above Clouds uses the same riff as Testament's DNR. And there are many, many more. There is actually a video about this stuff on RUclips!
You need to listen to Mirror of the World, it’s probably my favorite song in Strive.
Also, as for metal references in the game that you asked for, there’s a character in older Guilty Gear games named Slayer. Not sure how much more obvious you can get then that.
Been getting back into Strive recently - it's a great game with an even better soundtrack. Half of the OST is on my running playlist and it just doesn't get old! Look forward to you getting to the likes of Mirror of the World, Armour Clad Faith, Out of the Box, and What Do You Fight For
Apparently the reason why zato's theme has 2 songs in them represent his lore
The metal one is eddie which is zato's shadow while the short soft song is what remains of what makes zato who he is despite losing all of his memories but still has the feelings he had for millia
I was like, staring at his face waiting for the reaction to the last part, god that last minute always makes me sing along with a bit of a tear swell.
Hopefully someone has requested Play the Hero that theme is really good.
Sol’s super from some of the old games is called “Napalm Death”, so frickin sick
not just a super, a straight up insta-kill
If you're into Metal and hard Rock, Guilty Gear is one helluva franchise to get into. One thing to point out though, Testament may have been one of the earliest unsubtle references alongside Axl, Sol Badguy and the game yelling SLASH at the end of each fight, they were the first boss players would fight before facing Justice.
If you want every musical reference in Guilty Gear, here's a 30 minute video of all of them! ruclips.net/video/plli7jslF08/видео.html
Fuckin sweet. Hope Alone Infection is requested on Patreon next
Guilty gear is full of musical references every character has tons of them and if you want a good list of them another youtuber HurtboxTV has a video showing a bunch of references up until the most recent game
Great reaction! Zato's theme is one of my personal facourites, i would recommend checking out CloudDrop's uploads of the gg strive songs, they show a bit of gameplay and they have lyrics for all the character themes
Slayer alone has like... 3 Queen refrences? He's got a move called Under Pressure, one called It's Late, one called Dead on Time, and his Instant Killed is called All Dead. Daisuke himself has a signed copy of the album Jazz by Queen.
Just found your channel cause I saw your video reacting to Tomorrow is Mine. It's awesome, keep it up ^^
Those verses near the end are incredible. I highly recommend Armor-Clad Faith just for a personal listen if not for thr channel.
Off the top of my head, there's character names such as Testament and Abba, then zato has Eddie, which is a reference to the mascot of iron maiden. Sols favorite bad canonically is Queen. Ky Kiskes main super move is called Ride the Lightning, referencing Metallica. there's a character named Axl Low which is a dead on guns n roses reference. uuuhhh and the ranked mode in Guilty Gear Strive is literally referred to as the "Stairway to Heaven". where top ranked players fight inside a celestial heavenly body away from the rest, and multiple rank tiers are named after songs from bands like whitesnake and general 80s vibes.
I'm so glad you're finally getting around to this song. it's the best in strive IMO.
My favourite theme in GG Strive and also one of my fav characters. Love how like in other songs too Zato's journey and personality are so greatly represented in his theme.
Just love it
All of the Guiltily gear: strive tracks are a treat to listen too
Zato's story in the Guilty Gear universe is kind of a psychotic rollercoaster.
As leader of the Assassin's Guild, he basically ruled the underworld, and was madly in love with one of his assassins, Millia Rage (another playable character in GG). But she wanted to leave the killing behind and live a normal life, which he couldn't accept. Problem is, both of them had so-called "Forbidden Beasts" in them, with Millia gaining prehensile hair, and Zato gaining a living shadow called Eddie. After his death, Eddie takes control of Zato's corpse and drags him around trying to find a better host so he doesn't rot away with Zato.
But in a miracle, Zato becomes the first person to be brought back from death thanks to an experiment by Faust - sadly, he no longer has his soul, leaving him utterly devoid of emotion. All he can do now is rationalize how he would act based on his memories, and find a new purpose in life. Eventually, he does find this purpose in his reunion with Millia, dedicating himself to her safety and happiness, but she's not exactly happy with that.
So Testament isn't "new" he's been around since the original Guilty Gear, however, he hasn't made an appearance in the new "3D" GG games(Xrd, Rev2 and Sign) he's a new DLC character in GG Sign
they :)
@@Rafuzumaki Not in the older games. Only in Strive.
@@fenrir3097 It's proper form to refer to people as their current gender, even when referring to a pre-transition timeframe.
*Strive
@@snek0488 Sure, but Strive gave Testy a major design overhaul AND a new seiyuu. SOMETHING happened.
Love Guilty Gear Strive's soundtrack. Glad you listened to Zato's theme! The last part of it is soo fitting.. xD
I'm hoping someone will request Mirror of The World (Baiken's Theme) bc it's such a banger and masterpiece
Really?
@@cringerfilmmaker what's wrong with hoping for that? (I commented this before he actually reacted to the song btw)
@@ZeroMH no, is baiken theme is banger?
@@cringerfilmmaker Yes it is
@@cringerfilmmaker in fact, imo, all ggstrive songs are bangers
You should listen to Rock And Roll, Rock Hard Maniac. Its also from Guilty gear strive and it's just a great song
Hope someday we can hear some more songs from Xrd as well
hurtboxTV has made like a 30 minute video going through every single metal reference in the guilty gear series LOL theres that many of em its insane
Always a treat to see you reacting to Guilty Gear: Strive!
YAY! More GUILTY GEAR STRIVE!
Love when u Enjoy listening to GG music. I hope you get the time to hear ARMORED-CLAD FAITH. I LOVE THAT TRACK!
some character name references: Venom, Testament, Slayer, Sol Badguy (Freddie Mercury solo album Mr. Bad Guy, and his real name is Frederick Bulsara, the last name being Freddie Mercury's last name at birth), Milia Rage (Meliah Rage), Zappa, Chipp Zanuff (Chip Z'Nuff of Enuff Z'Nuff), A.B.A. (Abba), Axl Low (Axl Rose), Zato's minion's name is Eddie (name of the iron maiden mascot), Kuradoberi Jam (basically a japanese reading of Cloudberry Jam),
some move name references: Bridget's moves Kick Start My Heart, Starship, Shoot the Moon. DIzzy's Gamma Ray. Ky Kiske's Rising Force, Ride the Lightning. Milia's Silent Force, Secret Garden, Winger. Slayer's Under Pressure, Undertow, Footloose Journey, Dead on Time, All Dead. Testament's Warrant, Grave Digger, Master of Puppets, Seventh Sign.
There's plenty more, as well as sometimes references to songs musically in the songs Daisuke creates, like the intro of Zato's Xrd theme, 'Black Blank blah-blah-blah', sounding just like the intro part of Venom's Bloodlust.
There's also some videos that go through some of the known references as well as some that aren't so clear cut
ruclips.net/video/plli7jslF08/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/2DDMwXsc-cc/видео.html
14:05 That description of the wall of death reminds of the Wall of Epic, in Epica's live performance of Consign To Oblivion
faust's theme (Alone Infection) has a section based off of a radiohead song near the end
I would love to see you go throughout most of the characters in the cast, a couple have less metal songs but most are really good.
Always recommend the cloudrop's videos for the guilty gear strive character themes, as they include lyrics, edited gameplay and a character portrait (which you've watched a few times)
Zato puppet is called Eddie, a ref to a certain metal band mascot every single thing in gg is a tribute to metal/rock in one way or another
It's more a Theme for two character, Zato and Eddy. There is a lot of backstory to unpack with these two but more or less we have played one or the other in every game they show up in. The last bit of this theme is more for Zato, as he has no memories at all, and only feels anything when around one other character in the game. The rest of the song is more so for both them when working together or more Eddy then Zato at least. For a fighting game GG has a massively large story that is in the background.
I'd love to see your reaction to the video "what does each character theme mean" it's great, they are all pretty deeply personal to each character in strive.
HurtboxTV made a video listing every music/metal reference in Guilty Gear and that video is 30 minutes long because there's that many. Pretty much every character and their move names are references in some way.
Thank you Daisuke for this masterpiece 🙏
You have Axl Low, Mr Badguy, the moves Ride the lightening, Down with the system, every round ends with an SLASH, the floating Zepp empire (Led Zeppelin), the ranking syatem ingame is a stairway to heaven, Slayer and a bunch of his moves, they are just everywhere
thx youtube for not giving me a notification for this video
anyways, big lore dump time.
Zato=1 is a spaniard who was the leader of an assassination syndicate during most of the prior events immediately leading up to when most of the guilty gear games take place. he wields one of the 6 forbidden beasts named such because they are products of a group of spells developed by humanity that were deemed unfit for human use.
there were 666 spells devised by humanity and of those, 6 became forbidden to use, hence the 6 forbidden beasts. the beast that zato wields is named eddie and exists as zato's shadow and he sacrificed his eyes in order to wield it as these beasts require the user to sacrifice something of themselves in order wield them and over time, those who wield these beasts must eventually give themselves over to the beasts completely as these beasts are parasitic.
Zato, during his life, came to have political aspirations and used his power as leader of the assassination syndicate to manipulate the political system of the US through various means. as leader of the organization, zato eventually discovered millia rage, an orphan russian girl who he took a particular liking to and abducted her to train her as an assassin. it can also be inferred that zato manipulated millia to become a plaything for zato, with him even going so far as to force millia to accept a forbidden beast. this one is named angra and exists as millia's hair.
as time went on, zato eventually lost control of himself due to eddie's nature as a parasitic beast and not long after the beast consumed all that was zato, millia, resentful of what zato tried to turn her into killed him believing zato was still himself and seized control of whatever was left of the organization he had previously lead and converted it into an information brokerage agency
zato was later resurrected after some time but found himself devoid of both memory and emotion save for some lingering, instinctual attachment to millia and sought her out. millia, despite being displeased to see zato alive again, saw that the zato before her was not the man she had known and showed sympathy toward the man's pitiful state of being. she took him and made him into her secretary and he now works for her as it is the only way zato is capable of feeling anything resembling human emotion
it is implied that zato, since his resurrection, has learned of the man he once was and, knowing how much people have done to undo the consequences of his actions in the life he once lead is currently trying to help them do so despite not fully understanding if he is himself trying to atone for himself or if he's genuinely not the same person trying to make right the mistakes of someone else.
edit: it is agreed that even in life, zato likely truly did care deeply for millia but he could just never express it in a healthy way being the kind of person that he was
You should listen to 'Find your one way' (Sol Badguy's theme). It is one of my personal favourites from GGS.
Damn, I have changed my taste over time it seems.
I have been waiting on this one for so long
Yo bro!!! Love your content!! One song that sounds great is All I Can Do from Guilty Gear Xrd
So something really fucking cool about this piece is that it couples alongside another character's theme, "Love the Subhuman Self," in that in the last line of this song you may notice a second notable voice joins the main singer, Zato in this case.
A feminine voice, that of Millia Rage, who was a woman that Zato once held many strong feelings for before his death- his return coming at a cost of his memories and self, yet deep down there is still something there, and Millia's voice joining him in this last line, suffice to say, has a great deal of symbolism to it.
Just a small detail, I think it's fucking cool as hell that it's such a small touch yet so telling of his character.
My favorite for how deep the references go is the Ryu of Guilty Gear -- Sol Badguy. His name is a reference to Freddy Mercury's nickname Mr BadGuy. But the real gear-heads know that Sol Badguy isn't Sol's real name, which is Frederick Bulsara.
The 2 main characters, Ky Kisuke and Sol Badguy, have special moves called "Ride the Lightning" and "Napalm Death" respectively.
Sol Badguy the main character's favorite thing is his record of sheer heart attack by Queen
This song had some of the highest turnaround for me in terms of opinions go on it. I didn't like it at first, but after deep diving into GG lore thanks to Woolie's excellent Heaven or Hell Guilty Gear lore series I can say that this is one of my favorite works by Daisuke.
Pretty much all of the character themes tell a story of their respective character, and Zato's story is one of emotionlessness, darkness, and a desire to feel again. That final part that sneaks in at the end is one of the most emotional gut punches when you realize that Zato finally has found purpose. Thanks to Millia, he can feel again. He wants to be there for her from now on, to be her "shadow" so to say.
Absolutely brilliant.
I really can't wait for him to get a request for Alone Infection
caught up with all reactions I was interested in. I know you don't do youtube requests but I'm going to request some anyway (kept it to just 10, could have been far, far higher):
- Killer Instinct Touch me and I'll break your face (Orchid's theme)
- Killer Instinct I'm back to rise (TJ Combo's theme)
- Killer Instinct Hinnamatoom (Thunders theme)
- This is true love we're making Capcom vs SNK 2
- Kingdom Hearts Simple and Clean orchestral version
- Final Fantasy X Someday the dream will end
- Final Fantasy 9 The place I'll return to someday
- Guilty Gear Strive Love the subhuman self (Millia's theme)
- Policenaughts end of the dark
- garou mark of the wolves rock howard theme
This is Huber. If you ever need a Guilty Gear ambassador, you can always drop me a line. Guilty Gear is dripping with rock and metal inspiration. This theme's character has a stage inspired by Testament's Souls of Black album cover. The list of rock and metal influences are endless.
really looking forward to the day you react do Crawl and What do You Fight For,my favorite songs in Strive
I personally wanna see your thoughts on nago theme👀
If you're familiar with Gamma Ray, check out Ky Kiske's themes. They are nothing but reference to their songs.
The character chipp zanuff, his name is based on the band enuff z’nuff and his design in strive looks a lot like billy idol.
I'm not crying, you're crying.
The best part about missing out on GG music is you can react to it live here, it's really good for your channel to be blind to these OSTs; just don't deprive yourself for the sake of the channel though.
you may look if you want a characters trailers for strive. It can help choose next reaction.
i love this song so much, so many great songs in GG
For all the metal references you can refer to my man, HurtBoxTV’s video on all the metal references in this game (It’s 30 minutes lol)
Johnny imo has the best theme. If you havent checked the music for DUSK... you're missing out. Chipp Zanuff named after Enuff Z'nuff and originally looked like Billy Idol.
kuradoberi jam - cloudberry jam lol
If your interested about guilty gear and the many metal references within, "Hurtbox" has made a youtube video where he attempts to explain most of guilty gears metal references, i say most because theres too many to do them all... guilty gears whole aesthetic is defined by the gothik style of 80s metal combined with a loose scify setting.
if you want a good synopsis of all the guilty gear games up to Strive without having to play them all, you should check out "Woolie VS" who made a multi part video talking about the whole story line that was backed up by Daisuke himself. its called "Guilty Gear Lore: Heaven or Hell" and there is 7 videos
ruclips.net/p/PLiSdC6Lp8c7OkrBhzdQsQhGL_7jT0cSTv
"This is a very long theme for 1 character."
Yeah, about that...
FREESIA IS AN ABSOLUTE JAM DAISUKE LOVES HIS ROCK BALLADS
"it's so feel good"
Zato=1: Am i a joke to you?
Woooooooooo!
you gotta do the heavy meatal witch Ino's theme "Requiem"!
The secret is the whole thing is actually a love song
"This is a long theme for one character" chat does he know
Vibing out to one of the most depressing tracks on the album lol
You got to listen to Guilty Gear Strive Trigger that song is too good👍
eddie from black sabbath is also in the game
"This is a very long theme for one character." True, but there is a reason Guilty Gear has the constant meme of it being a $60 album that comes with a free game.
wait until he hears testament's theme
Please play Silent Hill 2(it's a standalone so no previous entries needed for anything at all). It's a masterpiece. It's music is even more so.
Ky's super is Ride the Lightning ⚡
If you are more into Guilty Gear Strive ost I recommend checking out Necessary Discrepancy. Such a cool song!
Ayo react to Testament's theme it's "Like a weed naturally as a matter of course"