Guilty Gear Strive - Let Me Carve Your Way (Zato) | Reacting To Video Game Music! 

I ONCE HAD SOME, SWEEEET MEMORIESS

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Testament has a move called unholy diver which is kinda funny because the move is a crow diving at you.

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.

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

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 RU-vid!

Testaments super in the old game was called Master of Puppets

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Just found your channel cause I saw your video reacting to Tomorrow is Mine. It's awesome, keep it up ^^

Always a treat to see you reacting to Guilty Gear: Strive!

Fuckin sweet. Hope Alone Infection is requested on Patreon next

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

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

I'm so glad you're finally getting around to this song. it's the best in strive IMO.

I have been waiting on this one for so long

my personal favorite music reference in Guilty Gear is a particular character who hasn't appeared in the Xrd era She's a Homunculus who powers up using blood packs and has an obsession with keys. her design has her wearing little more than a bloody apron and bandages all over her body, and she has a big key through her head. she also wields a giant bloody living key-shaped axe bigger than herself. So what band is this super-edgy, goth as fuck character named after? freakin' Abba. her name is A.B.A. it's HILARIOUS.

Love Guilty Gear Strive's soundtrack. Glad you listened to Zato's theme! The last part of it is soo fitting.. xD

Those verses near the end are incredible. I highly recommend Armor-Clad Faith just for a personal listen if not for thr channel.

Hope someday we can hear some more songs from Xrd as well

14:05 That description of the wall of death reminds of the Wall of Epic, in Epica's live performance of Consign To Oblivion

Yo bro!!! Love your content!! One song that sounds great is All I Can Do from Guilty Gear Xrd

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

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)

i love this song so much, so many great songs in GG

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.

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!

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.

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.

All of the Guiltily gear: strive tracks are a treat to listen too

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.

really looking forward to the day you react do Crawl and What do You Fight For,my favorite songs in Strive

faust's theme (Alone Infection) has a section based off of a radiohead song near the end

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

Woooooooooo!

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

I really can't wait for him to get a request for Alone Infection

You should listen to Rock And Roll, Rock Hard Maniac. Its also from Guilty gear strive and it's just a great song

Thank you Daisuke for this masterpiece 🙏

I'm hoping someone will request Mirror of The World (Baiken's Theme) bc it's such a banger and masterpiece

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-plli7jslF08.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-2DDMwXsc-cc.html

You should listen to 'Find your one way' (Sol Badguy's theme). It is one of my personal favourites from GGS.

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

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.

The 2 main characters, Ky Kisuke and Sol Badguy, have special moves called "Ride the Lightning" and "Napalm Death" respectively.

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 personally wanna see your thoughts on nago theme👀

eddie from black sabbath is also in the game

Sol Badguy the main character's favorite thing is his record of sheer heart attack by Queen

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

you may look if you want a characters trailers for strive. It can help choose next reaction.

If you want every musical reference in Guilty Gear, here's a 30 minute video of all of them! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-plli7jslF08.html

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

yessss

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.

If you're familiar with Gamma Ray, check out Ky Kiske's themes. They are nothing but reference to their songs.

kuradoberi jam - cloudberry jam lol

You got to listen to Guilty Gear Strive Trigger that song is too good👍

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.

"This is a long theme for one character" chat does he know

we need more guilty gear pretty please

I'm not crying, you're crying.

The secret is the whole thing is actually a love song

Ky's super is Ride the Lightning ⚡

👍

FREESIA IS AN ABSOLUTE JAM DAISUKE LOVES HIS ROCK BALLADS

sometimes I'm sad that Utsu-P is not a game related artist, I'm just really curious what you'd think of vocaloid metal lol

Ayo react to Testament's theme it's "Like a weed naturally as a matter of course"

Vibing out to one of the most depressing tracks on the album lol

alone infection !!

I hope someone requests find your way