Old Composer Reacts to Video Game OST Undertale - Megalovania by Toby Fox 

I'm no internet historian, but Toby Fox uses this song in a lot of his projects in different forms. The rest of this album/OST was entirely composed by him. Worth a deep dive!

dude made the whole game and ost himself and is considered one of the most influential games of the last decade

There's something magical hearing an older gentleman who isn't part of the fan base of the game describe things with the same feeling of being amazed as we all felt when we heard this whole soundtrack for the first time.

Fun fact: This song was used by a circus jugglers performance, who performed for the Pope - therefore the Pope has heard Megalovania :)

The entire Undertale OST is worth a deep dive. Lots of unique keys, time signatures, and emotions that can't be found in many other places.

Toby Fox made the entirety of Undertale (along with a small independent team of animators/developers) and the follow-up Deltarune. Undertale became such a massive hit that it’s opened up opportunities for Toby to also write and contribute to Pokemon. You would probably get a huge kick out of not just the rest of the OST, but also the game and it’s cast of characters, story, writing, etc.

Fun fact: this song has been played for THE POPE. And he loved it. There are videos on RU-vid of it happening.

Not only file space limitations, although that was present as well - Typically 8 bit systems had very restricted sound cards, often only about three channels, typically only square waves, triangle waves, and a noise channel (I believe basically allowing for bursts of white noise for percussion) Soyo Oka, who's probably most notable in video games for composing the original Mario Kart, compared working on 8-bit systems to being like a sound puzzle due to the restrictions on them. Undertale has a great soundtrack. One thing from it I'd probably suggest looking into is Asgore's theme based on other music reaction channels I've seen. Outside of Undertale, if you're wanting old-school sounds like you sort of implied near the start, I'd absolutely love it if you covered the Title Theme for Flimbo's Quest. Purely from my nostalgia.

Fun fact: This is the fourth version of Megalovania that Toby Fox has made. He almost always makes sure to include it once in his projects! Which of course, when he designed the entire soundtrack of Undertale on his own, using yeah a lot of old synthesizers in complex ways, he's gotta include an update of this song somewhere!

The song is so chaotic and frantic, wanting to take a break. And has a bit of a jazz feel to it to make it more mysterious and laid back, resembling how Sans was before the fight, he is also trying so hard to give you the pain you caused him and so many others by killing everyone. The ironic thing about the song is that it is one of the best tracks in the game, And to get to hear it you have to kill everyone and everything to hear this masterpiece. Toby Fox is in-genius when it comes to stuff like this.

The history and trauma behind this song is unknown to this man, keep him protected

You should 1000% revisit Toby Fox. Undertale and Delta Rune's sound tracks are 🔥Totally worth a deep dive.

Honestly, it's worth the sit to react to the entire game's OST in one sitting, possibly as a livestream. Because there are a ton of leitmotifs and concepts you will see evolve through the OST. Super fantastic.

Toby Fox is an amazing composer. Everyone knows him for this song, but honestly practically every track from his Undertale and Deltarune games are bangers! He's just so great at creating atmosphere through music and soundbites.

Holy... your first impression at 3:30 "...maybe it's a part where you're shooting things or you're going through a maze..." is actually quite on point. Except the player itself is getting shot at. With maze like structures, which they have to maneuver through!

Man... Undertale has such an incredible OST... you should react to the whole thing because every single piece is unique and amazing. Thanks for the awesome reaction :D

Toby fox made almost this entire videogame by himself and also composed the music, he is an extremely talented guy!

Seeing this guy's expression go from "oh, this is interesting" to "holy crap this is awesome" was perfect

The premise of this song is that you've played the very worst route of the game possible and the character here knows what you've done. You are now the villain of the game and this guy is doing his best to stop you and does not hold back. That's why it's so heavy and frantic. The sort of jazzy feel to the melody is because this guy has always been very laid back before and mischievous

Toby Fox is one of very few composers who frequently uses microtonality in many of his compositions. For example, the OST "Fallen Down" is almost entirely made by using microtones and "Bergentrückung/Asgore" (Bergentrückung being the interlude into Asgore) also shows a great usage of them.

amazing pick! this is one of THE video game tracks that everyone should hear. also there is a huge scene of newer games that continue and innovate on the bit-era of gaming.

It's so interesting just to watch Geebz listen to music, it's like a visualization of what music looks like, all the feedback on his face and in his movements to the different sounds. I feel like he has a special relationship to and experience of music that I've never really seen before. I never thought it could be so interesting to watch someone listen to a song I love. Please keep it up, sir! :D

What I love about Megalovania is how much it sounds like a _song_ rather than a video game soundtrack if you know what I mean. It's not a short repeating piece for the player to tune out, it's front and center. The melody sounds like it should have lyrics, it has a lot of progression and different elements going on in the background. You can tell even without the context that there's emotional weight and significance to this point in the story.

Toby Fox is establishing himself as a modern composer savant. He's able to come up with these hooking melodies and just play what sounds right. He is self taught and only played by ear for many years. If you haven't heard his improv video "An apple disaster", not only is it funny, but he really has a talent for creating hooking music.... In an instant!

Toby fox is dynamite. Another composer that's his equal is Jake Kaufman, especially his 'Strike the Earth' track from the game Shovel Knight. Thx for listening to our gamer tunes!

Undertale has an AMAZING Soundtrack. Try: Death By Glamor, Undertale, Hope's and Dreams/Save The World, Here We Are, Dating Start, Dummy, Fallen Down, Bonetrousle, Spider Dance, Asgore, Heartache, etc. The Soundtrack has so much variety, and it's all by 1 guy. And the game is amazing too. Fact: there are multiple versions of Megalovania. Toby puts a different version in everything he's worked on (like a musical signature or the like.) There is: Earthbound Halloween Hack, Homestuck Web Comic, Undertale, Mother: Cognitive Dissonance (not made by him but approved by him), Undertale, Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Fans of his have layered different versions over top of eachother and arranged different versions (I have done 1 as well, it was my first video back when I was 15) and many have done Covers in countless styles.

Great reaction. Megalovnia is so iconic, the opening hook is frequently used in memes/references as short hand for "someone's about to get their a** kicked". Gonna suggest some of my favs: - Anything from Persona 5 OST, it's all fantastic ('Rivers in the Desert' and 'Keep Your Faith' are my favs) - 'This is What You Are' from Warframe - 'The Only Thing I Know for Real' from Metal Gear Rising - 'Savior of the Dreaming Dead' from Homestuck Keep up the great work!

if you were curious! the part of the game that this song plays in, is a fight between you and the character on the song cover. the whole premise of the fight, is that the character your seeing named "sans" is trying to stop you from reaching the end of the game, with notably the hardest fight in the entire game. this game has a really unique premise, where as 2 or so of the characters remember whenever you've restarted and sans will constantly bully you for dying on his fight, every time. the only way to access this fight, is if you kill, every single character in the game. also know as "the genocide run" sans will stop you, on your way to the end, and ask you a few questions, before bombarding you with the hardest attack you've seen in the game so far. stating why he wonders why not just use your strongest attack first. sans is the most self aware character in the series, know that he is in a game, and he has to watch his friends die every time someone does the "genocide run" definitely a interesting and fun character, well also terrifying and unnerving. he's also a skeleton if you didn't catch on

This plays when you fight the hardest boss in the game. The wacky sound perfectly encapsulates the insanity of the fight. Also, an orchestral version was performed for the pope... he liked it.

I love that Toby Fox used the soundfont from Earthbound/Mother for so much of the soundtrack. It makes the tracks sound so retro and yet more modern at the same time.

First time coming to this channel, but if you like this song, I'd recommend the song Bergentrückung, also from the same soundtrack. I'm only starting to get into music analysis, but I'm pretty sure it has microtones, which is always really cool to hear! Here's to the further growing of your channel :)

People always ask you to do more from album x, or game y, for almost everything you cover. Unless you really do plan to cover everything individually, do you think you could do livestreams or something where you spend an hour or so just reacting to different tracks within a single album/game. Just an idea. Love your work ❤ 😊

honestly, seeing somebody's first impression of this game and its music, even after these years is so much fun to see, especially someone who appreciates not only the song itself but has a love for the older and arcady 8-bit and synthetic music, so refreshing and fun!💖

Man, Toby is a legend when it comes to music, and it’s sad that most people only listen to megalovania and stop there, without giving the other amazing tracks a chance

I'm still here! What's interesting to me is the very, very strong remixing and stylized covers ecosystem that exists around VGM. DJ Cutman and his artist collective called GameChops are almost ubiquitous in the social streaming environment (a la Twitch, Discord, etc) for their DRM free offerings.

Dude, your energy alone is incredible. Glad I found your channel and I'm excited to see more!

This entire game album is actually incredible. Toby Fox is a big fan of leitmotifs and the whole album has soooo many spread throughout it. I would highly recommend at least a full personal listen through, if not a video or video series on it!

Your point about drawing from more traditional composition and then shifting to something new is interesting because it fits the context where the song is used: a boss fight against a character who takes your expectations of how the game works and completely subverts them

Man I got addicted to your videos. It's such a pleasure watching you enjoying every trak you listen to. Thanks!

My favorite piece from Undertale is probably Spider Dance, but the context in which this song plays in the game and the overall culture impact it's had makes it the perfect song to listen to first.

Bad Apple might be a good one, also I'd recommend Bombs For Throwing At You from Portal 2. Also something you might want to try experimenting with in your music if you like old video game style sounds is the synth/sequencer/tracker called Little Sound DJ (or LSDJ) which allows you to use the Nintendo GameBoy as a synthesizer.

For reference, this song is for the hardest battle in the game. The skeleton guy is trying to stop you the player from killing everybody and he is the last against your GENOCIDE. Game has 3 endings, pacifist, normal and GENOCIDE. Toby Fox is an absolute legend.

I just found this channel and I gotta say, I really like that straight forward, quality content, I will look more into it

This is the first time I've ever seen your channel and wow, what an amazing first impression!

Couldn't think of a more relevant video than this to recommend a certain song. Area Zero Theme / Area Zero Battle Theme, also composed by Toby Fox, from Pokemon Scarlet/Violet. Beautiful, curious, ominous, other-worldy, past, future... and the dubious nature of the story unfolding as you explore a new and scary place no one has been before, all while experiencing it with the friends you made along the way. Seeing it to its conclusion. The sense of "We've come this far together, we'll finish it together! No matter what happens!" This will hopefully send you down the beautiful rabbit hole of Pokemon OSTs. Some of the most gut-wrenchingly nostalgic (or maybe in your case, anemoic) pieces of music made by human hands. When I was a child playing through the first games, I genuinely thought the soundtrack was just nursery rhymes, that's how intuitively nostalgic they are. Can't recommend enough.

When you mentioned the file size of the games, it reminded me of the fact that the early Pokémon games (and pretty much every GameBoy game) were super tiny; the number I see often is 1MB or 512KB. The file for the song you just listened to is probably larger than the entirety of the first generation of Pokémon games….

Yooo, so glad I found your channel! You’re such a fun individual!

Your OST vids always make my day, thank you so much!!

*Only just discovered this channel through the FFX Zanarkand reaction "Wow, this is such an amazing way to breakdown such a beautiful tune" *Eyes float over to suggested videos "wait, HE HAS DONE MEGALOVANIA?!??!?!?!"

You mentioned that this sounds like a song that would play during an intense and fun shooting or maze section, yet surprisingly this takes place during the final fight of the most depressing and dark pathway through the game.

So glad that RU-vid recommended this to me! Just looking through your channel and I see about 2 years worth of awesome content that I can't wait to binge.

The shadow from the lava lamp looks like fumes coming out of the coffee cup. 10/10 environment details 👍

Some info on the context this track plays in: Undertale is a retro-style game with a mixture of turn based and bullet hell combat, meaning you get to choose an action in your turn (like talking or attacking) and then you need to dodge the opponents projectiles in their turn. The premise of the game is that you get to choose whether to be merciful to your opponents or to kill them. Being merciful all the way leads to the good ending, while going out of your way to kill everything leads you down a dark route known as the "Genocide Route", which is where the final opponent will have this track playing in the background. It is unquestionably the most difficult fight in the game. Traditionally, a soundtrack playing in the background of "the bad guy", ie. your opponent, can be said to be their specific theme. But the character in question, Sans, already has his own theme. Given the context this track plays in and its name ("Megalovania" being based on "megalomania"), it can be said that this is not the theme of Sans but YOUR theme, having gone power hungry after becoming "the bad guy", as Sans tries his best to stop you.

3:30 Well, you certainly do have to go through something of a maze when this song plays...

Just discovered your channel through this. Toby Fox is truly a talented individual. I can see many others have written informative comments all about him. His other tracks form this game is really worth a dive they are all beautiful and wonderful compositions. This game exploded in popularity for many reasons, Toby Fox really broke the mold with this game, his compositions are already greatly respected in many communities..

Watching you made it feel like it was my first time listening to this song as well. So glad I could relive that amazing soundtrack once more by watching your reactions!

I’ll always say it and stand by… tal Tal heights from Links Awakening was the first video game track I heard that I fell in love with. And it’s honestly imo, the best video game track. I used to sot right under the egg and just leave my game boy on just to listen to it.

wow thanks for appreciating such a good ost By the way you should listen more ost from undertale and review them You deserve to be one of the most recognized musicians you just gained a follow my friend

It's always pretty interesting to hear takes on video game music independent from the games themselves. What usually gets me loving a piece of video game music is very much shaped by the way I experience it in the game, same way you might with a movie track except you're directly in control of part of what is going on. But that makes it so refreshing to see it extracted from that context and seen on its own the level of detail and effort that exists unrelated to the feeling imparted on it by the gameplay experience.

I'm glad youtube recommended you to me, this was a great video and quite insightful!

Wait until the Final Fantasy 14 community gets their hands on you!! Our Master composer, Masayoshi Soken is just incredible. His use of leitmotifs throughout the game's history are just legendary, with the widest variety of genres in composition I've ever heard. Fantastic stuff, loved your analysis, subbed!

Awesome Christmas present with this one, Megalovania is such a fun track I'm pumped you listened to it! I'll sing his praises just like everyone else here but man Toby Fox really is incredible for what he did with Undertale. Also if I could make a request, you should absolutely check out some music from Hollow Knight! It's another "indie game" made by a studio of only 3 people, one of them being the composer, who then made one of the greatest game soundtracks of all time. His name is Christopher Larkin, and I know you'd love his work. Strongly recommend the songs "Mantis Lords" "Dung Defender" and "City of Tears". Thanks for a great reaction once again, super stoked for the Halo video as well, and Merry Christmas!

The smile on your face was so genuine, loved that

I always smile watchin you react , respect to you sir

Highly reccomend giving some of the music from Omori a listen. Some of the fandom favorites are Worlds End Valentine, Duet, By Your Side, It Means Everything, Bready Steady Go, and a lot more honestly! The soundtrack is amazing and huge!

Greetings for England, go get yourself a coffee 👍 Absolutely loving these soundtrack reactions, hoping to see a reaction to the main theme from the Uncharted video games! Also, it's super interesting to hear about the details of these much loved tunes and how they are made that i had never noticed before.

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed a lot seeing your reaction! You're very charismatic and fun to watch

your enthusiasm and genuineness is absolutely awesome. from a 19 year old, thank you for making these videos and you've earned a subscriber 🙌❤️❤️

If you haven’t listened to it yet, I would listen to the title track “Undertale!” It’s an incredibly different (and gorgeous) song and really shows his versatility as a composer

Toby Fox also composed on the newest Pokemon game, Scarlet and Violet, and made a really memorable battle music track called "Penny's battle theme." Really a fantastic piece that gets your head banging and your feet tapping!

I don't think anything could ever shake my love for Undertale. Every single track either slaps, does a great job setting the tone, makes you want to cry, makes you chuckle, or all of the above. Every single character and aspect of the universe feels so fleshed out and you just can't help but love it ♥️

one of my favorite parts of the OST to this is how tied to the emotions of the game it can be. this song is during a particularly difficult battle and any time i hear it i still feel the panic of the battle, and the sadness of fighting a character that, until this moment, has been friendly. it's really something

I really love how you felt the environment of this song is that you're going through a maze, and the combat in Undertale is very much as if you're dodging the walls of a moving maze! Amazing how music can create such an accurate and acute feeling of action!

Hey Geebz! Remember when I said something like “react to more ‘classical’, retro, and tracker-based VGM”? This qualifies!!!

Id love to see you listen to some of these tracks done in the official orchestral, i always get a kick out of how hard the musicians are going , the Obo on this song Legendary. Amazing stuff as always thanks for the videos!!

The game's OST in and of itself is so good, but to hear multiple orchestras around the world take a crack at it and turn them into orchestral pieces is pretty fantastic. My personal favorite is "Symphonic Gamers 3 - Undertale".

If you enjoyed this one, I think you would also enjoy Wonderland - Round Three from The Suffering Game by Griffin McElroy! It often gets mashed up with Megalovania

I'd really recommend the tracks Asgore and Heartache from Undertale too - absolutely incredible pieces of music.

when a very specific part hits and hes immediately into it. that makes me just so happy

undertale has an absolutely phenomenal soundtrack, they even did an anniversary concert with a full orchestra covering it. highly recommend.

This track is the epitome of "Boss music."

Kirby has some amazing music, "Two Planets Approach the Roche Limit" is extremely impressive.

waiting for more undertale ost reactions, there a lot of cool stuff

How about listening to Civilization 6 main theme, "Sogno di Volare"? Its composer, Christopher Tin, won a grammy award for main theme of Civilization 4. The song was called "Baba Yetu" and was the first video game soundtrack to get nominated and win the Grammy award!

Did you ever listened some of Carpenter Brut's tracks? I've think peoples here will be interesting your reaction on one of CB's compositions. His "Trilogy" album really incredible: Paradise Warfire, Turbo Killer, Run Sally Run and many others a real masterpieces.

I don't know if you've checked out the Hollow Knight soundtrack but there's a lot of good music there especially if you're really into moody dramatic instrumental pieces. It's a great game too.

Great Video, would love to see more Undertale!

Glad to see you touching on some of Toby's stuff! He's a fantastic composer, and Undertale's entire soundtrack is rife with leitmotifs even when you don't expect them. Another song I'd love to see you cover (albeit not one of Toby's) is Heir of Grief by Joren "Tensei" de Bruin!

the Undertale soundtrack is incredible, one of my favorites is the track "Death By Glamour". it's definitely worth a listen.

I personally think Toby Fox is the most talented composer in the world of video games, his music is definitely worth a listen!

The story of this game is one of the deepest and it completely turns and twists every time into something you aren't expecting, this track represent very well that aspect as it ocures at the most important part of the game were that happens, I would love to see you react to asgors theme, or batle ageinst a true hero they might not have the quite the same effect as megalovania, but they are still really impressive and have a lot of emotional depth. I always love people reacting to this game for the first time it's so magical.

I actually just started undertale. This track is nuts! Nice reaction Geebz!

I love your reactions and how you talk about the wide range of music you're listening to and have been binging your channel recently! Toby Fox is one of those one people that can fill a lot of creative roles in a project and this song is iconic. Since anime and games are relatively new to you I'm half-hoping you pick up some VOCALOID songs too, like maybe Rolling Girl by wowaka.

i like this kind of music commentary where the commentator doesn't stop the music every 5 seconds and just really, REALLY enjoy the music

I still get chills hear this song

I just discovered this channel but I'm definitely going to check out more. I love seeing people react for the first time to things I already love because it lets me see it for the first time a second time. (It's also nice to see someone older than me enjoying something from my childhood and not dismissing it outright, but that's neither here nor there.) As much as I'd like to recommend more Undertale music, the rest of the ost relies very heavily on leitmotifs so in a format like this, there's a lot of missing context. The only "big hits" from UT that I don't think require that context are "Bonetrousle" and "Death By Glamour".

Loving the OST reaction stlye videos! Highly recommend some of the tracks from the Ori games. Especially 'Light of Nibel' from the first game, and 'Shriek and Ori' from the second being the song from the final boss fight. These songs I see as some as Gareth Coker's best work.

3:32 Man has never played Undertale, yet his guess at to what this song is meant to be played around is not that far off. This song is a boss theme for one could argue the most difficult section of the game. Up until this point, the player had all the control of when combat began and had time to think between turns as this game was turn based for a good majority. But then the players faces the boss this theme is for, and that completely goes out the window. Very chaotic, very unforgiving, and it makes sure to remind you each time you retry how many times you've failed.

Glad to see you getting into video games, anime, and movies.

Considering this plays during a boss fight against a skeleton that painting in the background is very appropriate.