MUSIC REACTION: War Without Reason is Fantastically Absurd -- Ultrakill OST
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
- Ya this is wild.
Chapters:
00:00 Suffering Leaves Suffering Leaves
05:06 Danse Macabre
11:32 War Without Reason
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| Who am I? |
Hi, I'm Marco Meatball, a former pro opera singer, turned voice actor, turned TH-camr. I grew up loving video games and video game music after first discovering them when I was 7 years old. Since then, I have lived and breathed all things video games. This channel is all about video game music and the beauty of modern composition, how it allows us to connect more deeply with the games we love, and how we can better learn to understand ourselves through it and the experiences it provides.
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3 ultrakill videos back to back!? You better watch them all.
I will don't worry
I will, Layer 7 ost is just that good
what if i don’t..
i was just watching your ultrakill reactions when i clicked on the home page and this appeared
Layer 7 has best soundtrack yet of course i will (i already have)
the trees are people who killed themselves and every time leaves fall or a branch is snapped it puts the person in excruciating pain because it feels like a limb falling off for them
jesus fuck
@@MarcoMeatball in the original version of this forest in dantes inferno there were harpies who would eat the fruits that would grow from the trees as well. The leaves falling are also horrible, since every leaf that falls is an excruciating amount of pain to the person trapped inside. The whole forest is so miserable to think about.
@@MarcoMeatballand if u walk up to the trees in game u can hear them screaming
@@MarcoMeatballi know right? The suicide forest of the violence ring of hell is one of the most darkest topics in dante's inferno in this song the emptyness sadness and the feeling of not having more to give and pain and agony of the souls turned into trees is captured fantastically well
As a person who experienced that state of mind (im better now i have recovered but it wasn't a fun experience at all)
Im familiar with those feelings and it is captured so well in this piece
broke: reads lore from the terminals
woke: hears lore from the soundtrack
Bloke: sees lore from the gameplay
stroke: watch memes to learn about lore
Stoked: watches every Ultrakill lore video
choke: dies to see ULTRAKILL lore in person
smoke: somehow learn the lore by smoking weed
hearing marco talk about the emotions in Suffering Leaves Suffering Leaves without him knowing about the whole suicide tree thing is uncanny
music is another way humans tell stories too you just need to be able to read it
@@clintonbehrends4659It's like an entire dang language
Suffering leaves (act of self-deletion, thus removal of sadness) suffering leaves (reincarnated into a tree who is punished)
@@REvoLverj98 Suffering Leaves (behind) Suffering Leaves (that belong to the animated trees)
What really got me is when he brought up how it reminded him of a locomotive stopping, knowing how much railways play a part in violence
Religious but also counter-religious
I have never heard a more accurate summary of the Ultrakill plot
Religious because it is related to Religion
And counter-religion because you're litterally winning a fight against an arch-angel twice.
@@maximeleninja4029one might even say you’re Ultrakilling him
Dante's Divine Comedy is one huge religious anti religious piece and since its big inspiration for game's placement so it persist within game
so.. apostasy?
@@m1xxx3rthe divine comedy isn’t anti religion
Ya know the best part of the point where War Without Reason plays is that you get to fight _what V1 was actually designed with the express purpose to kill._
isnt that just a fan theory
@@sussy6905it's explicitly stated that every new machine was designed to counter the last and v1 (as far as we know) was the last machine to be designed for war, so the conclusion is kinda obvious
@@kolyashinkarev7366 oh, i forgot about that first part. thanks for explaining
It's also stated that "these walking fortresses could only be made vulnerable from within, making them the frontline for smaller, more mobile machines"
@@Fine-py3tcthat's why they shot from a far
WHY DOES HE PREDICT EVERYTHING HES SO RIGHT TO THE LEVELS OH MY GOD
music theory is cool, huh?
lo
@@CallMeSnat Stalkers are Lesser Husks that first appear in the mission [ 4-2: GOD DAMN THE SUN ]. They detonate to cover other enemies in golden sand, making it so that they cannot bleed. In the Cyber Grind, they are a massive problem due to their ability to sandify powerful enemies.
@@blockvinclam2Minos saying “Die!” is a subtle nod towards the fact that he will kill you. This is best seen on Violent difficulty.
Interestingly you almost hit the point of what 7-3 represents, wich is the place where people who killed themselves would go acording to Dante's Inferno. Really a something about "why continue living" theme indeed.
Yeah, he really hits the nail on the hammer there
A bit of context: The level where "War Without Reason" plays happens on top of the "Earthmower" , a machine creared by humankind for the great war, which plowed through the earth and basically stripped all life from it.
*Earthmover
It is good to mention that the war the earthmover was made for lasted 200 years, left civilian life like a warzone itself due to the amount of resources being used on the war, and almost ended mankind. Nobody won the war and everyone was worse off after it. The war only caused everybody pain. So basically, it's war without reason.
The idea of not wanting to continue doing something but being forced to touched on when Marco talked about war without reason makes sense due to how unnecessary, inhumane, and drawn out the war was. Nobody would ever want to continue a war that long, but we have to win, don't we?
Earthmower is a better name imo
Benjamin
you didnt mention the part they are massively gigantic bois
Something I didn't even realize that Marco points out is that in War Without Reason, there's a feeling of hesitance or not wanting to fight, which is kinda cool considering that the 1000-THR Earthmover is technically (or according to popular theory) *afraid* of V1, since it's theorized V1 was specifically made to slip into Earthmovers and kill them from within.
I doubt the machines fear anything.
@@privcommentingconsidering it tried to obliterate you as soon as it saw you
@@privcommenting
The damn thing ignored the other city-levelling doomsday machine just to attempt to blast you with its skyscraper-sized lightning spear. It also looked like it lowered its shields just to blast you with full power, so it took the same lightning spear to the face from the other city-levelling doomsday machine, AND ONLY FLINCHED.
@@privcommentingV2 ran away from your in 4-4 and it was literally screaming
that would make sense, with more machine lore its made me wonder where v1 fits in, and a sort of special ops kind of deal would add up. small, mobile, tactically flexible, self-sufficient, etc.
War Without Reason is split up into different phases. As you go further into the level, the music changes. That's what happens with the sudden changes.
Exactly.
I love how the switch from machine with no emotion to the emotional part starts just before you come to the former houses of the remnants of humanity.
11:36 Massive threat detected, engage the enemy
12:40 Successfully mounted, continue scaling
17:07 Defensive protocols engaged, remove deterrent
19:01 Infiltration achieved, avoid purging
20:21 Core spotted, this is your final target
20:54 Meltdown initiated, secure an escape
21:09 Dispatching additional troops, make haste and destroy all remaining forces
22:13 Confirmed kill, safely outside of projected blast radius
Adaptive music is the best imo
Suffering leaves suffering leaves is the theme of the suicide forest. According to Divine Comedy, when Dante gets to the violence layer, there is a whole ring for the people who commit suicide. They are turned into trees, and harpies come down and snap twigs. They are fully conscious and they feel the pain. They are punished for destroying the body god gave them. As someone who has attempted suicide before, this song is like a lullaby for me
Damn, hope you're better now 😔
I'm so sorry about the situation you were in. I hope you feel better and have more than you had before ❤
THEY’RE FULLY CONSCIOUS
That’s uncomfortable to know
Another interesting detail about the Forest of Suicides is that across all nine circles of Hell, Dante says that specifically the trees of this forest are the only ones that will not be resurrected on the Final Day to receive their ultimate judgement, as they have already rejected existence, and therefore made that decision for themselves.
Particularly brutal, imo, as someone who's been where you were.
@@sirblockepicmcswaggins5248 holy fuck
Part of why I love this layer is because of how personal it feels. This is V1's layer. This is the layer of hell for the machines. They were the culmination of humanity's violence. The violence layer is, in a macabre way, essentially like hell telling the story of V1's reason for being made. Every machine was made to counter the last, all the way up to the Earthmovers and their doomed successor, V1. The earthmovers were so effective that they caused so much destruction that smoke and ash literally blotted out the sunlight which was used in combination with blood to fuel said Earthmovers. V1 was designed to destroy the Earthmovers from the inside, able to quickly get onto/into the Earthmover and annihilate any and all resistance with its firepower, but the Earthmovers ran out of power and stopped running just as V1 was finalized. Violence is V1's origin, violence is V1's hell-personalized layer. I wonder, were any of V1's creators amongst the husks and demons we find/fight in hell, and if so, are they proud to see their creation, do they see it as a relief or a horror that their creation was the being to finally end their living hell?
To quote hell itself from a book it hid for V1 on this very level:
"THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT COULD HAVE ENDED.
WAR NO LONGER NEEDED ITS ULTIMATE PRACTICIONER. IT HAD BECOME A SELF-SUSTAINING SYSTEM. MAN WAS CRUSHED UNDER THE WHEELS OF A MACHINE CREATED TO CREATE THE MACHINE TO CRUSH THE MACHINE. SAMSARA OF CUT SINEW AND CRUSHED BONE. DEATH WITHOUT LIFE. NULL OUROBOROS. ALL THAT REMAINED IS WAR WITHOUT REASON."
"A MAGNUM OPUS. A COLD TOWER OF STEEL. A MACHINE BUILT TO END WAR IS ALWAYS A MACHINE BUILT TO CONTINUE WAR. YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL, OUTSTRETCHED LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN. YOU WERE BEYOND YOUR CREATORS. YOU REACHED OUT FOR GOD, AND YOU FELL. NONE WERE LEFT TO SPEAK YOUR EULOGY. NO FINAL WORDS, NO CONCLUDING STATEMENT. NO POINT. PERFECT CLOSURE."
"T H I S I S T H E O N L Y W A Y I T S H O U L D H A V E E N D E D ."
but earthmover works on blood
@@forskipped900 blood AND sunlight. As stated in the Earthmover's terminal, they were so damn big that they needed both blood and solar power to actually run. I think hell's kinda animating the ones within it via hell energy
@@lexisking152 okey im sorry
@@forskipped900 it's alright, I understand, Ultrakill lore is... deceptively complex, so not everyone probably knows that detail
@@lexisking152 i read about eartmover but doesnt see about sunlight
reading through the comments for "war without reason" is really fun
"make the mountain bleed"
real!!!!!
"the enemies are unrelenting" is totally accurate to when you get marked for death in 7-3
They’re unrelenting even without it too. They’re just trying to kill everything and anything they can
Sixty restarts...
A mountain stands before you
A testament to the cruelty and violence of humanity
A symbol of destruction, of war, of death
A horseman of the apocalypse, sent not by gods nor demons, but created by man themselves
It is all that remains, laying the land flat and barren, clouding the sky, blotting out the sun
The mountain doesn't think, doesn't breathe, doesn't feel, it only does what it was designed to do
It has spotted you, the one thing that could possibly challenge it
The mountain is scared
MAKE THE MOUNTAIN BLEED
(Announcement Bell)
"Unauthorized fucking THING spotted. Clean up on aisle: my legs."
As I watch these ULTRAKILL videos I get completely stunned every time at how good his analogies are at describing what actually happens in the game. I was so confident that it would take a little bit longer for him to get close to what happens in 7-4, but he immediately said "giant machine". The fact that he does this with no context is insane! And he describes the music in a way that I feel I can only agree with but could never come up with anything like that myself.
Don’t forget the image on the cover of the song
Idk why I assumed you wouldn't look at that lol
goes to show both marco and hakita skills
@@MarcoMeatball man. You really should do an video with actual background footage of levels, to get some "vague" images more clear...
Still, great job man! I and others we love your content
@@MarcoMeatballyou could maybe find someone you know who's willing to play the game, and let them do a playthrough. maybe talk about the songs, kind of like a "xxxx reacts to video game music" except a lot more ""interactive""
For context: 'War without reason' is the theme for a massive, centaur-like machine known as a 1000 THR 'Earthmover'. The Earthmovers were the apex of the final war. The pinnacle of warfare and human technology for killing. So great was their power that they could destroy entire cities by themselves. So great was their power that the ash, soot and waste from their carnage blocked out the sun and turned the entire Earth into a black and grey wasteland. However, this destructive strength was also the cause of their end. They were so massive that blood alone could not fuel them, so they relied on sunlight as well. And with the sun blocked out by their wake of their murderous force, they eventually shut down for the last time. Their lifeless husks serving as a reminder to the few humans that remained to never allow this to happen again. Eventually humanity rejoined and the New Peace was established. The final war had ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Funnily enough, Hell itself wrote a poem in honour of the Earthmovers. It near worshipped the pure wraith, mindless death, and suffering that they represented. It wished that humanity had died by the hands of the Earthmovers, the survival of mankind past the final war acting as a personal insult.
I think there’s a power struggle going on between hell and the terminals.
You're the first person I've seen that also thinks it's a centaur and not a giraffe.
@@rhyderleming5851 I always considered the terminals and hell to both be two sides of the same coin, not enemies. Hell as a being enjoys nothing more than watching the suffering of life and seeing conflict. The terminals are bored, and their only source of entertainment is peeping through the eyes of machines that connect to them to gain access to tools and resources that they provide in exchange for this visual access. They both have no higher intention other than momentary enjoyment. They fight, yes, but they are by no means enemies as they consider it to be a game. Neither side truly considering the deaths involved to be anything more than a change on the playing field.
@@LtSprinkulz To be quite frank, I have never seen where the giraffe thing comes from. They have arms (Well, one arm), a (Mostly) humanlike head, and move in a way that is more like a human torso on a 4 legged body.
@@LtSprinkulz files refer to it as "centaur" but was changed to not mix up with minotaur
fun fact: around 19:11, the level this song comes from starts to take place inside of the machine, where an intruder alert starts ringing and the level starts flooding to eliminate the intruder, so in order to convey the feel of going against the clock, the music starts to blend the actual song with the alarm sounds! i believe this detail and the bossfight of this level are a reference to Metroid Prime.
Earthmover’s brain feels like it would fit perfectly if ported as is in Metroid Prime Hunters. That was my immediate reaction, so you can imagine my shock when they straight up had a countdown escape sequence after the fight ended, followed by a massive explosion.
Also some people have mentioned that 1000 can either be interpreted as ‘cen’ or the equivalent Roman numeral ‘M’, thus 1000-THR can be read as ‘cenTHR’ (centaur as its original title before Hakita thought it would be confused with ~Minotaur~ ) or ‘M-THR’ (mother brain, the final boss of Metroid 1 and 3)
@@MageBurger as a metroid fan myself I adore this detail
@@MageBurgeractually not "cen", "sen", which is 1000 in Japanese.
@@_Arsenic_2 yeah idea being it'd be pronounced the same
@@_Arsenic_2 thanks, I wasn’t too sure on that part since I only heard it from others talking about the Earthmover.
I used to nerd about with Roman numerals though.
War without reason's guitar riff sort of sounds like the requiem motif (the one in Minos Prime's theme: ORDER), but only sounds close to it, thus activating "gaster syndrome" and making everybody believe it's the requiem motif; which at this point is basically humanity's theme.
@@mastrsonic375 it isn't
@@mastrsonic375another victim of gaster syndrome
@@mastrsonic375It is not. They only share 2 notes, out of plenty.
Seeing it as Humanities theme is a really fuckin cool idea. I’m definitely using that as head canon now because it’s fits incredibly well.
What's the gaster syndrome?
I'm aware it's an Undertale thing but I've never heard of this before
YEESS war without reason is my favourite out of the new tracks and i love that they made the alarm sounds into a breakcore banger
Its probably one of the best songs in ultrakill
@@user-ue1um8pp1p its up there with order altars of apotasy and versus/duel
3:02 this actually perfectly describes the context the song is played in (7-3), you see
also trigger warning: S U I C I D E
in Dante’s inferno (which ultrakill is heavily inspired by) violence is split into 3 parts (in ultrakill there’s a labyrinth surrounding the ring, which is 7-1)
7-2 : violence against others
And 7-3… is violence against self… which are the trees. Forced to be immobile for eternity, eternal agony.
7-4 is violence against god, nature, and the earth, which is: a big white desert with magma spheres raining
In dante's inferno, the people turned into death are also forever attacked by harpies. ouch.
@@asteristired damn
>trigger warning for a game based on dantes version of hell
ultramid fans could never
Your comments about "War Without Reason" really hit just right. The game's playable character is in a tragic, doomed descent; They have no option but to keep pushing forward but they're ultimately going to die. There's no deep or intrisical motivation for all the violence and pain throughout the game, it's all in the name of delaying the inevitable.
I don’t know, making hell bleed seems like a solution for living forever, hell *is* alive by the way, which makes me wonder if there’s a power struggle going on between the terminals and hell, being played out by V1, the terminals chosen champion, since he is the best at killing, and whatever the hell (pun intended) hell has cooked up for him, this does not include the prime souls or Gabriel or the secret levels, but pretty much everything else is manipulated by hell.
@@rhyderleming5851Gabriel mentioned that the “upper layers” were purged of life. I think that hell is running out of bodies to feed V1, and once it gets to the bottom, there’s just gonna be nothing left
god that aches my heart
Yeah- whoever kills the other first, V1 or Gabriel, they’re going to die too, V1 when they run out of blood or Gabriel when he runs out of light. It’s very Dark Souls-y- the idea that perhaps it’s better that a rotting reality die than live in eternal agony…
Pulled a Sisyphus
Suffering Leaves Suffering Leaves is just such an AMAZING name for a level that takes place in the forest of suicides. In Dante's inferno, which Ultrakill bases it's hell on, those who commit suicide are punished by being turned into the trees of the forest, being tortured by harpies for committing violence against themselves. People that commit suicide in life are most likely driven to that action through suffering, which means that their suffering in life leaves them as a tree, the leaves, that suffer in hell. Suffering leaves you as leaves that suffer. Suffering leaves suffering leaves.
And there's War Without Reason. Another great name conveying so much in itself. The theme of the Earthmovers, the pinnacle of the arms race, machines that could wipe out cities with one attack. The lore states that the war, while starting out fought by men, shifted to machines as human soldiers quickly became ineffective and inadequate. The war dragged out incredibly long, it became self sustaining, new machines would be developed to counter the old ones, only to then be made pointless by the next machines to counter them. It became a war that had no more reason to be. The original reason was lost through the passing of all those who had lived when it started. But it also was a war that had turned to have nobody reasonable involved. Any reasonable person wouldve realized the unimaginable ways in which machines of such magnitudes as the Earthmovers were a bad idea. A war without a reason to exist and without reasonable actions. War Without Reason.
Absolutely love me some good and clever wordplay
such a detailed paragraph for a guy with a silly spy pfp
The actual level name is "No Sound, No Memory". Arguably, that in Ultrakill humanity is dead--there is no one to remember those who killed themselves or speak of them. And in the original story, everyone else in hell will be raised again for final judgement. But NOT those who killed themselves. They denied life, so they denied themselves the second chance.
War Without Reason changes its rhythms or sequences (whatever you call it) as you're scaling the gigantic war machine, which I think is super awesome as you continue to climb what was considered a beast of an apocalypse. It feels like instinct as you climb it. Which fits given the character you play as was designed to destroy these titanic machines.
It also makes sense the arguing he mentions early in the song. V1 being meant to counter earthmovers and the earthmover knowing of its presence is like a resuming of the great war that no one wants. But V1 needs blood.
We need a Marco playthrough of ultrakill at this point
I’ve tried and it makes me want to vomit but I’d try again for you
@@MarcoMeatballwhy the vomit though?
@@lavashechiksome peoples feels bad in fast 3d game.
@@lavashechik it makes em nauseous which is understandable
@@lavashechik motion sickness. I'm pretty sure
Danse Macabre has to be my favorite track of the Violence layer
I love the world looks red
@@RimInTheInternet same bro 🙏
@@RimInTheInternetsame man, the world looks red and bull of hell are great.
they all great 💪🏿
So i think that in "war without reason" the first part being fully mechanical and the second part has the mechanical part surpessed and has an emotional piano it represents the duality of ULTRAKILL's machines, they are "just" machines but they are powered by blood, in this layer we learn that blood is something like life essence which implies that machines maybe are more than just machines now.
I've heard people say that certain instruments can be directly tied to specific groups or characters: drums (and the Amen Break in particular) are V1's instrument, the organ for Gabriel, and the piano or maybe music box for humanity. In ...Like Antennas to Heaven, the level in which War Without Reason plays, the level starts with V1 opening a door to reveal Earthmover staring down at it, then blaring a high horn and readying itself to fire at V1. That horn that it blares at you is the same one that is played in War Without Reason, making it the instrument of Earthmover. Therefore, the song starting as the horn going off like a siren warning with drums beating between the calls, is directly describing the conflict of the level: they are fighting. Then you get to the piano, the arguable instrument of humanity, which starts to play just as V1 is crossing a bridge over the side of Earthmover, where you can look below to see what Earthmover is standing on. It's important to note that Earthmover is described as the machine that brought about the final stage in the Final War, annihilating entire cities in mere moments, completely redefining the conflict, the Earthmovers became the frontlines of the war themselves, as mankind was eradicated. 7-4 is fought standing on the billions of sinners killed and condemned to the 7th layer of hell, and that is what you hear in that piano segment.
Also: the Final War lasted for 200 years, only ending here, with the Earthmovers.
the drums are more like the instrument for the machines when you think about it because they are heavily used in levels that have machines as their main enemy, with Burning World having the almost glitchy sounding drums for the streetcleaners, and in Light Up the Night the drums sound like straight up machinegun fire for the guttermen, and finally, in ...Like Antenas to Heaven, the track has some extremely heavy usage of the drums, as you're climbing the Earthmover, the drums never seem to change with their rhythm and only ever ramping up to the point of certain parts of the track having a glitchy sound, only then subsiding a bit when the guitar solo starts
THIS WAR DIDNT NEED REASON BUT IT STILL GOOD🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣
fun fact : in the last 2 minutes of war without reason, the alarm is the core of a war machine is about to explode since v1 fought it and won, and he is currently making his way out of its body killing hords of enemies as time passes
A fun little thing about Danse Macabre - when it plays, you're traveling in arenas of enemies that are all fighting *each other.* This hasn't happened ingame before, and it's both highly thematic to the Violence layer and worrying: everything used to target V1 because it was the strongest threat in the room, and now it isn't. Additionally, the level offers you strange twisted trees with shambling figures of pure blood and prompts you to "f e e d i t" by killing those figures, and as you do so you'll notice they provide no style and do not contribute to your kill counter. Almost like they aren't real. Like something has noticed your capacity for violence and is testing you personally.
The level's challenge involves finding a hidden terminal to "mark yourself for death", which tells you "you're the star of the show, baby!" upon activating it, implying that all this violence is going on as an almost theatrical performance(not the game's format of being split into acts!) to something powerful pulling the strings behind the scenes. If you know the lore, you know who.
both levels in one video? hell yeah, literally
War Without Reason is a banger track for the best level in layer 7. You come out of a small building to see a mechanical mountain in front of you. *Go kill it.*
Hey Marco, I’ve read your comments on not being able to play ultrakill due to it being nauseating, but in settings the creator has made it more flexible, like for example, you can disable that white flash when you parry, or overall slow the gameplay down itself.
I’ll take a look today and see if it’s any better - I lasted 30 minutes the last time. I’ll also lower difficulty and see! I really actually like the gameplay a lot.
Just some context for what the big robot on the cover of War Without Reason is: Its the culmination of 100 years of aggressive scientific advancement for the sole purpose of creating robots to destroy other robots in whats known as The Final War of humanity, the beginning of the end of humanity so to speak. And these robots are the end of Act 2 of the extinction of humanity. But as for its relation to Dante's Inferno, the Violence layer is where the centaurs are being punished, and that's what these robots represent.
19:05 the alarms are going off here because,after defeating its defense system,we're getting inside the machine itself and in response it tries to eliminate the imminent threat by first flushing the interior with boiling blood and then after we destroy its core,the count down starts and we need to get out asap
also: both the song name War Without Reason and the level's official title, "...like Antennas to Heaven" are references to the text in a book hidden inside of the level romanticizing the THR-1000 Earthmover and its ultimate destruction on Earth. (i just found out about the Godspeed You! Black Emperor album too)
another thing I wanna note about the song is that almost every distinct section of this song can almost be looked at like a "phase" in the fight; small sections looping on repeat until you reach the next section
THIS IS THE ONLY WAY IT COULD HAVE ENDED.
WAR NO LONGER NEEDED ITS ULTIMATE PRACTITIONER. IT HAD BECOME A SELF-SUSTAINING SYSTEM. MAN WAS CRUSHED UNDER THE WHEELS OF A MACHINE CREATED TO CREATE THE MACHINE CREATED TO CRUSH THE MACHINE. SAMSARA OF CUT SINEW AND CRUSHED BONE. DEATH WITHOUT LIFE. NULL OUROBOROS. ALL THAT REMAINED IS WAR WITHOUT REASON.
A MAGNUM OPUS. A COLD TOWER OF STEEL. A MACHINE BUILT TO END WAR IS ALWAYS A MACHINE BUILT TO CONTINUE WAR. YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL, OUTSTRETCHED LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN. YOU WERE BEYOND YOUR CREATORS. YOU REACHED FOR GOD, AND YOU FELL. NONE WERE LEFT TO SPEAK YOUR EULOGY. NO FINAL WORDS, NO CONCLUDING STATEMENT. NO POINT. PERFECT CLOSURE.
T H I S I S T H E O N L Y W A Y I T S H O U L D H A V E E N D E D .
"...Like Antennas to Heaven" is actually a reference to a Godspeed You! Black Emperor song/album
when this game fully comes out, Marco will have soooo much to analyze
In War Without Reason, I have this theory that the big, clunky part of the track represents the Earthmover (the giant machine you fight in the level), and the piano and guitar represent V-1, the unstoppable robot. At first, the Earthmover has the advantage, literally dwarfing us, but as time goes on the piano and guitar begin to take center stage as we slowly take it apart and eventually destroy it.
21:29 Bro really started edging to that guitar part. It's just so good.
Your understanding of the game and its lore with just the music and the cover pictures never ceases to flabbergaster me xD
Maybe it'be interesting to come back once all of the albums are out and listen to the entire continuouty because Hakita / Heaven Pierce Her loves using leitmotivs, some from Chapter 1 can be heard even in Chapter 3. They really make you connect dots you wouldn't even think of when you're sliding and hopping like a maniac through hordes of Husks, Demons and Machines !
Marco does it again, but really well done on the meeting a brother analogy. Our protagonist may not have met Benjamin, as we call him now, during the war and in combat, the machine was made to demolish Benjamin and his brothers.
one thing id like to mention is every ultrakill track has a "calm" version that plays when you arent fighting anything. when you were reacting to danse macbre it was alternating between the calm version and the battle version. idk how to explain it
Almost* every ultrakill track has a calm version
every boss theme doesn't have a calm version (other then the intro of versus/duel)
suffering leaves doesn't have a combat version
The world looks white also doesn't have a combat version (the world looks red does though.)
War without reason is sort of less about meanings and more gameplay based towards the end.
Even watching a gameplay would make you understand what Hakita was planning with the music.
Music that speaks without words is ubelivably magnetic, every track from layer 7 has its own dialogue without actually having to have lyrics. Amazing music, genera defining
I ate good this week with all this ultrakill reaction. Thank you, internet man marco ❤
OneShot pfp, cool
@@BennickBlue thank you!
another thing to note is the level name: "no sound, no memory." there is no sound anymore, all of humanity is dead and nobody to remember those who did commit. there also happens to be a song that goes by the same name, weather there was inspiration or not theres no way to tell, but its all unnerving reguardles.
A lot of the level names are inspired by songs, or are directly named after them. For example, 2-3: Sheer Heart Attack.
this comment contains spoilers
cool got it.
i feel suffering leaves suffering leaves and dance macabre have been explained well enough by other comments, so i'll get to the "meat" of the level.
war without reason is the theme of the 1000-THR "earthmover" one of the gigantic machines made at the final era of the final war, machines so big they could house shield generators, they exchange thunder shots that can level cities without leaving a scratch on each other. the one we fight is actually trapped, as its legs are ensnared by the colossal roots of the blood trees that we fed in the previous level, this same earthmover can be seen towering over said level actually. these machines were so big that when the surface of the planet became inhospitable due to their destruction, survivors had to build shelters on their backs, essentially turning them into the new battlefield for nimbler, ligther machines, like v1. v1 wasnt even fully made into production by the end of the war when these things caused so much destruction that they blocked the sun, killing themselves and ending the war in the process. v1, was made to kill the earthmover. thats why it, at the start of the level decides to divert attention from the other earthmover it was fighting and instead decides to aim its super thunder cannon, directly at v1, it knows what v1 is and its afraid of it. of course its stopped by a hit from the earthmover it was fighting before. we kill this thing by climbing up its leg, destroying its defense system, going through its biomechanical interior as it tries to flush us out, and finally kill it by blowing up its brain, before making our escape before the whole thing blows up. v1 finally is able to fulfill its purpose. war without reason is a perfect name, as the earthmovers essentially became the embodiment of war itself, and these machines are stuck in an eternal battle, firing city leveling thunders and rains of bombshells on each other for eternity without purpose.
man i cant believe ultrakill is so close to finally ending, i just actually cant process it
also, fun fact: the earthmovers are made by japan, just like guttermen are made by russia and guttertanks by germany
and if you take 1000 in japanese "sen" and put it with "THR", you get "sen-THR" which sounds a lot like "centaur" or, "centhor", as the earthmovers literally fire thunders. just thought that was neat
Hi! It's that one guy who lore-dumped you on Gabriel about 10 months ago ;)
I havent gotten back to your channel in a while but after I heard about the new update for the game and listened to the OST a bit more (absolutely loved it) I finally remembered your channel again and really wanted to hear your opinion on this
Music analysis is a great interest of mine and i love seeing you coming back to this one time and time again.
On a side note: I visited the opera a while back (Don Giovanni) with my musics class and we were to talk about our experiences in school afterwards but no one was really compelled to say anything except being bored which made my teacher kinda sad as he spent effort setting everyone up for the event and us gaining nothing from it.
TL;DR: I spent 30 minutes having a dialogue with him in that class about the importance of reimagining stories and revisiting old narratives to explore their themes, and i mentioned Ultrakill as an example. He said he would allow me to hold a presentation on my personal interest by the end of the semester if we got time to spare and I'm really excited for the opportunity :)
hope you have an amazing 2024!
Welcome back :))
Tell us how it went once you do it (if it ended up happening)!
Because Marco pointed out the 7-1 motif in War Without Reason phase 2, it led to me doing a little digging and finding out that the melodic scale played in 7-1 is present in EVERY VIOLENCE LAYER SONG in some form (except for Bull of Hell to my knowledge). It plays in War Without Reason 4 times alone, including the guitar riff in Phase 10.
he's so accurate at describing the story only thorought the music
Did not expect him to put the rest into one video
It was worth it
Thanks for reaction to all of them I really enjoyed watching them
The cool thing about "suffering leaves suffering leaves", it means that suffering, in turn, creates suffering leaves
You're absolutely my fave Ultrakill music reactor !!!
is there any chance you'll listen to the entire ost at any point? I love seeing your reactions and analysis to the songs in ultrakill
Of course I will!
@@MarcoMeatball Any chance you can do versus and duel next?
hope bro sees this
@@yourfavoritenumber17dude it'd be so fire to see a versus and duel reaction
Love your analysis of these pieces! War Without Reason is probably my favorite track from this game so far (except for maybe Tenebre Rosso Sangue) and it's great to see your perspective and understand it more deeply!
What I really love about hakitas musics is that it’s almost like if the music is telling the main story
It's really cool seeing your analysis to the OSTs because you usually nail down the story behind the game it self
The charming entity you're referring to during Danse Macabre might be hell itself; which is stated to be aware, malicious, and indestructible in the secret levels. Any red text in the game is also implied to be it speaking directly to V1.
I was particularly looking forward to your reaction to Suffering Leaves Suffering Leaves and Danse Macabre.
They just have such a profoundly deep, heavy melancholy in them, they left the strongest impact on me (in a musical sense) out of all of Violence.
Very appropriate for the level, but even without the context from the game, you can feel how tragic the level they come from is. Very fitting given the implications from Dante's Inferno.
I love how the Violence layer isn't just about "violence" in the literal sense people would expect, but moreso focusing on the senselessness and tragedy of it all, and depicting the three different meanings of "violence" in Dante's Inferno.
Hakita really outdid himself with Violence, it's his best layer yet.
(I also wanted to comment on the lore of the Earthmovers, the boss from 7-4 that War Without Reason comes from, but this comment is way too long already, so I'll just reply to myself with my Earthmover tangent.)
So, the Earthmovers.
It's really the perfect way to cap off the Violence layer, because it really feels like the ultimate physical manifestation of mankind's violence.
As everyone knows by now, the Final War had become a perpetual push and pull of machine to counter machine, and the Earthmovers were the final form of that, being city-destroying walking weapons platforms that were invulnerable from the outside due to their shields.
Battles could no longer be fought on the ground, or the air, so the only option was to go back to zero, with a fast, agile, man-sized machine that could infiltrate the Earthmover and kill it from the inside.
We learn from the terminals that the Earthmovers were the last machine that was _deployed,_ but not the last one _made._ And as we also know, V1 was a prototype that never entered production because the war ended.
Since each machine was created to counter the one before, this means V1 was meant to be the next counter to the current dominant machine, that being the Earthmovers.
This perfectly explains why the Earthmover tries to shoot you at the beginning of the level.
This titanic walking apocalypse sees this tiny blue speck on the ground, and instantly recognizes; _"that thing is the biggest threat to me right now,"_ and immediately tries to shoot you almost point-blank with its city-destroying railcannon, because you were literally _specifically_ made to kill it.
In War Without Reason, you can hear human soldiers fading to machines as the keyboard changes to a guitar.
7-4 spoilers ahead !
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"War without reason" is actually a dynamic track, as in different parts of the song play and loop in certain sections of the level.
In 7-4 you fight a giant (biomechanical) machine called an Earthmover, which was created for war, its too big to be fought directly so you have to kill it from the inside. Because of the extreme damage that they caused to the environment, humans were forced to live on the backs of the earthmovers as any towns or buildings on the ground would have been completely destroyed
Its also worth mentioning that earthmovers were the last machine that was ever produced in mass, and considering that the V model (which you play as) never went into full production, chances are you were built specifically to fight it
11:36 plays at the start of the level after seeing the earthmover
12:40 plays after opening some hatches on the side of the earthmover, which serve both as platforms and drain the blood from the earthmover which is also its fuel source
16:14 plays while walking through the small town/city on the earthmover's back
17:07 plays during the fight with the earthmover's external defense system
19:02 plays right after the fight with the defense system and is more of an ambient track, the alarms arent actually heard in game in this part
19:11 plays after going inside the earthmover itself and being recognized as an intruder, the earthmover flooding the room with blood to try and flush you out
19:43 plays after escaping the flooding room and right before the battle with the earthmover's brain
20:21 plays during the fight with the earthmover's brain, its at this point where you can finally directly damage the earthmover
20:53 plays after defeating the earthmover's brain, a timer then appears giving you about 80 seconds to get out of the earthmover before it explodes
21:09 plays in the same room that was formerly flooded, this time a final batch of enemies appears that you have to kill before the door leading outside opens
22:13 plays after getting launched away from the earthmover right as it explodes
Awesome context
thank u for this
In 7-4, you get the health bar to appear the instant the boss comes into view, before you can even damage it. When you're inside the Earthmover, you get actual warnings and alerts on your HUD. This hasn't happened before. The going theory is that V1's purpose was to destroy them. A small machine, able to repair itself, and small enough to climb, and infiltrate these behemoths, destroying them from within.
Just was watching the other videos on Ultrakill’s new 7th layer when this came out - Perfect Timing forreal
Really good serie of videos! You make it really fun to listen along and pick out the details, matching what you say to what we're hearing. I love the places perspectives match and differ, it makes for a really good watch and re-watch. Really helps open my ears up.
I think you sir are by far, the greatest music analysist I've ever sat down and listened to. Taking feelings and being able to put them into words is rare talent that I dear god wish I had sometimes, it would make my life so much easier lmfao. Thank you for making this.
I just had a realization after rewatching this video: War Without Reason's percussion sounds EXACTLY like weapon swapping in musical form. It's PERFECT for V1's fighting style
at 7:55 when you said that there is some noble/important character revealing themselves, I have a theory that its HELL itself affecting the level. When dance macabre first starts playing is where all the enemies (who would usually be attacking you ONLY) start infighting. I believe that since hell, being the sadistic creature it is, is becoming more present the deeper you get then at this point it starts causing more fighting for more suffering/entertainment.
This hell being nearby theory can be further proven by the level exits and entrances which are elevators. In the first few layers it made sense to why there are elevators but at this point you are so deep in hell that no living human could have gotten down there safely, let alone build these. It would make sense though that hell has managed to recreate or even move them so you (the player) can keep causing death further down
Oh my god it’s HIM
@@Minosprime679 its me
I WAS JUST WATCHING YOUR NEW ULTRAKILL REACTIONS DAMNNN
HE DID IT GUYS LETS GO
As before, here's how these tracks appear in game.
The first two play in 7-3, Suffering Leaves at the level start and Danse Macabre after the first big ambush. This level takes place in the second ring of Violence, where those who committed violence against themselves are punished. In the Inferno, suicides are turned into trees, thus denying them the human forms they discarded, who can only scream when their branches are torn off by harpies. Save for the harpies, this location is depicted quite well in Ultrakill, is the creepiest (non secret) level in the game IMO.
War Without Reason plays in 7-4, during the Earthmover (a war machine the size of a mountain) fight. The track is divided into sections that play depending how much you've progressed through the fight. Now, in the Inferno obviously there weren't giant death robots, but if you pay attention to the landscape surrounding it you'll notice a barren desert where fire constantly rains from the sky. This is the third and final ring of Violence, reserved for those who were violent against God (blasphemers), nature (sodomites, reminder that this was written by a Catholic dude during the late Middle Ages), and Art (usurers).
The twist noises towards the end of war without reason is so sick because it literally portrays v1 desperately moving down floors down a giant hall to get out of the earthmover in time
Man you should really listen to the whole Ultrakill OST like you did with Undertale and Pizza Tower, there are a lot of great songs that you still need to hear from Heaven Pierce Her.
I'm really glad that Hakita got Heaven Pierce Her into his game
@@infamoussoapconsumer3870i can't tell if this is some insane level of postirony or ur for real
Love the "Dies irae" part in Suffering Leaves Suffering Leaves
Dude is spoiling us with the Ultrakill content. Keep up the great vids man
My favorite part of 7-3 is the part where enemies start getting airdropped from planes the way they do in 7-2. The Forest of Death becomes just a other battleground as all the machine enemies start invading and attacking the demonic enemies with you in the crossfire
everything about war without reason is so powerful, both in and out of the game's context. it feels so overwhelmingly nihilistic and consuming but in the piano and especially the guitar at the end add a sense of an inevitable hope
This 3 composition have CRAZY transition if u listen them on spotify
The ideas he brings to the table on his thoughts about the music, I.E the theme of exhaustion and theme of giving up for suffering leaves suffering leaves being so spot on makes me think either A. Hes lying and hes played the game/seen gameplay of layer 7 or B. Hes just genuinely that good of a musician/music critic/whatever youd call him.
Again, he demonstrates this well with danse macabre with his thoughts of the unrelenting waves of enemies, again he is spot on with his theory of the en masse attackin occuring in 7-3
Also that Hakita is insanely good at blending the music with the ideas presented ingame.
7-4, a level where you have to climb the hybrid level/boss while it's trapped in a sniper duel and then go inside to to destroy the brain, leading to it's self destruction sequence activating while you have to escape.
This guy listens to music like he is reading a foreign language
I gotta say, the ost added in the new act honestly has some of the best themes so far.
bro actually perfectly explained the events of 7-3 just by listening to the ost
YOU'RE THE STAR OF THE SHOW NOW BABY!
What a fantastic layer from the start to the end, I cannot wait for what Hakita brings with Fraud and Treachery
Ya really hit the nail on the head while talking about Suffering Leaves Suffering Leaves. Ticked all the boxes in the first moment. That's why I love your content!
A bit late to update this, but maybe the "locomotive slowing down" is more like a heartbeat coming to a stop... And the fact that it isn't at the end of the song, maybe it's an emphasis of a hopeless, tired life leading into a hopeless afterlife as well?
In the first part of war without reason you can almost feel the tension between the two machines, like they both know that one of them is dying that day. Piano inside the earthmover starts while slowly the tension lowers, V1 finally understands that all that is happening is natural and it’s meant to be like that, it’s like the innate instincts of an animal but inside of a machine, climbing the insides almost becomes like a lullaby to temporarily satiate the hunger of its endless bloodthirst, in the end finally completing its existence, doing what it was created for, destroying earthmovers as a last line of defense in the final war. Who knows what will happen next? Maybe V1 will slowly be more introspective now that he achieved its innate code order?
2:22 they're never really about the robot. Usually it's about the levels themselves. V1 is a blank slate protagonist and whatever it feels is irrelevant to the story.
V1 feels hungry and it has a massive impact on the story
@@StrangeMann283not really. Most of the story happens before v1 even enters hell. V1 is just there to get blood and kill stuff.
@@StrangeMann283 OK, that I can't disagree with
He's the unstoppable force
B L O O D I S F U E L
War Without Reason is, to me, a song about the tragedy of war
It starts out insanely intense, gets your blood pumping, almost exciting, then flows and ebbs toward the truth of it all, and that there is no purpose to it all when you look upon all the violence and destruction
Then you are suddenly snapped back when you realize your life is actually in danger, you will die if you don't act, but that sorrow and guilt for what you are doing in the game still remains underneath the push to finish the fight for your survival
Honestly one of my favorite things about Marcos videos is I get to listen to them when I am eating or doing work and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by not being able to see and still get the content he gives.
Idk whats more impressive, the fact marco can basically see the levels with the song, or that hakita can make songs that marco can inturn see levels from
One thing that I find interesting is when you put character to V1, the robot you play, and how you interpret the music in looking into his eyes. I find this interesting because there is almost no characterization to V1 and he can be what you make him and just by listening to this game’s soundtrack you given that persona to him. I really like that about these videos and shows how well you know music and also shows how well Hakita, the composer and game developer, made this music and this game. There are so many ways to look at it and I find yours to one of the most unique I’ve seen. Amazing video as always.
maybe i'm ready too much into all this, but i do feel like we're being led to believe that V1 is a character without character on purpose when he's not. He did "speak" and express annoyance at v2 in the transition of the second fight and Hell isn't just pushing us in one direction by locking doors etc anymore it's directly trying to play buddy with us
wow you really hit the nail on the head with your analysis here. even with "there's almost a feeling of drowning in it, it's so persistent" at the start of War Without Reason, that part of the track plays while you're climbing up the legs of this huge robot, very good reading i'd say
I feel like all the other layers music have just been having V1 say “hehe I’m killing everything.” While the violence layers music makes V1 say “oh my god this is too much death.”
the Altars of Apostasy in question:
i think it's the player themselves. the dissonance in the track is goading the player to acknowledge their surroundings and, despite still continuing to destroy everything in sight, start to question what's going on.
i'm so happy to see you cover more ultrakill
War Without Reason is probably my favourite low-key song of the game, because I reckon in time other songs will come to be better recognised, like Versus and Duel since they're attached to V2, or The Death of God's Will since its attached to Gabriel, while War Without Reason is associated with a no-name behemoth machine who appears and then is destroyed as a spectacle boss. In spite of this, I love the evolution of the implied machine leitmotif with the synth breakbeat drums. Like you said, the repetitive rhythmic nature of it is really evocative of machinery, but in the specific context of this boss and this layer of hell - a wartorn nightmare that never ends - I associate it much more with martial drumbeats and marching (which is what the machines were built for). That central rhythm is maintained from the word go while the rest of the song around it becomes increasingly hectic. Even the best laid plans tend to fall apart after first contact with the enemy, which I think is reflected really well in this piece: that beat tries to maintain the clear order the song starts with, but as the enemy remains engaged it becomes wilder and more erratic until it's finally over.
He's name is Benjamin.
It's Benjamin time!
Nice video!
marco just reacted to all ultrakill layer 7 ost
THIS MAN IS ON FIRE!!!