Last video, I talked about P-1, which contains
my personal favorite boss, Minos prime. While P-1 Contains a fantastic boss, the level itself
is rather barren. I mean you can literally just jump off the side and get to the door
within literally 5 seconds. But, what if you couldn’t do that? What if, instead of the
Spine Vine in your way, the most difficult assortment of enemies and hazards halt your
progress towards the boss door? Well, if you did all that, you would end up with a little
something called P-2. It is in my firm belief that P-2 is ultrakill
at its peak. It combines everything that's great about the game, Like music, storytelling,
and of course, being hard as fuck, and multiplies it by 37 vigintillion. (numbers may not be
accurate). The whole thing is so legendary and so iconic - from each individual room
all the way to the final boss at the end. It is a tale of struggle, defiance, and death.
So, let’s dive into why P-2 is the best level ever made.
After P-ranking P-1, you will feel very powerful. you have just overcome a major difficulty
spike and fully completed act 1. Now, all in your way is act 2. Act 2’s levels are
much harder, longer (ayo) and with more complex enemies and environments. Although difficult,
you have overcome much greater challenges. Because you have experienced finding a prime
sanctum before, you know where to look. Tearing through the greed layer, you find a book recounting
the story of Sisyphus. He was a king, but unlike Minos, he was not a peaceful one. amassing
an army of sinners in the angel’s wake, he starts a war against heaven. His plan was
to fight power with power, and lead his people to freedom. Then, at the bottom of the page,
the author wrote 11 words: “if only we knew the suffering that would befall us next.”
After P ranking 4-2, next up is A shot in the dark. This is ultrakill’s only dark
level, and like everything else in this game it executes it very well. But we don’t care
about the level, we care about the challenge. The challenge is to not pick up the torch,
and experience the level in true darkness, the way god intended. Breaking a crack in
the wall and following the corridors within leads you to the actual best boss in gaming
history: The mysterious druid knight and Owl. I love this thing man. It’s a cameo from
mandalore gaming and shammy, and it’s probably the funniest thing ever put in a game. Anyway,
after you kill mandalore in cold blood, a golden tablet is left in his coffin. The tablet
reads "Within the PYRAMID lies the chamber of THE FELINE and THE RODENT. Within the CHAMBER
lies a pool of clear WATER. But only those who wield the ELECTRIC magic of the Druids
may find it." After completing this level, and getting jumpscared, you learn what this
riddle is referring to in the next level, 4-4.
Instead of going left like you’re supposed to, you notice the door on the right is slightly
open, allowing enough room for your whiplash to get through. Grabbing the skull inside,
you walk into the room and notice that this is what the tablet was talking about. this
is the chamber of the feline and rodent (which in classic ultrakill fashion are both meme
images). Using the electric railgun on the water, you hear a door open outside. Going
back into the main hall, you see a new path. Walking down the stairs reveals… something.
A corpse. A massive corpse. This must be the remains of King Sisyphus. It’s covered in
barbed wire and metal plating. And most unsettling of all, his head is completely gone. Before
the body, there is a portrait of the man it once was, and a new weapon. A saw blade launcher,
which is the alternative to the nailgun [video note: i know that I used the sawblade in the
last video, but I wanted to do this cuz im dramatic n shit]. In this chamber, we can
only assume it was some sort of torture device used on Sisyphus before he was decapitated.
on either side of this weapon are two portraits of Gabriel. It can again be assumed that he
was the one to do the decapitating. This is a clear show of force from the angels. A clear
message to anyone who aspired to be like Sisyphus. Heaven was merciless.
Now, with that fun and happy thought at the back of your mind, you press through the remaining
two layers, making another stop to give Gabriel a piece of your mind. After noticing where
the P-2 door was located, There was nothing left to do but to enter.
As you fall into the second prime sanctum, you know exactly what to expect. you’ve
done this before. Strolling through the city of raining blood, you mentally prepare yourself
for the boss ahead. I mean, it cant be that ba- HOLY SHIT
This room was affectionately dubbed the “Weezer Room” by the community, for, uh reasons
[weezer song plays]. Now, just because it's called the Weezer room doesn’t mean it’s
a joke. You’ve got 4 Cerberi, 2 virtues, and a ferryman that would love to send you
back to the last checkpoint . I would suggest setting a saw trap with that nifty thing you
found in 4-4 and immediately nuking the cerberus on their spawn. This should kill 2 of them
and leave the other 2 very low. Keep the saw trap going, as it will help with healing.
You’re gonna need a lot of healing, because the virtues will not shut the fuck up. And
you’re especially gonna need that damage, as you don’t want to see what happens when
they enrage. This room, the very first room, will take
even seasoned players several attempts on their first run. The soundtrack is a droning
chord that wears down your nerves and presses on your ears. But, as the ferryman falls,
a very, very different soundtrack starts playing. Here’s where shit gets real. Tenebre Rosso Sangue might be the best non
boss track. Period. This level, if the first room is to be a clue, will not be anything
at all like its predecessor. Combined with this song now playing at full force, This
level is going to make all “gauntlet” levels before it look like kitchen mitts.
it's gonna take a difficulty spike and turn it into a difficult mountain. This will be
unlike anything you've seen before. Killing the virtues and moving onto the bridge, another
swarm of enemies spawn. Again, the player has to manage not 1, but 2 sentries, a swords
machine, and some schisms. Oh, and a blessed mindflayer. There are a lot of blessed enemies
in this level, and they are used to force the player to kill enemies in a certain order,
increasing the difficulty drastically. No, you can't break the idols anymore. You must
ask god for permission first. After working through the enemies, you proceed into the
next chamber, with the mind flayer still on your ass. In this very small corridor, you
must fight a cerberus and 2 street cleaners, both are enemies that have always been accompanied
by space in previous levels. If you don’t know how to insta kill either of these enemies,
you are gonna have some issues. Because the mind flayer is STILL THERE BEHIND YOU.
Now, you may be used to the mindflayer already. It’s an annoyance, for sure, but it’s
not gonna kill me. Sometimes, the ball attack can actually be helpful for healing. Yeah.
Now there’s 2 of them. This room, this fucking room, is the most
annoyingly hard thing ever put into a video game. Mindflayers in places like cyber grind
are hard enough, and having multiple on you makes it even harder. Now, you can't even
hit them back. You have to deal with another sentry, some swords machines, maurices, and
virtues, now with the threat of homing projectiles and lasers on you too. This room is of extra
difficulty to me, because I always forget what arm I currently have equipped. I could
look at the arm indicator, but the half second I spend looking away from the enemies has
a good chance of getting me killed. Hakita, you’re definitely not gonna see this, but
PLEASE add the current arm to the crosshair hud I BEG.
Complaining about skill issues aside, this room demands 110% of your concentration. I
know it's common practice to increase your volume when playing P-2 because of this room,
as being able to hear the attacks coming is a major help when you have no idea where they
are coming from. Me? Even if I turn up my volume I wouldn't be able to hear it because
I have the music volume turned up too high. Can’t complain though. [beating the room
while song uk ok thanks] After that mess, we get the double insurrectionist fight. This
is my personal favorite because if you keep them on fire and use the SRS cannon effectively
you can ethically and responsibly turn them into a steaming puddle. Because they bleed
so damn much. you literally can't even see the screen half of the time.
After this, we get another good room. This room is called the spaghetti tunnel. This
room is very hard, because the spaghetti hurts you. it deals damage when contacted, but will
instantly kill any enemy that touches it. This is super useful, as you can use stuff
that does knockback to instantly put the two virtues and sentries to bed. Also, if you
don’t kill the maurice like this [core eject boost] we aren’t friends.
Now, the next room is definitely the hardest. Remember the blessed enemies from a few rooms
ago? Yeah. They’re back. This is referred to as the Idoled/Blessed stalker room, because
there is a blessed stalker in it. Stalkers usually aren’t central enemies, but this
one is a bit of a unit. When enemies are blessed, they can’t die. And this includes stalkers.
This is genius, because it puts your healing, which is something that is always in short
reach of the player, under a threat. After dealing with the first spawns, which are strays,
swordsmachines, and a ferryman, another, much harder wave spawns. This is probably the coolest
fight in the game so far. You’re given a set of 4 sentries, 3 Cerberi, 3 virtues, and
a Blesssed hideous mass. Why is this so cool? These enemies are all management enemies.
You have to juggle Sentry charges, virtue strikes, HM shockwaves and hook, and Andre
ballin on your corpse. When in this room, you are on a tightrope. But instead of that
tightrope being slow and boring, you are moving around at mach 12, trying to avoid and counter
so many things. And i’ll tell you, if you manage to hit a chargeback in this environment,
you are gonna feel like Jesus prime. After this room, there’s just 1 left. As
the music fades, and you ride down the elevator, tension slowly builds. You return to the familiar
architecture of lust, with it’s screens and doors. Human technology. As you approach
the final door, you are warned not to approach “it.” (or you’re like me and always
click no). Completely disregarding this warning, we march into the Panopticon. As you touch
the floor, you see what you were warned about. The Flesh Panopticon. A massive meat cube
that is the vastly improved form of Flesh Prison. You can tell it’s upgraded because
the word is cooler. Similar to flesh prison, it has 3 attacks. A white flash followed Virtue
beams that go sideways now, a yellow flash followed by HM Mortar shells that will turn
you into a crater if you’re not careful, and a purple flash followed by a black hole.
Welp, I guess hakita liked that one. These are not the only upgrades, however. The Panopticon
has more health and The minions are much stronger. Instead of being a swarm of weak enemies that
can be dispatched with a well placed nuke, these are strong spotlights that completely
disable all healing. This makes them the first priority. Fortunately, they can be killed
with a single knuckle blaster + shotgun combo. With those out of the way, it’s time to
work on the prison itself. Using the lessons you’ve learned from flesh prison, It can
be killed quickly with sawblades and the knuckle blaster+shotgun+slam combo. After dealing
good damage to it, you see the healing bar is low. You jump off to prepare to kill the
eyes again. But they never come. Instead, you hear this enraged warcry. “This prison,
To hold, ME?” Panopticon’s health drops to 0. You see
golden arms rip it apart from the inside. Then, just as suddenly as it spawns, it dies.
A Prime soul has formed. All I can say is, good fucking luck. This is Sisyphus. Warlord. Insurrectionist
of greed. Currently the #1 danger to heaven. And to you. This is ultrakill at a brand new, never seen
before speed. Sisyphus is so fast, it completely changes the game. When Minos called out an
attack, you had time to think and process your next move. Sisyphus doesn’t give you
that luxury. You have to know instinctively how to act. Thinking is out of the equation.
The game is no longer about damage or health, but about managing the limited resources at
V1’s disposal. The most important one being speed. Lose too much of it and you suddenly
become an easy target for Sisyphus to rack up insane amounts of damage. You’re forced
into this elegant dance of keeping speed, style, and stamina up as high as you can,
while sisyphus is right on your tail waiting for you to make a mistake. And its fucking
exhilarating. It is very clear that this boss is similar to Minos, but it expands on what
makes Minos great - the speed, the power of the attacks, and the feeling of facing an
impossible challenge. To me, He will never be better than Minos, because I’m a sucker
for that specific kind of storytelling, but it would be straight up false to claim that
Sisyphus is also not one of the greatest bosses in the genre, if not in gaming as a whole.
Returning to the boss itself, He has 4 main attacks. Similar to Minos, it is absolutely
in the player’s best interest to memorize all of them. But in contrast to minos, he
doesn’t like to stay on your screen. This man literally teleports behind you, and you’re
gonna learn to hate it because the predictability of the extremely fast attacks goes straight
out the window. Because Sisyphus has several dangerous attacks with no callouts. Like a
roundhouse kick, an overhead punch, and a ground pound where he teleports above your
head. These attacks just add to the intense speed of the fight, as they will still hit
like a truck, but with no forewarning. But that doesn’t make hearing his called attacks
a cause for celebration "You can't escape!”, "Destroy!" "This will hurt”, and "BE GONE!"
are are fully prepared to deliver the judgment that minos could not. Speaking of minos, another
major difference between the two bosses is that all of these called attacks - every single
one - is parryable in some way. Even in phase 2. This means that you can fight him like
he fights you - up close and personal. Parrying is the best way to keep health and stamina
up, and as long as you’re not getting thrown around, you also won't lose much. I mentioned
that this fight ends up being a dance, and oh boy, lets fucking dance. You again conquered the toughest challenge
in ultrakill. Sisyphus, the Prison meant to hold him, and the level before it could not
stop you from claiming victory again. As you go to the exit, all you’re thinking is “how
the fuck do I P rank this”. That’s the fun part, you’re not.
Take every level in the game, all the most difficult parts, and throw them in a level.
It probably won’t be as hard as P-2. Going through every room without dying a single
time is a task that can be described as nothing other than sisyphean. You will fail. A lot.
I honestly don’t understand how, in the natural progression of the game, a player
is supposed to P-rank P-2. The increase in difficulty is so incredibly steep. I can only
whimper for P-3. Total mastery of every room is required. You have to learn how to manage
all of the enemies, have incredibly precise movement, and most importantly, not die once.
And don’t forget who’s waiting at the end.
But you’ve come this far. Not even Sisyphus Prime, and all those who are there to guard
them, will stop you. Not this time. Not Ever. Now with P-2 behind you, you can appreciate
sisyphus’ character almost as much as his bossfight. Starting with the motif in WAR
sisyphus’s boss song, you may have noticed the very different feel than the one in order.
In Order, the motif has hope left. Minos believes that the fight can go on. He believes that
he will get his revenge. Sisyphyus on the other hand, has lost hope long ago. He sees
the pointlessness of it all. But in true spite of this, Sisyphus loves it. In his own words,
he doesn't regret a second of it. This is reflected in the motif, as it really gives
the feel of “It may all be over, but it do not give a single fuck”.
In the ultrakill universe, Sisyphus was forced to carry 3 boulders. His first was his (presumed)
punishment, after his death as a mortal. The next was his war against heaven, which caused
his death in the afterlife. And his final boulder was you. After every reset, you heard
the arrogant cry of “keep em coming!” from Sisyphus. Again, like minos, this is
not meant to be arrogant. He knows that he will never win. He can’t. Every time he
kills you, you come right back. But he also knows that as much as you are his boulder,
he is yours. Both of you are facing an impossible task. The only difference is that you can
come back. This makes “keep em coming” almost seem encouraging. Sisyphus is testing
you not just on your skill, but on your determination, just as he was tested for millenia in hell.
This determination that Sisyphus had is what allowed him to begin a war against heaven.
He was the shining beacon of the revolution, and when heaven came down to hell, it was
met with a fierce, passionate, and valiant resistance. and when Sisyphus inevitably died,
the revolution died with him. Sisyphus lived for the thrill of the fight, even though he
knew it was all in vain. This is even reflected in the name of the war, the sisyphean insurrection.
The word sisyphean means “denoting or relating to a task that can never be completed.”
I’m not sure if this is directly intended, but it is definitely true.
The tale of Sisyphus, in both the Greek myth and in Ultrakill, is simultaneously Incredibly
depressing and uplifting. Sisyphus, and the level he’s a part of, is simply perfect.
The Wait of the world is on both of your shoulders, and you had the will to withstand. It is a
perfect metaphor for the character of Sisyphus. Many people in real life often feel like what
they do is pointless. Maybe we should take a page out of Sisyphus's book and see the
joy of the struggle, because even after all that has happened to him - endless struggle,
war and death - one must imagine Sisyphus - and all of us players - happy.
