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GamingTranscript
00:00This is something I've talked about on stream quite a bit, but I just want to have a dedicated rant and yapping session about it.
00:07Fair warning, I'm very congested today, so I'm sounding like Eeyore with a broken nose.
00:12Mid. The fifth state of matter. Solid, liquid, gas, plasma, mid.
00:18If something or someone is described as mid, it means it's average or mediocre.
00:26Really, it means bland more than anything. It's mainly used as an insult.
00:31And usually, if something's being called mid, it's worse than dog shit.
00:35And I'll be honest, I just don't get why it's used as like a huge insult.
00:41When I was growing up, I would have given anything in the world to be average.
00:45Average height, average looking, like Jesus Christ, to be average would have been a blessing from the Lord Almighty himself.
00:52But today, if anything is average, people hate it.
00:56Like it's irredeemably bad to a lot of people if something is just average or mediocre.
01:02And I think that sucks. Not trying to be the old man shaking his fist on the front line or anything,
01:06but I just really think that is some turbo-ass cheeks.
01:08You can't just say like, eh, it was okay. You can't just be like, yeah, it was alright.
01:13In the current climate of things, no matter what it is, even like the most trivial entertainment, like a show,
01:20you either have to love it or hate it. It has to be extreme.
01:23I just don't really like that at all.
01:26And people seem to get mad if anyone tries to say that something's either not the best thing they've ever seen or played
01:31or is not the worst thing they've ever seen or played.
01:34If you just try and say like, yeah, I mean, it's not great and it's not bad, you know, it's just a forgettable experience,
01:41people don't like to hear that.
01:43It feels like everything has to be combative, where it's, you're either with us or against us.
01:47You either love it, you either hate it, and there's no in-between, so choose a side.
01:51It's like, I don't understand why everything has to be a battlefield,
01:54even an opinion on like fucking trivial entertainment properties, like games or movies or anime or some shit like that.
02:01It's so weird. There are things that are just mediocre, and that's not a crime.
02:06Like, there's nothing wrong with things that are just average, or even a little below average, or slightly above average.
02:13All just being roped into this wonderful nexus of mid.
02:17Of course, there is a point of no return when it comes to mediocrity, though.
02:21This force of nature has got a lot of nuance to it.
02:24If there is something that is so painfully average, so safe, so boring, so bland, like raisin bran of entertainment properties,
02:33then it becomes much worse than if it had just been bad.
02:37Because there is something called, so bad it's good.
02:40One of my favorite phenomenons, I love dog shit media.
02:43Some of my favorite movies, like Moonfall, are objectively horrible movies.
02:47And I love them because they are so bad, they're good.
02:49But I have never had a movie or a game that I played that is so average that I fall in love with it.
02:54There is a point where a 5 out of 10 or a 6 out of 10 game is so boring,
02:59that it's much more miserable to experience than something that's like a 1 out of 10 or a 2 out of 10, you know what I mean?
03:04So there is definitely like some wiggle room here.
03:07But overall, when something is mid, I don't view it as like, you know, something not worth experiencing at all, like the super negative thing.
03:16To me, I've just always viewed it as, okay, so this would be just kind of average.
03:20Kind of just like, okay, maybe I'll enjoy it for a little bit and not think about it ever again.
03:25You know what I mean?
03:26The reason that I'm talking about this, what brought it up, is I finished Anotria Last Song last night.
03:32And I posted a video today, which is just like my whole playthrough condensed into two hours.
03:36It's a new Souls-like game.
03:37And it is the very definition, a textbook example of mid.
03:43It's janky.
03:44It's unpolished.
03:45Feels unfinished at points.
03:47There is no enemy variety at all, or weapon variety for that matter.
03:52There's only like four unique enemies in the whole game.
03:54There's more variety in the wrinkles on my nutsack than there is in Anotria's enemies.
03:58A lot of the bosses just reuse the exact same moveset.
04:01Most of the bosses are just normal enemies with a larger health bar.
04:04There's a lot of flaws with the game.
04:05There is some things to like about it, though.
04:07The aesthetic is nice.
04:08The combat, sometimes when it's working, feels good.
04:11The mass system has a lot of potential if they explore that further with their upcoming games.
04:16This is also the company's first game, and it's an overall decent attempt at a Souls-like.
04:20It is right down the middle of being an average Souls-like slop.
04:26It is nothing special.
04:27It's not atrocious, like a lot of people are preaching that it is,
04:30saying that it is an unplayable pile of garbage.
04:33Though, there is one game-breaking bug in it that I'm aware of
04:36where sometimes some players aren't getting a ladder that spawns at the end of the game,
04:39meaning they can't finish the game.
04:41You can't restart the game or anything, it just never spawns if you get unlucky,
04:45so you have to redo the entire game starting with a new character.
04:48That's a huge problem.
04:50That's an unforgivable problem.
04:51I agree with that sentiment.
04:52But, when the game works, you know, if you got lucky and got to finish the game,
04:56it's an okay experience.
04:59And there's nothing wrong with that.
05:00So I posted that video, and I said the initial title was
05:04This New Souls Game Isn't As Bad As Everyone's Saying,
05:06because everyone was saying that this is up there with, like,
05:08some of the super-stinkers of the industry, like,
05:11the original Lords of the Fallen game, stuff like that.
05:13And that's just super-exaggeratory.
05:15It's not that bad.
05:17It's not good, it's not bad, it's mid.
05:19And when I had that as a title, a lot of the comments were getting mad at me,
05:22saying I was clickbaiting them, saying,
05:24Charles literally says in the video that it's mid,
05:26yet he says it's not as bad as people are saying in the title.
05:28What the fuck is this? Why is he lying?
05:30There was no fucking fibs there.
05:32There was no falsehoods.
05:33The game isn't as bad as a lot of people are making it out to be.
05:37It's just a mediocre game.
05:40And for a studio's first attempt at a Souls-like,
05:43it's pretty decent in that regard.
05:45But overall, it's just a mediocre mid-game.
05:49Like, it's not the worst game ever.
05:52At all, it's not.
05:53So, yeah, I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people are saying that it is.
05:57I changed the title to mid because maybe that's more explanatory,
06:02but I don't view it as a super negative thing for something to be mid.
06:07Like I said, there is some wiggle room there,
06:08where some things are just so mid that they're much worse
06:11than things that are objectively stinkier than them.
06:14But when it comes to things like Anotria,
06:15I mean it in the truest sense of the word.
06:17It is just an average game.
06:19It's got flaws, it's got some things to like,
06:22I don't see why anyone would fall in love with it,
06:24and I don't see why anyone would hate it.
06:27Like, it really just feels like one of those things
06:28where most people are going to be like,
06:30alright, well that wasn't for me,
06:32or alright, well that was okay, worth finishing I guess.
06:35And it's not going to be strong feelings,
06:37or it shouldn't be strong feelings one way or the other.
06:39It's just a mediocre game.
06:42And it also seems like if someone doesn't love something,
06:45they feel guilty if they're just lukewarm on it,
06:47so then they go the opposite direction,
06:49they let the pendulum swing the other way,
06:50so then they convince themselves that they actually hated it.
06:53And I saw this happen with Alien Romulus.
06:56I think Alien Romulus is a really good movie,
06:57I had a great time with it.
06:58Especially considering when Hollywood tries to make
07:01a new movie into a beloved franchise,
07:03it is almost always a pile of shit.
07:05It is almost always the worst thing you'll ever see,
07:08and Alien in particular, the previous film, Covenant,
07:10I thought was super poop.
07:12So I thought this had no chance of being good,
07:15and I was surprised at how good it turned out to be.
07:17But there are things about it that I can understand
07:19people not liking, it's not a perfect film by any means,
07:21it's got its flaws, but I think there's no real argument
07:24you can make that it is a bad movie.
07:26No matter how you spin it, it is a solid film.
07:29And it just, it's a simple one, too,
07:31that takes Alien back to its roots.
07:33It's not the best Alien movie by any means or anything,
07:35but it is a strong film, even in its own right,
07:38even if you don't like Alien films.
07:40It's just good.
07:42But there were a ton of people saying that it's
07:44the worst Alien movie, or it's trash, it's garbage,
07:48it's a disaster for Alien, this and that,
07:50and it makes no sense to me, because
07:52that's just delusional.
07:53At worst, you could call it stale,
07:55because it does a lot of things that we've seen done
07:58a ton of times, even within the Alien franchise.
08:01So I can understand people maybe not being as excited by that,
08:04but that doesn't mean that the movie itself is bad,
08:06and that's not the main criticisms or anything I was seeing,
08:08it was people literally, like, desperately grasping at the
08:11tiniest of straws and pulling nonsense out of their butt
08:14in order to try and justify their hatred of it,
08:17which, I don't understand why.
08:19Like, it's, you are trying to hate it,
08:21even though it's not a bad movie, you could just say, like,
08:23yeah, I didn't love it, like, it's okay,
08:25like, I didn't love it, like, that makes sense to me.
08:27That falls perfectly in line with the rule of mid.
08:31You found it to be average.
08:34That's okay.
08:35You don't have to make things up to try and explain
08:37why it's actually the worst thing ever.
08:39That, to me, just seems so phony.
08:41That is so ridiculous to me, and it's so common, too.
08:43Not loving something, like, deeply loving and worshipping something
08:47now means that you have to be, like, the number one hater of it.
08:51You gotta wake up super early in the morning to hate on it
08:53with extra time to spare.
08:55It doesn't compute.
08:57I just really don't understand this fear of mid.
08:59Both in terms of, like, liking something that's mid,
09:02like, there are plenty of games I've played that aren't the best games,
09:06but I've still really enjoyed them, even though they're average games.
09:09And that's not a big deal, I think that's fine.
09:12There's movies I've watched.
09:13Like, my favorite movie, The Mummy.
09:16That movie's, you know, that's not the best film ever made or anything,
09:19that's a pretty average film.
09:21But it's my favorite movie because it's special to me.
09:23I saw it so many times growing up, it has a really special place in my heart.
09:27And I still really like it to this day, I still have a lot of fun watching it.
09:30Overall point is, there's nothing wrong with mid.
09:33Like, I think that is totally fine.
09:34I think it's very fucking silly that everything has to be extremes of love or hate it.
09:39And nothing else.
09:41I think that's dumb.
09:42I think it's out of control.
09:44So when I call something mid, people interpret that as,
09:47oh, he hates it. He fucking hates it.
09:49No, I don't. I don't. If I hated it, I would've said I hated it.
09:52Like the Rick and Morty anime.
09:54Like Rings of Power, which I still find to be one of the most boring shows on TV right now.
09:57I know a lot of people are really liking Rings of Power,
09:59I don't know how, I think it is just so fucking boring it's crazy.
10:02But, like, those are two shows I really don't like.
10:04And I'm not calling them mid.
10:06So yeah, I just kinda wanted to rant about this a little bit.
10:09Uh, that's about it. See ya.