Let's Talk About Bug Fables the Everlasting Sapling

Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door is my favourite game of all time. The reasons for which are far too numerous to go into here but chief among them was how it shaped my tastes in gaming. I think we all have that one game we've played where, when you're playing it, even if you don't realise it, everything becomes cleat and you realise why you love gaming so much. Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door was that game to me and I've been a fan of the series ever since. Which hasn't exactly been easy. While the first two Paper Mario games are classics beloved by many the others are decidedly more mixed in their reception, except Sticker Star which is universally trashed for being hot garbage. Nintendo and Intelligence Systems seam more interested in experimenting with the series rather than sticking with the original formula that worked so well. Nothing wrong with that I suppose though I wish they would go back to that original formula again and give it another go because it worked so well. Why fix things when they weren't broken?

But what have I said in the past ladies and gentlemen, when AAA developers don't give fans what they want, Indie developers will. Enter Moonsprout Games and Dangen Entertainment with Bug Fables the Everlasting Sapling, a game that takes heavy inspiration from those original Paper Mario games. And by heavy inspiration I mean this game is so close to aping the style and formula of those games it's borderline plagiarism. The game came out on PC last year but I'll be reviewing the recently released Nintendo Switch version today. Will it be as good as the games it took inspiration from, or does it all fall flat? Let's take a look.

The kingdom of Bugaria is home to a variety of insect species. In this land explorers thrive, all searching for the legendary Everlasting Sapling, said to give eternal life to any who find it. Bug Fables follows three such explorers, Vi the bee, Kabbu the beetle and Leif the moth as they search the land for the Sapling and try to discover the secrets it holds. The plot is very simple, it's basically a macguffin hunt when you break it down, but it isn't that dissimilar to the plot of Thousand Year Door and like that game, what it lacks in an indepth plot it makes up for with charming characters and excellent world building. The three main characters all have their own distinct personalities that bounce off one another which makes for entertaining character interactions. While there are only three main characters this does mean that each of them are more well developed as a result. You know how in RPG's the characters always say they've grown closer? Well in Bug Fables you believe it. It geniuinely feels like these characters have formed a strong unbreakable bond by the end of the game.

But it's the world building that drew me into this story. A lot of thought went into making the world feel as believable as possible. The bugs in this game are sentient but their societies still act like, well, bug societies do. The queens of the bee and ant kingdoms are still the mothers of their subjects, just like how they work in real life, but there is still a sense of family with tightly knit family units in these kingdoms. While this isn't explained in the main story it is explained in hidden lore books you'll find through the game. I loved finding these because they help provide more context for how thie world works and I wanted to know more about it. If there's one thing I learned from recently playing Trials of Mana it's that an interesting world can make up for a weak story and Bug Fables is proof of that. The only issue I had with the story was that the dialogue could run a little long at times but the dialogue is well written so it isn't really an issue. I wish I could say more about the story but anything else I say would count as a spoiler. This is a very character driven story and there's some interesting aspects of this world that's best to experience for yourself to get the full impact.

I will say this, if you're expecting a story in the same vein as Paper Mario, Bug Fables doesn't quite fit the part. Not because it's bad but because it goes for a different style. Paper Mario was never a serious series. It had it's serious moments but it was a mostly comedic affair. Bug Fables is almost the complete opposite. It doesn't exactly skimp on the comedy but it's more focused on the stpry with a bigger focus on character development rather than chuckles. I have to admit that there were a few parts that got to me a little. There's some genuinely touching moments in this game.

But one aspect Bug Fables does follow Paper Mario in is presentation. To say Bug Fables steals Paper Mario's style is putting it lightly. It steals it, kills it and shags it's wife. Everything about this game screams Paper Mario. Even the smallest details are copied almost perfectly and that is not a bad thing. Paper Mario has a very unique style that few games can match and Bug Fables captures all the best parts of it. The game looks fantastic with some excellent sprite work. I didn't think they could do much with everyone being an insect but I was proven wrong. Everyone from the main characters to major supporting characters to even the most minor of NPC's have unique designs. Outside of the guardsmen and the enemies I don't think any two character look alike. It also helps that the character designs are pretty good. Very cute and expressive. Even the world looks lovely and I love the little details they added here and there. Like how the battle transitions change depending on where you are or how the currency used are berries they can't normally eat. I wish I could talk more about all the little details I noticed but, unfortunately, that would be a bit of a spoiler and it's one of those “oh I get it now” moments. And those deserve to be experienced blind.

That being said, while it might be very similar, Paper Mario is still a bit more polished and visually interesting. Not to say Bug Fables is boring to look at but Paper Mario does have the edge in this regard, at least Thousand Year Door does. Plus the visual effects look a lot better in Paper Mario, they aren't as impressive here. Bug Fables does have a slight edge in certain aspects. The environments don't look as flat and almost have a bit of cel-shading going on which I'm always a fan of. It performs very well on the Switch too despite some minor stuttering and slowdown in certain areas. Though this is extremely rare. Overall though it's a great looking game that manages to nail the Paper Mario style down to the last pixel.

Audio wise it also patterns itself heavily on Paper Mario. You could put the music in an actual Paper Mario game and it would fit just as well. It definitely leans more on the first Paper Mario than Thousand Year Door in this regard. Thousand Year Door's soundtrack was more bombastic and Bug Fables is more subdued like the original. It's a decent little soundtrack though it has some oddities like the lack of an end battle jingle. One audio aspect I like is that all the characters have unique sound effects whenever they talk, kind of like Banjo Kazooie though not as annoying. This is helpful because the comic book like dialogue bubbles sometimes struggle to point to the character that is talking, especially when there's a lot of them on screen. Presentation in Bug Fables is excellent in both aspects even if it does copy a lot from another series. But if you are going to copy from anything, might as well copy something good.

And thus we move on to gameplay. I have said this before and will continue to say it in every review I do for the genre, the three key components you must nail to make a successful RPG are exploration, customisation and combat. So let's examine Bug Fables through these three aspects and see how it fares. Let's start with exploration. Bug Fables is different from a lot of other RPG's in that it mixes in some minor platforming elements. While the platforming isn't that great it does add an interesting element to exploring the world and at least you aren't punished for missing a jump too much. As you travel you'll come across various environmental puzzles that require use of each of the three characters abilities. Vi can hit objects at a distance with her Beemarang, no seriously that's what it's called this game loves puns more than I do, Kabbu can cut things with his horn and Leif can freeze water ot enemies with his ice magic. You'll unlock more abilities as you progress which not only unlocks new skills in combat but also allows further exploration of the world. Allowing you to visit previously inaccessible areas. You'll find some dungeon like areas that are heavy with the puzzles and while none of them are brain taxing they aren't brainless either. A lot of them are block pushing puzzles which can be a little anoying since they move a little slow but they never become too annoying until one at the very tail end of the game. The puzzles are not the best I've seen but I would rather have them to break up the action than not have them at all.

Now when I talk about exploration I'm not just talking about travelling to different locations or tackling various dungeons, that's a given in games like this. I'm also referring to discovering secret areas, partaking in side quests, that sort of thing. What seperates RPG's from other genres is it's ability to envelop you in the world it created and having these kinds of side content is a major aspect of that. Sure most RPG's are linear, as most story driven games tend to be, but when the player is allowed to go off the beaten path and they discover an area they wouldn't find normally, it makes them feel a bigger attachment to the world. Because you discovered it, you chose to go that way, to follow your instincts and were rewarded for it. That's why most RPG's have so many side quests, it allows the player to create a bigger connection to the world the game provides.

Bug Fables follows in this mould. There're plenty of side areas to uncover in this game and many of them are easily missable. Most of the games side quests are found on quest boards you'll find in various towns and there are a lot of them. While most of them are basic fetch quests there are plenty that are more than that. Some of them help give more character to the games NPC's and some will take you to area's you wouldn't visit as part of the main story. In fact the three main characters all have their own side quests to close out their respective character arcs. It might seam annoying that these aren't part of the main game but at the same time because you have to go out of your way to learn more about them, you feel a bigger connection to the characters. It's why some moments of the story got to me the way that they did.

Of course through exploring you will find collectibles like hidden lore books or medals (which we will get to in just a little bit) but the hardest to find are the Crystal Berries. Unlike normal Berries which are used as standard currency, Crystal Berries can only be exchanged in a special shop. They're the equivalent to the star pieces in Paper Mario. There's a lot to do in Bug Fables most of which is optional but I would argue you almost have to do these side quests to get the most out of the game as you'll skip most of the games content if you don't. If you just want to play through the main story you are going to miss out on a lot, if you're going to play Bug Fables you need to be in it for the long haul.

Customisation is next. Unlike a lot of RPG's, Bug Fables isn't big on Stats. The only stats each character has are their attack and defence which is the same for all three. You may think that would mean there wouldn't be much customisation but that isn't the case. Let's start with leveling up. After every fight you'l gain EXP which stands for Exploration Points in this game, cute. After you collect enough you'll rank up and be able to increase every characters HP (Health Points), TP (Teamwork Points) or your MP (Medal Points). HP is pretty self explanatory and I'll discuss TP in the combat section but the Medal Points, that's where things get interesting.

Medals are essentialy the Badges from Paper Mario and comprise the bulk of the games customisation. You have a set number of Medal Points and each medal costs a certain number of points so you have to think carefully about which medals you want to equip. These medals don't just affect your stats either, they have a variety of effects. Some improve resistances to certain status effects, some give more skills in combat, one of them even affects the games difficulty to make it more challenging. There's a lot of diiferent combinations to try out to the point that you can create actual character builds in this game, which gives it a slight edge over Paper Mario. By the end of the game I made Kabbu a tank, Leif a glass cannon and Vi as a supporter but there's other way to play as well. This might be one of the few games where you might want to get poisoned because certain Medals will give beneficial buffs while afflicted with it.

That being said, there is one downside to this system. In order to get the most out of this you almost need to focus entirely on increasing your MP. Granted you also had to do this in Paper Mario but I'm disappointed there's not many ways to increase MP outside of ranking up. There are special berries that can increase your stats but they're very rare. I would recommend you just increase MP on ranking up, don't worry about your TP or HP because they can be increased with Medals anyway and will increase when you reach certain thresholds. You'll find medals everywhere in the game, through exploration, buying them in shops, but the best ones are found in the underground tavern and require Crystal Berries to purchase. Like most RPG's the best shit you have to work to get.

And thus we come to the combat. Bug Fables doesn't have random battles, instead you'll see enemies in the overworld and can engage with them at any time. It is possible to hit enemies in the overworld to give you an advantage in combat and even a medal you can get early on that let's you kill weaker enemies on contact, allowing you to skip fights entirely. This is more useful then you might think because Bug Fables has an interesting method of dolling out EXP. As you rank up enemies drop less and less EXP to the point where battling weaker enemies will eventually drop no EXP and you'll only get one measily point for fighting them. Having the ability to skip pointless battles is a nice feature and this system makes it harder to over level. Although if you do all the side quests as they become availible like I did you become so strong you can skip later enemies anyway.

But assuming you have to actually fight the enemies, the battle system is similar to Paper Mario but does things a little differently. For starters, unlike in Paper Mario, you have three main characters you keep throughout the whole game. That might seam limiting to those who have played Paper Mario as that game offered several different partners you could swap between but the battle system is designed around these three characters. See each of the three main characters have their own strengths and weaknesses. Kabbu can pierce enemy defences with his horn and has the highest natural HP but he can only attack the first enemy on the ground. Leif can hit anyone on the ground and can knock sunken enemies up above ground for the others to atack but he can't hit enemies in the air. Vi can hit anyone with her Beemarang and is the only character that can hit flying enemies but she struggles against enemies with higher defences. The entire battle system is structured around using the three main characters and proper strategy is required to take full advantage of them.

At any point you can swap between who goes next in the battle and you can swap the positioning of the three main characters so long as one of them hasn't moved or is incapacitated. There are strategic benefits for swapping positions as the character in front does slightly more damage but increases the likelihood of being targeted by enemies. Each character also has a variety of skills they can use. Some even have the characters teaming up with each other which costs both characters turn. Don't think you can have one character go and then use the team-up attack with the other character to get a free hit in because doing so causes the character that moved to skip their next turn. Both skills and regular attacks require the use of action commands. Basically you perform an action like pressing a button at the right time or hold down a button for a set time to properly perform an attack. Even when defending you need to do this, by pressing the A button right before an attack you can mitigate some of the damage taken. Unlike in Paper Mario where you could only block a set amount of damage, in Bug Fables the damage you block changes depending on the timing, the closer you block an attack at the moment it hits the less damage you take. The action commands are one of my favourite parts of the Paper Mario series, well Mario RPG's in general really, because they're more engaging than simply selecting commands from a menu. Don't get me wrong I like a good turn based RPG, I will stan for Chrono Trigger any day, but I do tend to zone out while playing them for longer sessions which doesn't happen with the action commands, since I have to actually pay attention. I will say that Bug Fables did take some getting used to. The timing isn't exactly the same as it was in Paper Mario which threw me off at first and I kind of hated the game for the first couple of battles but after about half an hour I finally got it down, still had trouble with defending at times but with practice I got through it. One thing I will give Bug Fables credit for is the ability to choose between commands that involve bashing a button or pressing buttons in a sequence. I cannot bash buttons to save my life so to have the option to swap those commands out was much appreciated. Also you don't have to perform action commands for defensive skills, only those that deal damage.

Speaking of skills, they cost TP in order to use but the catch is that everyone shares the same pool of TP. So when one character uses a skill thats less TP the others can use. You have think carefully about what skills you need, you can't just spam them like in a lot of other RPG's. Now I know what you're thinking, “no big deal, I'll just stock up on a bunch of TP restoring items and spam away”. Yeah about that. Bug Fables has very limited inventory space and the items don't stack. At most you can hold 15 items. Because of this, item management is much more important and it's best to have items that do more than one function. This is where cooking comes into play. In all the major towns you'll find a chef that can combine two items into one or can boost a single item into something more potent.There's a lot of different recipes to find, 70 to be exact, and the items you do find are quite varied. Some will even give you status effects like poison which sounds bad until you realise there are medals that provide benefits for being poisoned. Obviously some combinations don't work but I did like experimenting and seeing what I could come up with.

So you can't just spam skills, everything about the battles is designed to emphasize strategy over brute force. Bug Fables feels like a Paper Mario game made for older players. I love those older Paper Mario games but they were easy to just plow through, Bug Fables requires a bit more thought. That being said, while I enjoy the battles in Bug Fables, I do prefer the battle system in Thousand Year Door. That game had a little bit more going on with the stage gimmick and the special moves you could unlock. Bug Fables does have one interesting mechanic in the turn relay system. With it a character can give up their turn and let another move instead. So if your facing a group of airborne enemies it might be best to let Kabbu give up his turn and let Vi move twice in a row. The catch to this is that they will do less damage on their second and third attack. I like the turn relay mechanic though it took me a little to warm up to it, didn't see the need for it at first but as I played on and gradualy began figuring everything out I warmed up to it. It definitely adds to the strategic nature of the game.

That goes over the major pillars of RPG games and I'd say it turned out pretty well. If I had to describe Bug Fables as simply as possible, I would say that it was deceptively simple. The game isn't that complicated, you can figure most of it out fairly quickly but as you play you uncover more and more things about it. It may look simple at a glance but there's plenty of depth. It helps that Bug Fables is a decently challenging game. The older Paper Mario games may be beloved but they do get criticised for being too easy and that's something Bug Fables attempts to address. I didn't try the games hard mode out because I usually don't do that until after I play it on normal difficulty but even on normal the game had it's tougher moments. Especially the games bosses which were a higlight for me, the optional super bosses in particular are pretty damn tough. Some took me two or three attempts to beat.

I enjoyed Bug Fable a lot. It really scratched an itch that I had for the next true Paper Mario game but even without that it stands up as a game in it's own right. The designers clearly put there heart into this and it shows. I loved all the little details like how every character can spy on enemies with their own unique descriptions, because it showed that they cared about what they were making. That being said, no game is perfect. The main issue I have with Bug Fables is how bloated this game feels. As I said, this game has a lot of side quests and most are tedious fetch quests that involve going back and forth a lot. There is a fast travel system to make this easier, but even with that backtracking to complete these quests takes an agonisingly long time. You don't move very fast in this game and there's no way to speed things up. Paper Mario had several methods of increasing your speed so it seams odd Bug Fables has none. I wouldn't mind the slow speed but going through these areas multiple times made me realise that many of them aren't that interesting and the variety is lacking when compared to Paper Mario. I would say it's about equal to the first game but it doesn't compare to Thousand Year Door. In that game there was a chapter where you had to battle in a tournament, there was a chapter where you solved mysteries on a train, there was even a chapter where you had your body stolen and had to get it back. Bug Fables has moments like this but that's all they are, moments. There's an entire side quest that involves playing a card game that's actually pretty fun but it's also under cooked. You could have made an entire chapter based on that and maybe expanded on it. I know this game is trying to have a deeper story and lore which is a good thing, but it loses a lot of the charm and excitement of what each new chapter might bring as a result.

But I only complain about these things because a game is only as good as it's flaws and it's important to itemise those flaws, if you don't criticise how can they grow? Bug Fables is fantastic. If your a Paper Mario fan this is an absolute must play but even if your not I still say give it a shot. If your not a fan of RPG's this is easy to get into and it might be a good way to ease you into the genre just as Paper Mario was for me. How does it stack up to the Paper Mario series though? Well I would say it's equal to, if not better than the first game but it doesn't hold a candle to Thousand Year Door. I mean, it's my favourite game of all time so of course I'd say that but even with my obvious bias I still think Thousand Year Door is the better game. It doesn't really matter because Bug Fables is still a great game in it's own right. It's my favourite game I've played this year and I've played some great games so far. So yes Bug Fables the Everlasting Sapling is a worthy game to add to your collection and it makes me more excited for the upcoming Origami King. Even if that doesn't give me that old school Paper Mario experience, I always have Bug Fables to fall back on. So long as Origami King isn't a worthles piece of hot garbage like Sticker Star, it can do whatever the fuck it wants. That's all for today. Until next time, remember to stay safe and have fun.