Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

Have you ever played a game that was designed to appeal to you in every way, but fails to do so? A game created by fans of the game you enjoyed that inspired it, and yet you can’t seem to fall in love with it the same way others seem to do. That’s how I’ve been feeling playing Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. A game that wears its inspiration to the Paper Mario on its sleeve openly and proudly. Yet for the past few hours I’ve been playing this game it has failed to charm in the same way those games were able to. There’s more to being like Paper Mario than copying its look and including action commands in a turn based RPG. I’m going to go over what it is about those games that made them special and why Bug Fables can’t seem to captivate me the same way. Bug Fables starts off with a narration about a queens quest to look for these mysterious artifacts from the past spread throughout the lands. Through generations the search to bring back these lost artifacts went with no results, until now. Our cute bug adventures are made up of 3 characters, Vi, Kabbu, and Lief. Vi is a sassy bee who hates being looked down for her size and desires adventure to obtain hidden riches. Kabbu is a stoic beetle, who wants nothing more than to do the right thing. Later on in the first chapter we are introduced to Lief, an amnesiac moth with a knack for ice magic. It’s implied he existed during the time of the first queens rule, somehow having lived for century unchanged. And that is all of the party members you will be using on your adventure. I don’t mind their characters or interactions, in fact I find them quite enjoyable to follow as everyone always has some fun banter with each other. But gameplay is where we begin to have issues. In combat you control all 3 party members. Those in the front row will do more damage but will be targeted more frequently, meanwhile those in the back row will be targeted less, but deal less damage. This turn order system is about the most complex this game gets as the rest of the game follows a very similar format to that of the Paper Mario games. One of my biggest complaints with this game is the lack of variety each combat encounter has. You only have 3 characters to work with, meaning your going to be using the same attacks quiet frequently. Now, while I’ve only played up to Chapter 3 and can’t reasonably say the combat doesn’t improve over time, I did do extensive research to see what skills characters would later get and it doesn’t get much deeper than where I am now. The only major difference is the greater access to Medals which is this games equivalent to Badges. No new party members, and no new equipment to upgrade your characters damage other than new field skills which will grant a character a new skill for combat. This lack of progression, really hampers my enjoyment of the game as it feels like I never grow as the game progresses. Old enemies still take just as long to beat at the start as the do by the end. The one benefit with these 3 being your only characters is that it does give everyone their own unique role in combat. Vi is able to attack flying enemies but has a meager damage output, she is capable of dishing out multi-hit moves allowing her to become a massive nuke if equipped right. But as of where I stopped, I had gained no attack increasing medals, so I don’t know when “equipped right” is supposed to happen. Next you have Kabbu, who is the tank of the group, or at he’s meant to be. He’s the only one with access to a taunt ability but he doesn’t boast a higher defense or HP stat to go along with it. But he does get an exclusive medal which allows him to dish damage back when hit. So he’s a tank in theory. He can also attack grounded enemies and can cause a status called flip on certain enemies allowing them to be more vulnerable to damage. Lief I would say is the most versatile. He’s the mage of the group, attacking with ice magic, and is the only one who starts off with a skill capable of hitting multiple foes. Which is the frustratingly needed skill in the game as you can start combat with a group of 4 enemies on the field each with 8 to 11 hp and your measly 3 to 2 points of damage per character is not going to take them down fast enough. This is what makes combat so dull. There is no special gauge, meaning you don’t get a means of ending combat encounters any faster, no better to heal in combat rather than spamming items. Vi has access to a free heal but it only heals for 4 hp and costs 3 team points, this games equivalent to flower points, you know what else costs 3 TP an attack! Something I’d, much rather be doing than wasting a TP on a weak heal. It’s not just the combat that frustrates me, it’s the story as well. What I love about the Paper Mario games is how each location feels entirely unique and memorable. Each location having its own story and unique gimmick surrounding it. TTYD does this to greater effect, where each chapter feel like its own little adventure. Chapter 1 has you slay a dragon in a castle, Chapter 2 has you save the punis in this monochromatic forest, Chapter 3 is a tournament arc that with a great conspiracy behind it. I could continue but you get the point, each chapter felt special for one reason or another. Bug Fables just doesn’t do that. You just go from city, to dungeon, to another city, to another dungeon and they don’t have visual flare to it. There’s not a lot of eventful set pieces. I will give them credit in that these locations do contain lore, there’s even a tab in your notebook that details on the lore this game has from the places you’ve visited, it’s just not overly interesting in my opinion. These locations don’t feel lived in or unique, it’s just another location that happens to exist. I think these issues are all in part due to how weak the writing. Characters aren’t charming in the way they are in Paper Mario. In Paper Mario, even the NPCs can comprise of these larger than life characters with vivid personalities. In Bug Fables, everyone’s fairly mundane. No one really expresses much heavy emotion aside from the main cast, and even they’re not all that charming. They’re fairly one note, Vi will say something sassy, Kabbu will be say something about doing good, and Lief will either be confused or remain casual about things. I wouldn’t say the writing is bad, it’s just unremarkable. I don’t think I’d be so hard on this game if it wasn’t constantly trying to compare itself to a game I would much rather play. It reminds me of how hard I wanted to like One Step From Eden due to it being inspired by the Mega Man Battle Network games, but came away disappointed due to its existence as a rougelike. Stripping away the actual elements that made me fall in love with the Battle Network games, which to me, wasn’t the gameplay alone, but the story. I wanted to really like Bug Fables, but as I roamed around, as I kept playing, I felt my enjoyment dwindling. To me, Bug Fables just felt like a cheap imitation of what it was inspired by. And I feel bad saying that. I can feel the devs really poured their heart into this game. This doesn’t feel like a soulless cash grab made to appeal to nostalgia. This genuinely feels like a game made by fans who were passionate about the same game series I was, but were too inexperienced to make something that could compare to it. Would I be this hard on this game if it wasn’t inspired by one of my favorite games? Is it fair for me to compare a mere indie title to a AAA game made in 2004? It’s not, but I cant help it when everyone I know makes the same comparison. I only bought this game, because of its similarities to Paper Mario, and how many fans of those games, told me I would like this one! Perhaps my expectations were set too high. At the time of writing, I just started chapter 3, and I don’t feel like continuing it. I was skeptical in my enjoyment from the moment I started. Combat felt overly long. I didn’t feel any sense of