Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling (PC)

Once upon a time, if there was a video game that filled a unique niche and the developer producing that series stopped making titles in that style, that was it. The most you could hope for then was them later considering a series revival, but with the rise of indie development, the spiritual successor came into vogue. For many, when the Paper Mario series shifted from its charming and kooky world with strong role-playing game fundamentals to something more focused on implementing new gimmicks, it seemed like there would never be another game like the first two titles in the series. However, Moonsprout Games stepped forward to provide a game that not only carries on the legacy of the games that inspired it, but provides a whole new world full of lore, humor, and quests to slate the thirst of this ailing fanbase.

Taking place in Bugaria where anthropomorphic insects have developed complex societies, the promise of the Everlasting Sapling that is said to grant immortality spurs the Ant Kingdom to create an explorer’s league, brave and capable bugs being sent of to search out the artifacts that could be the key to discovering the sapling’s location. Bug Fables follows three such explorers, a bee named Vi, Kabbu the beetle, and Leif the moth, as they set off together into a bold and colorful world where characters are flat cutouts that move around 3D environments. Each of the three main party members play off each other well due to being so disparate in personality from each other. Vi is impulsive and plucky, the young bee’s feistiness and greed balanced by a good heart. Leif, on the other hand, is a more serious individual from the far past but has no filter restricting him, letting loose a quick wit throughout the adventure while also unashamedly admitting his sillier proclivities like how adorable he finds the bed bug item. Kabbu is the most measured of the group, the straight man to the more exaggerated personalities of his allies and doing what he can to be the noble and heroic member of the group. Circumstance brings these three together, all of them as much strangers to each other as they are to the player as the game begins. They all have histories tied to the world you explore, mysteries like how Leif is seemingly from the past explored over the course of the game, but it also gives the game free range to establish a lot of areas and characters in a believable way. When you encounter the wasp Zasp who becomes the group’s rival of sorts, he already has a history with Vi, and when you arrive at the town in The Lost Sands, Kabbu already has met the mayor in the past and can work with him in solving the local bandit problem. Their personal histories are tied to the world you’re exploring so you learn about them and it in tandem, and the many kingdoms of Bugaria actually have a lot of thought put into their lore and histories as well.

As you go from the humble grasslands at the beginning of the game to more distinct areas like the desert, honey factory, and the realm of the game’s antagonist the wasps, you’ll find plenty of attention has been given to both broad details and the minutia. For example, while the mysterious disappearance of the roaches weaves through the plot as your find their ruins and abandoned technology, the fact there is a societal stigma against ladybugs has no bearing on the main plot but helps explain why you’ll often find them in seedy locations or working as bandits. Pressing Enter at any location will have your party discuss the area and their thoughts on it, Leif especially giving insight to how the world changed since his time, and if you approach most any character and press the button instead, you can even get their thoughts on other characters. The supporting cast of Bug Fables is large but with plenty of interesting recurring individuals who crop up often like the pop diva Mothiva and a pair of explorers who take quests but don’t complete them to instead provide tips to whoever takes up the quest next. Completing side quests often fleshes out the other explorers in the league, the characters even referencing your work together or having cute cameos crop up later like finding some villains you fought locked up in a jail. Even the main trio have devoted subquests to better explore their characters, some genuinely heartwarming events found along the way in a game that is primarily happy to be silly or fun but unafraid to get more serious or strange if it has an interesting idea to pursue.

There was definitely a huge degree of attention given to the side content, from plenty of optional bosses and secret dungeons to an intricate recipe system where items can be refined and mixed into better forms and each character having their own twist on how they evaluate the enemy when the Spy command is used. While some of the sidequests are essentially just bringing an item to a person or fighting a single foe, sometimes these can take on more interesting shapes, such as performing in a stage play or playing in a card game tournament. Even the item fetching quests can be flagged much earlier than they can be fulfilled, leading to an Aha! moment when you find whatever item was required, some of them not even being quest items to make it more about figuring out the request than just delivering the key item once its found. Their design is definitely helped by the accessible fast travel options in the form of the underground mines whose reach expands near the end of each of the game’s seven chapters, although even then you can pay to have them expand early for convenience’s sake. Of course, the main quest has a lot to be loved as well, including the interactive overworld where navigating traversal puzzles is just as important as facing whatever enemies are found in the area. Over the course of the game Vi, Kabbu, and Lief will get new skills they can use to interact with the world, whether it be Vi’s boomerang that can grab far off items or turn cranks, Leif’s ice magic that can freeze water and enemies to make platforms, or Kabbu’s strength that can slice grass and smash boulders, they gradually get more and more tools used to get around the game’s wild areas and dungeons, with some even just having strong puzzles independent of the skills like ice block pushing puzzles and figuring out how to properly activate a set of switches in a laboratory. Rather than making the game about getting from point A to point B while fighting anything in your path, these make the exploration more involved as well as providing opportunities to return to old areas later with new skills to find secrets.

Even with all the wonderful touches to the interactive world and its many systems, lore, and characters, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling also has a strong RPG battle system at its core. When you encounter enemies in the overworld or face off with them in a boss battle, you’ll find the numbers for damage and health are kept intentionally low, nothing ever reaching the triple digits. However, by keeping the numbers manageable and clear, even an attack that does one damage makes a small but tangible dent in a foe. Your regular attacks remain at a consistent strength level during most of your journey, but by spending TP, you can execute special abilities like dealing higher damage, freezing foes to make them lose turns, or executing incredible team attacks. Your basic attacks vary across your trio as well, each having a niche such as Kabbu piercing defenses, Leif dealing additional damage to foes weak to his ice, and Vi able to knock flying enemies out of the air so the others can attack them. Fighting is turn based, the player’s party getting to move first and then the enemies taking their turns, but there’s more going on then just having each bug pick an attack. The character in the front of your party gets a damage boost, meaning swapping around your lead at your turn’s start can help you take down certain foes more quickly, and if you want a character to take another turn that round so someone like Vi can heal the team, Leif can put up barriers, or Kabbu can revive a fallen ally, you only need to use turn relay to gift that member’s turn to the bug you want to use. They do less damage if they attack when relayed, but it’s a good way to manage items or useful skills if the foe is resisting a team member who would otherwise just have to sit back and be useless.

The enemy types in Bug Fables are often feral forms of other bugs, midges, spiders, and weevils appearing as regular foes to quickly fight while bosses can be much larger creatures or even other major characters who fight more intelligently.  The game also features plants and even machines as enemies though, but this is a world where magic is noted to exist so it doesn’t break away from the world building necessarily. The attacks of enemies come in many forms as well, with abilities that inflict poison, reduce stats, buff one enemy if their ally is hit, and more, but you have a few more tricks to winning the battle than they do. Medals can be equipped outside of battle to adjust character stats, give new abilities, gain resistances or buffs, and even avoid potentially annoying moments like fighting an enemy too weak to give experience or having your stuff stolen. Leveling up lets you pick to increase health, TP, or Medal Points, those being what restricts you from just equipping every useful medal you come across to become a powerhouse. Regardless of what you have equipped though, every attack can be made a touch stronger with action commands, these being timed button presses that can increase the power of hits or give them their secondary traits. They come in many styles like holding a button down for the right amount of time, pressing a sequence of keys, or pressing attack when the moving reticle is lined up right, so determining the risk vs. reward for more complex actions makes up a small part of choosing your special moves, although their limited TP pool already means they’re mostly meant for bosses. Some late game medals allow for more freedom in their use at least, and thankfully, despite being set with just the three main characters throughout the adventure, they do gradually get new tricks that can prove useful so the fighting doesn’t become dull. Defense involves these action commands as well, a well timed block negating some damage or even significantly reducing the damage if your button press is nearly perfect in timing.

While the game wears its Paper Mario inspiration loud and proud, from the choice of art style to the battle system even down to the presence of the recipe system, it manages to carry over many familiar elements while still having a distinct identity thanks to the love given to its world and characters. I don’t have the same passion for the first two Paper Mario games that many do even though I’m sure I’d rate them positively, but Bug Fables might have shown me the incredible appeal of their style by contextualizing it in a completely unique insect world with depth, fun characters, and plenty of rewarding activities. Rather than just being a reskinned version of those old games, Bug Fables takes the style forward with quality of life changes on top of its own approach to writing its tale and building its lore. Perhaps it was their passion for the games the developers loved that lead to this game enamoring me so, the game filled to the brim with plenty of delightful and cute touches while still nailing the moments it wanted to be serious or heavy.

THE VERDICT: Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling pushes the mechanical design of the games that inspired it forward while also creating a whole new world filled with fun characters, interesting lore, and a huge degree of well realized optional content. Its wonderfully built setting is backed up by an involved battle system and the degree of interactivity found in navigating the world, the connectivity between characters and the world’s history allowing the story to flourish into something simple enough to be silly and fun but rich in extra details that better explain how Bugaria came to be. Seeing what lies ahead and finding plenty of secrets and side activities along the way makes it easy for Bug Fables to suck you in and keep you coming back until the story is done, and even then you might want to explore all the nooks and crannies that open up after an already satisfying adventure ends.

And so, I give Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling for PC…

A FANTASTIC rating. I was enraptured by Bug Fables in a way I never was by the early Paper Mario games. Those seemed to taper off at some point or indulged in weird practices like the infamous General White quest, but Bug Fables keeps itself clean and confident moving forward, periodically providing activities on the side while still keeping the main quest strong if you choose not to divert your course. The rewards for exploring and learning the world are great though, be they just from a story standpoint as they develop characters and Bugaria’s history or just by providing useful medals and interesting RPG battles. It does have small issues like any game will, the wasps, despite being the main antagonistic force, could do with more variety in their troops, getting across large bodies of water with Leif’s ice can be slow, and Vi can feel like she’s underpowered against certain foes, but these aren’t such glaring issues that they would drag the game down. It’s a charming story with heart that can get serious and weird at times, it’s an RPG whose fights involve active participation and can be swung through medals, items, and special skills, and most of all, it’s a game where a lot of love was put into every detail. The game didn’t just sit back and rely on challenging boss battles to carry the experience, going the extra mile to craft short minigames, write an incredible amount of commentary from the three bugs on the many situations they find themselves in, and construct side quests that better establish a world already brimming with intriguing details. Moonsprout Games poured their heart into this project because they believed in recapturing a style of game they weren’t getting from any one else, their passion and attention to detail ensuring that even those without a heavy personal connection to the original Paper Mario games can enjoy this title on its own merits.

The adventure of Vi, Leif, and Kabbu is so stellar that it has managed to be the first game I’ve received a review copy for that I’ve rated so highly. To rank it lower simply because it was given to me would be doing it a disservice, just like it would have been a disservice to rate the poorly rated review copies higher just because they were provided to me for free. Bug Fables is something special, the fans of a franchise going for more than just capturing the nostalgic feelings of games from their past. In a vacuum, this game would still have the personality, mechanical fortitude, and level of detail that makes it so endearing and enjoyable throughout the whole experience.