Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is easily one of the best games of 2019. It’s not just a worthy successor to Paper Mario, which serves as its obvious inspiration—in many ways, Bug Fables is an even better game. Those who determine value based on how long a playthrough lasts will be thrilled to learn that it’s easy to play for 40 hours or more. Those who appreciate pacing will be glad to hear that there’s no padding to reach that playtime. Whether you’re looking for a game with well-written characters who grow on you, mechanics that allow you to devise interesting strategies, secrets waiting to be discovered and subsequently exploited, or a soundtrack full of catchy themes, Bug Fables delivers in a big way.

Bug Fables review navigation (click to jump directly to section): Story review | Gameplay review | Bugs and issues | Visuals and music review

All of the characters here are immensely likable and only become more so

Bug Fables begins with two of the main characters, Kabbu the beetle and Vi the bee, meeting in the Ant Kingdom—a place where different types of bugs live together in relative harmony under the rule of Queen Elizant II—and becoming explorer partners. The queen has tasked explorers with finding the “Everlasting Sapling,” a mythical plant that bestows youth and strength to those who eat its leaves, and the first step to finding it is obtaining an artifact hidden in the nearby Snakemouth Den. Inside, they stumble upon Leif, a mysterious moth who possesses ice magic and has recent memories of the distant past. The search for the Everlasting Sapling eventually turns up leads about what happened to Leif, and the journey also gives the honorable Kabbu and impulsive Vi a chance to right some wrongs from their respective pasts.

All of the characters in Bug Fables are fantastic. Even minor characters who exist to play a role in one or two sidequests have memorable personality traits. I thought that I had all of the major characters figured out early on, only for their motivations and actions to surprise me later, and I love the way their personalities are slowly and naturally revealed.

Of course, Vi, Kabbu, and Leif (who become known as “Team Snakemouth”) are the real stars, and their personalities contrast really well. Kabbu always wants to do the right thing and has a habit of insisting that people don’t have to pay for their help. Vi, meanwhile, has a bit of a Napoleon complex that’s led her to become the first explorer bee, much to the chagrin and worry of her people. Leif is often the voice of reason, though he’s not above poking at Vi when she’s acting especially headstrong. All of the humorous and dramatic moments work because it’s easy to become invested in them.

I refuse to go into specifics about the story because spoiling even a single thing about such a wonderful game would be unforgivable. Suffice it to say that Bug Fables‘ story balances oddball comedy with some truly interesting lore. For example, all of the bugs recognize that they gained sentience in an event known as the “Day of Awakening,” but not all bug types became sentient at the same time, laying the groundwork for some lingering resentments. Roaches were the first to become sentient and mastered the Everlasting Sapling and advanced technology, so finding artifacts requires exploring roach ruins that range from a futuristic lab to an Egyptian-themed sandcastle. There’s even a hidden room that hints at some interesting characters who could factor into a sequel. Bug Fables is addictive because everything leaves you wanting more (in a good way).

Bug Fables plays like Paper Mario but has some additional (optional) strategy

While Bug Fables draws many of its mechanics—such as minigames to determine the strength of attacks and your ability to lessen damage by pressing a button right before the attack lands—from Paper Mario, and before it, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, it does eventually open up and allow you to abuse its mechanics in entertaining ways. Like its inspirations, the damage you inflict and receive has been reduced to its lowest possible value. Even at the very end of the game, it’s not uncommon to have ~15-16 HP max, which is barely more than you start out with. Properly timing your blocks can reduce damage taken to 0 or 1, though some enemies can hit multiple times per turn, and equipping certain items can increase the difficulty of enemies in return for greater rewards. Knowing when you can afford to take a risk is a big part of the fun.

You don’t have equipment in Bug Fables per se, but finishing sidequests and exploring areas thoroughly often rewards you with medals that confer various bonuses to the party.

Hard mode isn’t accessed by a menu, but by equipping a specific medal, and it can be stacked with additional medals for an even greater reward. Medals can increase an individual party member’s HP or the whole party’s TP (which is used for performing powerful skills), provide regeneration or resurrection, increase attack at the cost of defense or vice versa, and so much else. The real fun comes late in the game when you’ve upgraded the number of medals you can equip at once and can combine them in interesting ways.

One medal I discovered caused a chosen party member to become poisoned whenever using an item. That didn’t seem useful at first, but I later came across a medal that caused everyone else to receive an attack boost when a chosen party member is damaged. That made it possible to give everyone an attack boost every turn at the cost of a single item. Later on, I equipped medals that increased one party member’s attack at the cost of defense, and then one that allowed party members to give away their bonuses when giving another party member their turn, allowing my glass cannon character to get a free +2 attack boost. At one point, he managed to do 10 damage per hit when using a skill that hits 4 times. You’ll start out feeling kind of weak, but become an unstoppable god of damage before long.

Attack order and items preparation can make a big difference during fights

Spending 40 hours with the same 3-character party might sound like the kind of thing that quickly becomes stale, but the story moves quickly and you’re frequently fighting new enemies who need to be approached in a new way. By the time you’ve seen every enemy type, you’ll be able to start combining medals and doing some really interesting things, so the gameplay remains entertaining throughout. Some enemies fly and have to be knocked out of the sky with Vi’s boomerang (which is called a “beemerang” because Bug Fables loves its bug puns) before Kabbu or Leif can hit them with anything other than certain TP-draining skills. Some enemies go into a defensive posture and have to be flipped over with Kabbu’s horn attack before the others can properly damage them. And Leif has the ability to hit enemies who have burrowed underground, bringing them back into the range of the others. Figuring out who should attack first, second, and third can be the difference between success and failure.

There are additional considerations, too. The person in the front position during battle does the most damage but is targeted more frequently. You can freely switch which character is leading the party at the start of each turn. It’s also possible for characters to “relay” their turn, giving it to someone else, which can make glass cannons super powerful. However, every time a character gets an extra turn, they do one point less damage, so it’s not always a good idea.

Items are also a huge part of Bug Fables. Bringing powerful HP- and TP-restoring items into a difficult fight can make a world of difference, as can bombs and arrows that poison, freeze, or lower the defenses of enemies. Some items just do damage. Others do damage to everyone, including your party members. The items you can buy tend to be basic, so you need to experiment with having chefs combine various things until you discover an item that complements your playstyle.

A couple of sidequests push you toward the most powerful items, fortunately, so it’s not all blind guesswork, but even if it was, creating a new type of food that heals you and increases your attack power is always entertaining. Item combinations are usually sensible, which is important since failing to guess a correct combination results in a low-quality item worse than the sum of its parts. Once you figure out how to create what you want and where to procure the necessary ingredients, it becomes possible to heal huge amounts of damage and/or TP and spam high-power skills every turn. That’s a big help when using a hard mode medal (which has benefits—beating bosses in hard mode earns you new medals).

Glitches are rare, but the field skills are unwieldy and there’s stealth

There are a couple of issues keeping me from giving Bug Fables a 10/10, unfortunately. I encountered a single softlock, but other minor glitches (such as one point where you can walk off of the map and an area where you can cause a party member to get stuck on a wall) are immediately resolved as your party members simply respawn. It looks like having them separated for a period of time causes them to automatically snap back together, which helps to avoid a whole bunch of potential issues. If the bugs aren’t a problem, though, field skills often are. As you progress, you unlock the ability to throw things, burrow underground, fly, create shields, and all sorts of other things. That’s a lot of moves that you can perform to get around the world, and they’re all mapped to the same button, so which you perform is based on your current character and whether you press, hold, or double tap the button. That leads to frustrating moments where you carefully knock an ice cube across a room on top of moving platforms, only to reach the button you’re trying to land it on and shatter it with the wrong move. That happened to me more than once.

The paper-thin art also makes platforming a little challenging at points. This mostly becomes a problem when you have to move directly up and your party members obscure your view. Platforming didn’t end up being as big of a problem as I initially suspected, though any relief I feel on that front is offset by my hatred of Bug Fables‘ two mandatory stealth sequences. When you can’t tell how far enemies can see you from and your burrowing move is canceled out by touching certain surfaces (including patrolling enemies), the auto-fail state becomes a serious hassle.

The colorful visuals and memorable soundtrack seal the deal in a big way

Every time you level up or win a card game—you can play cards using data from enemies obtained using the “spy” command during battle—a colorful “rank up” or “you won” screen appears. Every time you open the menu, there are yellows and greens and reds there to meet you. Bug Fables is colorful, and while that’s not always true of its areas (there are a few drab locations that contrast the colorful Ant Kingdom), every room of every area is memorable in some way, making backtracking a remarkably easy process. The paper aesthetic has been borrowed from Paper Mario, obviously, but the actual art on those thin slices of paper sports some Okami influences. Whether that’s intentional or not, it’s lovely.

Every time you find a new village, it’s possible to find an NPC who serves as a kind of jukebox. You can have her “sing” the background music to you, but it’s not until you’ve purchased all of Bug Fables‘ music that you get a sense for just how much music there is. That would be impressive enough on its own, but every single track is a winner. Every. Single. Track. One track sounds inspired by Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Another has a strong Donkey Kong Country vibe to it. Another gave me a serious Xenogears flashback. The Ant Kingdom castle music sounds like something you might hear in Radiant Historia. These are games with excellent music, and the fact that all of these themes coalesce into a coherent soundtrack that never sounds like it’s pushing itself past its limits says a lot about its quality. I’m unreasonably snobbish about game music, but Bug Fables‘ soundtrack hits a perfect balance between being fun to listen to and functioning as a mood-builder. If the credits are to believed, all of the music was done by one guy named Tristan Alric. Game development is totally different than it was when big names like Nobuo Uematsu and David Wise were able to break out thanks to their quality soundtracks, but if anyone has a chance in this crowded market, my money’s on this guy.

Story: 3/3 Gameplay: 2/3 Visuals: 2/2 Music: 2/2 ★★★★★★★★★☆ – 9/10
*Click here and scroll to the bottom for a detailed explanation of what these numbers mean

*A Steam key was provided for this Bug Fables review. If you do everything, expect to play for 40 hours. Even if you don’t plan on it, you’ll end up doing everything. It’s that good.

Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling review – All-time great RPG first appeared on Killa Penguin