How Bug Fables Transcends Paper Mario 

Alright, so what I learned in school was that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. I was told it repeatedly throughout my life, and I even did a quick Google search just to confirm that it was the case. Apparently he did not invent the lightbulb, so I will take that L.

Fun fact: this was my half brother's first RPG ever and he loved it, so, people who don't know paper mario can still love bug fables.

Paper Mario walked so Bug Fables could run .

This game is awesome. Leif is probably one of the most original characters I've ever seen. His backstory is so unique. One thing that I love about Bug Fables is using the "tattle" ability. Each character has there own thoughts on every enemy, NPC, and area. The dialogue even changes based on story events!

King, I'm sorry to have to do this to you...but I just can't finish this video. You ruined it by making the game seem so interesting and appealing that I simply cannot watch anymore until I play this game for myself. So take my like and I'll be back when I finish it.

Glad that this game made by a small Panamanian team is getting more and more recognition, a great start for a almost non existent industry in my country as far as game development goes.

Yes, Bug Fables transcends Paper Mario. And it overpowers it. And it is everlasting.

It's always good when an indie game can innovate, rather than just imitate.

When I saw the sand-box, I was like "Welp, that explains quite a bit." It's actually pretty hilarious, given your initial reaction!

"The partners in TTYD just became colorful tools" *glances at the Pixls from Super Paper Mario*

Bug Fables is one of the best Turn-Based RPGs that I've played in the last decade with a fantastic and challenging battle system, excellent sidequests with meaningful rewards, and a pretty enjoyable cast. That said I have a few issues with it. 1. Overworld platforming and puzzle-solving is pretty clunky and gets annoying at multiple points. 2. Playing with the hard mode medal on at all times can be rather exhausting and I wouldn't recommend playing with it on except for boss fights for the medal rewards. Part of the issue is how Hard mode handles random encounters. The game's progression doesn't make even the earliest encounters much easier even well after you can't get additional XP from them so fighting them is just a waste of resources that you'll need for bosses. Hard mode boss fights make having a full inventory of strong items feel borderline mandatory given how expensive your special moves are. This wouldn't be an issue except that this forces you to spend a lot of time gathering ingredients to cook more powerful consumables items which then drags things out due to the limiting nature of the Paper Mario style inventory. 3. Not a fan of how it keeps the old recipe system that discourages blind experimentation since you'll end up wasting your items. 4. The level up system feels imbalanced to me. The HP upgrade only giving 1 HP to each party member makes it feel like a waste to choose most of the time compared to getting more TP or MP.

I feel like everyone else is starting to realize what Mother fans realized long ago when they realized Itoi wasn't making any more Mother Games: just make your own! Sure not every game is hitter, but Lisa and Undertale should at least be remembered because they're Mother inspired, but choose to go beyond that. You can make an awesome RPG without needing a name. You can make another classic pokemon, another classic Persona, another classic Suikoden (cough cough Eiyuden Chronicle cough cough [even though its the same devs, my point stands]) without the actual name.

KingK just said in his stream that if you don't like the video, you can't watch any more of his content.

This is why I love indie games. They're not after money, they want to tell a story and share it with the world, and by god they'll pull out all the stops to do it.

This is the video I have been waiting for. I just recently completed Bug Fables. I am a die hard Paper Mario fan, and I bought Bug Fables before Origami King and waited until after I had beaten that game to play Bug Fables. This game, without any doubt, is one of the best games I have ever had the pleasure of playing, 100%ing and nerding out about. From Leif's backstory, to the Roach Labs, to Hoaxe, to anything else... I can't help but love it. I started Bug Fables coming hot off of Origami King, I had unexpectedly enjoyed that game so much that I felt the desire for a return to form slipping away. If they wanted to design a PM game with entirely new aspects each few games, go for it as long as the spirit of the story remained. Playing Bug Fables felt odd at first. The timing of the Action Commands felt slightly off, and the game felt a bit cheap. Being an indie game, I let it slide. But man, once I had made it out of Snakemouth, I was intrigued by nearly everything that followed. The NPCs and their little stories touched my heart and made me laugh out loud. I opted to play the whole game on hard mode for my first playthrough and man was that the best decision ever. Plowed through everything with varying setups, but used Vi and Poison for all the bounties. I love how the game gives you just enough lore to keep you wondering past the credit scene, something Hollow Knight does well too (Maybe Bug based games are just doomed to success?). If there is one fault I have for Bug Fables, its the online representation it has gotten. It's impossible to talk about this game without talking about Paper Mario, that much is a given, but Paper Mario dominates the conversation surrounding this game. So much so that the games unique and frankly amazing characterizations fall victim to being overshadowed for the gameplay. What made Bug Fables so special wasn't just the Paper Mario style gameplay, but the entire world of Bugaria. The kingdoms, the history, the citizens and the locations all made this an experience to remember. This game, while very Paper Mario-esque, doesn't exactly follow the formula from the first two games. Those games had a very modular approach to story telling. The chapters themselves could serve as their own setting for a game, with only the McGuffin connecting the individual chapters (save a few examples). Bug Fables doesn't really follow that approach. It has a highly coupled story and it uses that to its advantage, each section of the story has little narrative value, but serve to explain the character in question or set up the next big event. This allows Bug Fables to offload the quest for the everlasting sapling to explore the dynamism of the trio and the rest of the supporting cast, and it does this to great effect. Why does it feel so satisfying to go back to Snakemouth and find out about Leif's origin? Why is it so intriguing to talk to the old bug on Metal island and realize Hoaxe was the one who bought the crown from him? Why is it so amazing to discover the secret room in Snakemouth and see that the roaches have been monitoring Venus and two other unknown "Gods"? Because you explored and found that on your own, the narrative didn't lead you there. Paper Mario, on the other hand, is satisfying because of the settings and story revelations that happen within the narrative. Grubba's secret, Tubba Blubba's weakness, Getting your body stolen by Doopliss. These are all unavoidable moments that hit so hard, but are meant to be experienced by everyone. Bug Fables is an adventure, and adventure that you can choose to make as perilous and mysterious as you please. And I believe that is what makes it great. I wish the conversation about the game would be more about what it does for itself, than what it does from Paper Mario. Anyway, great vid. Always love to see your stuff. You always finish a game just when I finish it so these are always timed excellently.

I loved Banjo Kazooie far more then Paper Mario. But Playing Yooka-Laylee just made me sad that we never got Banjo Threeie for the GameCube. I was hesitant to buy Bug Fables because of this. But I’m so glad I did. An hour into the game I wasn’t even thinking about Paper Mario anymore. Because this game not only played to my nostalgia but did someone new and interesting that kept me invested once the nostalgia wore off. Bug Fables is a master piece and I wish more spiritual successors would follow in Bug Fables foot steps.

Let's be 100% honest guys... Bug Fables is exactly what we want Paper Mario to be today. Sad that the franchise will probably be terminated before they ever go back to their roots judging from what I'm hearing from Nintendo and the Dev team

"no one truly owns a genre" yandere dev: "i'm gonna stop you right there

the best thing about bug fables is the music, damn that music IS SO GOOOD

This video would've convinced me to play Bug Fables, but... I already did that.

After first playing Bug Fables in May I can honestly say that it's now one of if not my new favorite game of all time. My ever growing urge for a new classic Paper Mario like game plus being stuck in quarantine made playing a game with this much love and effort put into it even more apparent. The puzzles, exploration, the quirky and in-depth characterization (my personal favorite being Leif), the plot, the hilarious chemistry between the main trio, the difficulty, etc. all came together in a RPG that was not only what I was looking for but offered new elements that I never knew I'd enjoy so damn much. For all vg players out there (especially fans of RPGs) please, by all means, consider picking Bug Fables up! It's a very worthwhile experience that I have no regrets playing.

Wow, I can’t imagine not taking on the Wasp King with a maxed out level. I didn’t even do it on purpose, I just messed it out in the last quarter of the game and it honestly made it all the better because the wasp king was still challenging, AND I knew that I couldn’t grind to improve my stats. I just had to... get good

I demand a sequel That takes place in the Front yard. Just imagine it

"Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb" ⓧ Doubt

Amazingly done video! Extremely well written and thorough! Love Bug Fables and this is a really really good look at it and it's inspirations and how it both plays with your expectations coming from Paper Mario and expands off of it. One of my favorite things definitely is the fact that you have so much creativity with medal builds, and it's so interesting hearing about people's different strategies because there's just so much that you can do with it. I found myself agreeing with so many of your points and discussion throughout the video., and you pretty much helped describe why Bug Fables quickly ascended to becoming one of my favorite games of all time. Love seeing stuff on it, and this video was absolutely exceptional. You earned yourself a sub for sure! :D

19:16 as an ex "gangbanger" in lue of a better term. This story hit home. To change from revenge to protection is quite frankly one of the hardest things I had to learn. Still learning. Thia game was way deeper than I expected it to be and I loved it.

The side quests were astonishing, almost all of them had their own stories and fleshed out the characters. And for some that weren’t as interesting they had bosses at the end. There were a lot of side quest bosses. In fact the greatest side quest was leif’s backstory. Im surprised that such lore and character development was not part of the main story. Also seeing everyone you helped after you beat the game was cool

Really wanna watch this but 6 minutes in and I realized this is something I gotta experience for myself. Definitely gonna comeback to it once I complete BF someday.

I'm honestly really glad someone did proper justice to Bug Fables. It breaks my heart that it's hardly talked about, since it's a game I hold very near and dear to my heart.

This sort of growth and evolution beyond the initial inspiring game/s is why so many of the most enjoyable indie titles have created their own resonance with the culture proper. They are not so much a return to old titles as they are continuing what such games might have become or experimented with if they'd kept going. Celeste's integration of the struggles of mental illness and the physical obstacles of a platformer serves as one of the most effective explorations of the topic I've seen in any game. Character journeys and difficult level design, both utilized for so many games prior are effectively woven together and make both more meaningful as a result. Hollow Knight, even within the crowded market of the 2D Metroidvania successfully manages to fully carve out its own unique lore while fusing Dark Souls elements with the gameplay without ever feeling too derivative. Even the lambasted Yooka Laylee arguably succeeds not with its initial installment, which feels like Banjo Kazooie games without the tight design, but rather with the sequel Impossible Lair. The latter release is the one that actually feels like its own game, with a a novel approach to overworld map exploration and in level abilities giving it a far more impressive depth than any of the big stages of its predecessor ever could. BF does the same thing, making a deliberate choice to evolve the lore, character,s and even battles to a level beyond what the Paper Mario titles were ever willing to do. It goes from being the third Paper Mario to the first Bug Fables, in the very best sense of that phrase.

"People connect with the things they like. They seek out more of what they like; and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with this. However, it does mean that we tend to crave more of the same. More of what we like and if we're not careful, we tend to become complacent in simply having the thing we like again without examining why we like that thing in the first place; or expressing any interest in seeing those ideas grow." Not the case for Paper Mario. They only let those ideas grow for a single game, Thousand-Year Door. From the Wii, onward, they never built on top of TTYD; but gutted so many core-aspects, which caused a whole host of problems. Removing the XP-system removes any incentive to getting into combat; and the mechanics for it have become too tedious to deal with, especially since the attacks are finite. Not to mention the lack of any altered quirky characters made of different Mario species. I love Bug Fables because Nintendo (if we are to believe those developer interviews) are Matt Groening-levels of stubborn; too stubborn to see the forest for the trees.

Cool moment you had there with the final boss and Kabbu being the last standing. In my case, The Everlasting King was at 1 HP and chompy delivered the final blow...or the final bite. It was funny

Bug Fables has quickly skyrocketed up to one of my favourite games of all time, but if asked why i originally would have said "It's like Paper Mario but with more depth and a story that i liked more" and while that's a passable reason, i though it was only base level and their was more to it. With this i really understood why it mattered. Thank you, i hope you have a nice day and keep up the good work.

Vi is an adorable murder machine with hurricane toss and being buffed like crazy with Favorite one on Kabu and Leif having their empower badge.

Just gonna say this before watching, Bug Fables won me over with the idea that there is still more to come out of the Paper Mario formula. After watching, hard agree with every you said in the video. Also, it's starting to feel like your reviews are more think pieces than anything else. It's much more than looking at just the game, and you do a good job of speaking on that!

Some other fun positives in my books: - The game very much stands firm as a standalone experience - I hadn't played the 2 original Paper Mario games before I picked up Bug Fables - heck, my first experience with the franchise was Sticker Star, so already I wasn't off to a good start. I have since gone and played 64 some, it's been nice so far - The soundtrack is great, but I think the background music of the Dead Lands is one of the most notable. It does a very good job of putting you on edge, and I'd say the simple fact that the plodding, anxiety-inducing theme carries into battles really adds to that feeling. Also the giant genuinely scared the crap outta me when I first entered the area, there's like no indication of its presence unless you think to spy the area first and I see that as a big positive for the massive tonal shift the area brings about, that panic theme too, just j e z u s it's so delightfully unpleasant - My experience with the superboss fight against Team Maki just goes to show that if you can think of a strat, it [probably] can work. I've won against them twice, the first time was with a sensible strat... but then I went a little nuts and made a bunch of Abombinations (combination of Abomihoney and any explosive of your choice, heals a decent amount of TP but _decimates_ the field, dealing 10 damage to everyone) and talked to Patton to reallocate all my stats to make Kabbu as tanky as possible. And it worked! - Bug Fables also inherently has a bunch of replayability in the form of game modifier codes you can find in-game by 100%ing different things, and the codes can be applied at the start of a new playthrough. One code that I'm playing with right now disables EXP gain, so you're naturally stuck at level 1... but it's interestingly explained in-universe too, as Eetl notices your predicament after Snakemouth Den, assumes some magic force is at play, and helps you out, for a price of course. Instead of the usual level bonus choice, you get 1 MP each time you pay him (medals on that note are cheaper now, as anything costing 2 or more MP now only costs 1) alongside the static level-up bonuses at certain levels. I've gotten to chapter 4 so far with it!

This game was my first Paper Mario-like game that I’ve played.

I absolutely love the medal system in this game. I found a combination that made me literally invincible against all enemies that couldn't hit everyone at once, and felt rewarded for understanding the system as I cruised through the Cave of Trials and Rush Mode, almost totally invincible. For anyone curious, the core of the strategy is to attach both HP Cores and Life cast to Leif, and also have both TP cores in use. Taunt (preferably Deep Taunt to lower enemy defense) with Kabbu, and Bubble Shield Lite with Leif. Doing so uses 2 TP and 2 of Leif's HP per turn, but you regain 4 of each every 2 turns, essentially making the uses free. Use the remaining points to buff the hell out of Vi, as she's the only one who will be dealing damage unless you have Chompy. I used both Power Exchanges and an Antlion Jaws, as well as attaching Favorite One to Kabbu, meaning that Vi could regularly do 7 damage per turn with her regular attack, and close to 20 with Hurricane Toss. Just keep some healing items on hand in case you fight something with a spread attack, and some TP restoring items if you're impatient and want to use Vi's special moves, and the late game is totally trivialized.

Hearing you talk about simplified yet deep RPGs just makes me want a Mario and Luigi series retrospective

Your epilogue is something that fans of every abandoned/zombie franchise needs to hear.

I slept on this game hard. I thought it was a new release. Turns out it came out months ago and was just lost in the slew of dating sims and phone port trash that clogs the Switch store.

But of course. This game is transcending, overpowering, everlasting.

As a veteran Paper Mario player (as in I do challenge runs) I completely agree Bug Fables is the best of the Paper Mario series so to speak. As in identity. I also admired how it even took some of the areas lacked and fully utilized them. Though I disagree with the partners thing, if only slightly. I do agree having one out at a time limits character to an extent and the only way to have them all speak is through dialogue chains, but I also wouldn't call them completely irrelevant either, since all of them come together to form a singular goal in collecting the MacGuffin's being sort out. 64 they did fill more baseline with them barely speaking, whereas TTYD added more options to dialogue change, to me anyway the chapters were basically starting points to introduce partners as people. Lets take Flurrie for instance, she didn't have a arc persay, but what was established is that she's a retired actress and their adventure gave her the sort of thrill to pursue this during the ending wrap up. Nothing about this has to do with "development" so nothing really ended, it existed to establish these are people with their own lives who just happen to come together and share the same goal with Mario. There are character arcs sprinkled in, namely with Vivian's abuse plot acting secondary/progressing through the main story and concluding in Chap 8. But I never saw their introductory chapters as anything other than establishing who these people are as people, that was the appeal of recruiting these members. I can agree arguing how they didn't go all the way with it, but I don't agree with them being irrelevant at all. At least this is just my own lens on the matter. I do however Bug Fables improves on the partner system by allowing the trio to fully form due to being out at once. But its also typical for a party system in RPGs to be structured that way (not that its a point against it, its just typically how parties are formed in RPGs)

Never knew this game existed till now so I’m pleasantly surprised. I’ll have to give it a try

this game is amazing

After Bug Fables, I’m really just looking for more modern indie or AAA games to fulfill that same casual but deep RPG spot in my life

**Spoiler** **Spoiler** The last chapter/Dead Lands is probably the most engaging final level of a game I've ever played. The horrid creatures mixed with the music and atmosphere, the terrified characters and their dialogue, ah man what and amazing final chapter!

So, my strategy is what I called "Bee-O-Ken" or "Kaioken Vi" All damage up, no poison as it took too many badges. Armor Pierce, Damage up, Power Exchange and and Damage when health is critical. This one is important, and I'll mention why in a bit. The rest went into Kabbu having Reflection, Meditate and Prayer medals so he gained like 2TP, 2 Defense and 4HP every time he skipped his turn and as much defense as my tp could muster. He also had life cast, so his taunts were literally free since he would heal back the damage he was going to take regardless. In my level up, I put *every* point into Medal Points (MP) in order to have this be as effective as possible. I also gave Vi one extra medal called Hard charge, and this is what made the game go from Hard mode to Oneshot. The strategy went mostly like this, and my weakness ended up becoming AoE due to Vi's risky health. Kabbu would be able to get 2 turns, taking a turn from Leif. Vi would use hard charge while Kabbu would taunt and then wait to gain all of his meditate, mana, and defense buffs. Next turn, Vi would just destroy everyone with whatever she needed. Single target? Tornado. Aoe? Ice ball. Drop an HP regen item on her and she will just basic attack until she's at ~6 hp and then back to Kaioken mode. The trick is to make sure that when you use Hard charge, which costs 5 hp from the user but gives you a +3 attack boost for the next attack, that she goes into critical. That's why I never increased her health past 9. If she ended up dying, Kabbu would just use his own life to restore hers through his Pep talk. This strategy literally allowed me to beat the secret boss without using a single item.

My Stratege in the end was to hard Carey with Kabbu by Putting him in the Front Position and equipping him with the berserk, Power Exchange, and Front Support while giving him all damage and Defense Upgrades. When Leif nie empoweres him you can abuse the Frozen Drill move From Leif to do about 30 Damage within one attack

as soon as you showed gameplay footage of the combat I thought "DANG this looks NOTHING like the team build I ran" and I got excited because I knew you would talk about it the combat is honestly terrific in this game, I haven't found a traditional RPG that so perfect mixes twitch reflexes, strategic forethought and team-building and on-the-fly decision making like this also making Vi my tank AND damage dealer was really stupid and fun

Bug Fables is the greatest game ever made. And I’m saying this as someone who didn’t grow up with a ton of paper mario asides from the first half of super paper mario. This game is just genuinely so amazing

Bugs vs paper That's a battle I never thought I would ever hear before.

>Bugs going back to their primal instinct after being given sentience by a mysterious force. >Ant queen's mask. I smell hollow knight.

I'm so glad you pay so much time to elaborating on the world building of the game. So many reviewers tend to write off the Bugness, when the world building and how centric it is around the characters being bugs is central to the game. Every single ant you meet in the game is a female except for one, because male ants in real life specifically only exist to mate and then die (the one you do meet is probably not interested in fulfilling that purpose for other reasons though). Similarly almost every single Bee you meet is female, because it's explained that male bees all live in the Queen Bees personal chambers and it's implied they aren't even permitted to leave or do anything beyond their function in the hive. The only male bees you do meet are implied to not really be FROM the bee hive kingdom you visit, but are "from the north." The Termite Kingdom has a king and queen, like termites in real life. And the fact that the Wasp Kingdom is ruled by a King when in real life Wasps are just as matriarchal as bees is actually the set up to a minor late game twist. The entire story for Lief and the zombie type enemies you encounter are based around cordyceps fungus, something the game NEVER EXPLAINS so you need to know that that's a real life thing that effects real life insects to have insight into those enemies and that character story. The game being about bugs is incredibly relevant, and a lot of people do the game a disservice by writing off or dismissing those aspects as an aesthetic choice.

TTYD is one of my favorite games and Bug Fables scratched that itch that Ive had for a long time. I have given up on Nintendo continuing Turn Based RPG Mario for awhile, because I know devs like these are carrying the torch onward! I hope to add my own game into the mix one day, a RPG inspired by my favorites over my life time. (Now Including Bug Fables.) I hope at some point we find a different name for Paper Mario inspired games. Ive been calling them Small Number RPGs though that isnt quite as catchy. Thanks for another great video KingK, I was hoping you'd get around to this one. And it sounded like you had some well deserved fun with it!

We should just call the Paper mario games old bug fables games at this point

I admit after playing for a while I got pretty demotivated to go back to bug fables after getting stuck in a hard side boss (partially my own fault for choosing hard mode but I'm stubborn) but now that you've shown how hype the story seems to get I'm pretty excited to go back to it!

I’m really sick of people calling Bug Fables a “Paper Mario clone” and being too stubborn to leave TTYD and try something new. I really hope more developers are inspired by Bug Fables to make their own “revival” games, since there are a myriad of great game concepts that never got time to grow.

My experience with the first two paper mario games was getting stuck on one singular paper plane gap in boggley woods before I was even 6 (I'm 20 when i type this) and it quite honestly made Bug Fables all the more fresh of an experience for me. Fresh off the heels of defeating the Wasp King, I'd quite honestly call Bug Fables one of if not my favorite RPGs, right alongside Bowser's Inside Story. The gameplay was constantly making me feel like either an all-powerful genius or an actual ant fighting for his life up a water stream, while the cast of funky little creepy crawlies had me in tears more times than I'd like to admit, in both definitions.

TTYD has easily been in my top 5 since 2005 when I played it, and Bug Fables brought me back to that feeling. With all the excellent design choices and polish, I'm amazed there hasn't been more attention on it. I've even been tempted to make a video myself, tho I wanna wait for 1.1. Thanks for making this, KingK. I could sing this games praises for hours, and I'm glad you love it too! Edit: Ha! Just got to the part where you said it made you feel like a kid again too! 😁

I can't believe you're doing a video on this. I'm glad people are getting the word out there. I fell in love with this game so much that I decided to speedrun it. Fantastic game! I can't wait to see what you have to say.

There’s a lot to be said from the lore of Bug Fables. For example, the Lore Books imply that a nuclear explosion caused the Day of Awakening, describing it only as “a bright light”. The bugs have absolutely no information on humans, who have clearly abandoned the area long ago. The Crystals the bugs draw energy from can actually be piezoelectric or thermoelectric materials humans left behind. Even the Everlasting Sapling can just be exaggerated fungi, like how some mushroom species are potent stimulants while others transform bugs into plants. It’s not an accident that Lief’s core is, as Kabbu states, based on experimental Cordyceps trying to mimic the power of the Everlasting Sapling.

It took me 3 years to finally get around and download Bug Fables, finishing the main story around 56 hours. It's all thanks to you I discovered the game and managed to complete it. I had lots of fun (and frustration) but glad I finally did it.

I had a completely different experience with the telescope. When I first played through the game, I kept joking to myself that it's probably just someone's backyard, that the Lost Sands are just a sandbox, the Giant's Lair is probably just a shed, the Metal Lake is just a puddled formedby a leaky pipe, and so on. When I got the telescope, I realized I was pretty much spot on, and started laughing my ass off.

Seeing this video made me start the game back up before I got even six minutes in to this essay. I basically hyperfocused on it for a week straight and I beat it tonight. Probably one of my new favorites ever; thank you so much for gushing about why it's great!!

Bro the whole sandbox thing you described there. You do an excellent job explaining the feeling in all games. Just going silent after bitching as your lead up was genius. Let the viewer somewhat experience what you did playing. Well done

In many ways, I love how Bug Fables takes the Paper Mario formula and puts its own spin on it, but that doesn't mean I don't want another Paper Mario-style game set within the Mario universe. Exploring aspects of Mario's worth that mainline Mario games don't is part of what I initially loved about the first two Paper Mario games (and to a lesser extent Super Paper Mario). Even still, Bug Fables is more than a worthy successor to that legacy.

Honestly, playing bug fables right before origami king let me enjoy the latter much more. I have crazy amounts of nostalgia for ttyd, yet I can say confidently that bug fables is even better. It’s nice to know there’s people out there who cared about it enough to make something better. I used to think of how I’d make my own version of paper mario, even before I heard of bug fables. Personally my favourite part of ttyd is just showing off in front of the audience. Not taking damage (and sometimes even damaging the enemy) with precise button inputs and doing those fancy stylish moves, I love it. If I somehow learn to make games I’d focus on that...

Haven't played this game ever, but what bugs me the most (pun intended) is the guy named Lief isn't the guy that looks like a leaf.

Great video Mr. K! Thousand Year Door is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time (and depending on the day, my favorite game of all time period). I didn’t have an N64, so it was my first Paper Mario experience. I went back and played 64 a few years ago on the virtual console and while I enjoyed it enough, I can’t say that it lived up to the hype for me. After years of hearing it spoken about alongside TTYD, I expected something different. I went in knowing that it was an older game and the first in a series so I didn’t expect it to be on par with TTYD in terms of scope and polish, but I did expect it to have the DNA of what made TTYD so special to me, which it really didn’t at all. The thing that stands out most to me about TTYD is the atmosphere. It’s the locations and stories and characters, it’s the look and sound and music. It’s not a “dark and edgy mature” game, but it does have a unique “grit” to it that makes it stand out. I mean come on, one of the first places you see in the game is a dingy town square WITH A GALLOWS RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE. In a MARIO GAME. There’s so many example of things that are so unusual for the source material, and just flat out unusual full stop that really makes the game feel so incredibly unique and special. I remember things like the murder mystery train section with great fondness, I remember getting a smart mouth (nameable) baby Yoshi in a dingy arena locker room and then proceeding to join a wrestling/fighting tournament with Mario taking up the mantle of the “Great Gonzales” (and if anyone reading this hasn’t played the game, yes, it’s as weird and wonderful as it sounds). And by the way, I haven’t played these sections since the game released when I was a kid. They lodged themselves in my memory back then and haven’t left since. 64 had none of this special/unique/weird atmosphere in my opinion. It felt safe and sterile. I didn’t care for the look either; it really felt like it was lacking in character and charm. All this to say, I was instantly interested in Bug Fables when I first heard about it and was pretty blown away playing it. It did so much right and you covered those things so well in the video so I don’t need to rehash that. But I do have to say, I feel like the one area that it didn’t meet or exceed TTYD was the environments and strangeness. For me, it sat between 64 and TTYD in terms of atmosphere. It was nowhere near as sterile and bland as 64, and did create a much better atmosphere and world, but it also was nowhere near TTYD in terms of keeping you on your toes with truly unique environments and scenarios. I know that creating a ton of unique a different environments takes a lot of time and money and the fact that an indie team was able to accomplish what they did is absolutely remarkable. Now that the game has been out and gotten so much good press, I hope that we’ll see a sequel someday that can crank all of this up to 11 and maybe, just maybe, blow Thousand Year Door out of the water. If anyone can do it, these developers can. In my eyes, they made a modern classic. Also, I have to take a second to give the composer a shout out. The. soundtrack is so good. Termite City’s theme? Perfection.

Dude, when I first played this game it was because I thought "this seems like a cool Paper Mario type of title" but it does so much more and better and I hope the world of Paper Mario fans gets to see this video because the game is so good and it deserves more attention. This game is one of the best games I've ever played, and KingK sums it up so perfectly. Thank you for making videos like this. PS I originally got into your videos watching your Zelda Retrospectives and now I watch every video I love your channel and the time and effort that you put into your videos.

I've honestly wanted to make this exact video with almost all of the same exact points lol. Bug Fables is amazing, and I'll admit it took me a few days of hard pondering, but I eventually arrived at the conclusion that this game was better than Thousand Year Door, and I can't stop recommending it to all my friends whenever possible.

Oh wow... i gotta try this out. Someone was praising this on twitter the other day but i had no idea what it was and they werent describing it. This looks like the paper mario fix ive been craving since i last played thousand yr door.

It's crazy how I grew up as the paper Mario games came out, but never played a single one before, still to this day. Although I got Bug Fables day one on Switch lol. The art style reminded me of a more pleasant Hollow Knight, and I'm a sucker for turn based battle systems. Honestly, this is is in my top 5 favorite games I got this year. Which is saying a lot since there have been a huge amount of great games to come out this year. The cheerful music, fun battle system, extremely likeable and deep characters, a great story with plenty of twist, varied towns and areas, the crazy amount of dialogue that always changes (even for random NPCs). It all mixes together to create a masterpiece of a game. It's just unfortunate how many people write this off as a Paper Mario clone, or being unoriginal, because that is simply not the case. Sure it has that thin/flat art style, but beyond that the game is entirely its own beast. I really feel like the game will pick up more traction from people as time goes. Since it's more or less a sleeper hit, it's just going to take a bit longer for Bug Fables to get the spotlight it deserves :)

Thank you, King K. You really put into words why it is that I love Bug Fables so much and why I think it's a model for retro revivals going forward. Not only does it ooze charm and passion, it really understands what made its inspiration great and how to take that to the next level.

I didn't expect that last-chapter analysis of what being a sequel truly means to move me to tears, but it did. Another amazingly well-written video from the king!

0:18 Thomas Edison invented the Lightbulb Trailblazers 2:39 Paper Mario will never truly die 4:44 No shackles, more creative freedom 5:51 A Sandbox 6:45 _The Giant's Layer_ 8:43 Termites 10:17 Sidequests and backtracking 13:12 What are they asking for? 15:46 The Bug Trio 17:29 Screen Time Bump The Realist Bee Vee The Honorable Kabu Reserved Leif 18:53 Fighting, Forgiveness, Protection, Denying Revenge 20:56 Resurrect The Queen to save The Kingdom? 23:39 Kindness works 26:22 *Gameplay* 27:13 HP, TP, MP 28:55 Losing to a boss 30:45 Super Medal Combination

I think what strikes me most about this game is how they absolutely NAILED the difficulty. It's not exactly super easy, and requires the player to learn action commands and block timings, but otherwise it's fairly lenient and allows plenty of experimentation with medals and whatnot, and honestly it does taper off if you really invest in the side content and really throw together a good build with medals, to the point where I was absolutely demolishing story bosses with Vi's Tornado Throws and Needle Pincers and had to ban myself from using Empower against the final boss until I realised he could heal, however the optional content is still a very capable challenge and I won't lie, I look upon the Hard Mode and Hard Hits medals in my inventory with fear. It's the perfect form of difficulty, where it's lax enough for new players to get into yet has the potential to be punishing enough to give paper mario veterans and overall video game masochists one hell of a challenge. And I think that's weird since I usually don't care about difficulty unless its particularly hard at which point it puts me off a game pretty quickly, and there's so much more to the game. It's pretty clearly not a huge budget game yet has everlasting love put into it. It looks wonderful, has brilliant storytelling, fantastic, surprisingly complex character writing that shows a lot of emotional maturity despite its lightheartedness and kid-friendly presentation and it boasts a PHENOMENAL soundtrack that will stay stuck in my head for ages, and yet what sticks out to me, lord of the filthy casuals, is how well balanced the difficulty is. A testament to just how well they did in that regard, perhaps. Also I actually really like the idea of Leif having they/them pronouns, not because they're NB but because they're literally two people rolled into one.

Came back here to recall the Cheese Battle Strategies you mentioned somehow vaguely in my mind and stayed for the ending that inspired me once again.

This game, outside of the pitifully small amount of HP offered by level-up, is extremely well balanced in terms of customization. I created a build for my team that was indestructible through Leif's barriers and Kabbu's taunt, and could deal a ton of damage every turn through Vi being given every damage-boosting medal in the game. The downside? It burned through a crazy amount of skill points every turn; it couldn't handle attrition.

When I first read the title of the video, I figured you were over stating the game, I had become a Paper Mario fan in the Summer of 2020, and started with TTYD, a game that clicked with me after so many years of it sitting on a shelf after my younger self not understanding it. It was a magical experience, and while I enjoyed all the later games in the series, aside from Sticker Star. None of them hit the same way TTYD did, not even 64. So when I first heard about Bug Fables and how good it was, I was still skeptical if it could truly transcend TTYD. I got it on Christmas and played it all morning, and I fell in love with it. Never before have I ever been so invested in a games world, or it's characters. Hell I was more invested in it than that of my favorite books and movies! it seems to take nearly everything that worked in Paper Mario and make it even greater! It innovates and does things with the formula that advance it to further greatness that TTYD could only dream of. If I thought Ttyd was a near masterpiece, consider Bug Fables not only as a phenomenal game, but a true masterpiece in the realm of art as a whole

Goosebumps on that Kabbu finisher, that must've been great to experience!

When I did leif's side quest it was such an amazing realization and why Leif is blue, that being he's technically a corpse. Incredible.

Cant believe you didn't mention Spy Card smh

I love that you saved essentially the best track in the game for last. Spuder's a great song, and this is a great video. Thank you for your time and effort on shining some light on this tiny, but great, gem. 😊

I'm playing this game for the first time right now (got to the bee kingdom) and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised by the story and dialogue. Not award winning by any means, but it's adorable and charming. I wasn't expecting much, but it's been delightful so far.

I just finished Bug Fables and it is undoubtedly the best Paper Mario game. My favourite battle strategy was danger poison Vi turn passes to Lief, Lief uses hard charge and then turn pass back to Vi with the medal to transfer buffs, then Vi just destroys everything. Highest damage I did was 70 damage in one turn. Beat the boss of chapter 6 in two turns.

I got the game on Switch during the E3 sale, the day before it ended too. I heard it was basically "Paper Mario", so I figured why not? I played and beat it (just today too), and I must say it's a new favorite game for me. It really is more than just a "Paper Mario" game, it really is it's own thing. I fell in love with all the characters, How Vi, Kabbu and Leif just play off each other feels like these people were friends for their entire lives, but literally just met. The fight system was cute and fun, the medals added more to it (I am forever grateful to everyone's "weak stomach" strategy), the story is fantastic. The Music. My god the music is some of the best I've heard in a video game, Spuder's theme is one of my favorites. Some of the puzzles were a bit annoying, especially those involving freezing and switching characters in a timely manner. Still though, it's an amazing game that I would recommend to any RPG fan out there who enjoys a good time, it's simple, but a joy to watch how everything unfolds.

Crisbee is actually a dude.

I’m so glad you introduced this game to me. Just finished it this week and I still keep thinking about it 5 days later. I can’t get it out of my head. Also never played paper Mario but trying TYD now

Great review! I really ought to get back to this game. Although when you said there would be some spoilers I didn't know there would be ALL of the spoilers ^^;

Not sure if this game has any of the broken badge combos as in TTYD; however, it's fairly well known that Quick Change is the most powerful badge in TTYD since it let's you swap out partners without taking a full turn. It doesn't really seem that powerful at first, just very convenient until you start to realize there are some quirks of the battle system that never accounted for the ability to swap out partners at instant speed. Since Quick Change allows you to swap out partners without taking a turn to do so, you can willfully let one of your partners go to 1 HP and equip them with Power Rush P and Mega Rush P, which gives an attack bonus of +8. Another quirk of the swapping system is that stat buffs that last for X turns don't count when your partner is swapped out. Since swapping out doesn't take a full turn anymore, you can buff the stats of one partner and swap them out before the turn ends so that their stack buff counter doesn't tick down. This gives you a partner with effectively +11 attack (possibly more if you stack the buffs). Then, if you recognize that multi-attacks buff multiple times (jumping twice at +3 doubles your buff) and go for the multibonk attack (which lets you jump as many times as you can hit the action command, with each attack doing 1 less damage than the last with a min of 1), you can effectively pull off 60 damage in a single attack with a chain attack of 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I think the cap is 14 attacks for a very skilled player. So while Paper Mario TTYD wasn't *hard* per se, a skilled player could definetely break the badge system with only a bit of thought and observation.

Figuring out Vi poison build was amazing. I think it was around mid to late where it finally came together, and everyone just melts!

While I didn’t enjoy Bug Fables as much as TTYD, I’d by no means call it a bad game. It is in fact incredible, and the fact that I prefer TTYD more so comes down to personal preference than anything else. While I do have a lot of issues with the game, the fact that it’s even as amazing as it is in the first place should be considered a triumph, and it’s proven to me that Moonsprout games understands so much about what made those first two games so great. In the process, they created one of my favorite indie games and one of the most solid RPGs I’ve ever played, and while it isn’t one of my favorite games of all time, I’d say the 32 hours I spent within the game’s world were quite worthwhile. In case this video and others like it haven’t convinced you, if you’re a fan of classic Paper Mario, you HAVE to check this game out.

25:39 could be a poetic ending… or it could be the fact that you gave him 9 more HP than the others lol

This game is criminaly underrated.

I’m so happy you made a video on Bug Fables! I saw your video on Origami King after I beat it and went straight into playing Bug Fables right after. This game is perfect in so many ways.

Oh shit that final boss kill. I can just imagine the difference between the characters in that moment if they survived with one health. Kabbu: You may control all the fire in the world, BUT YOUR FLAMES ARE BUT A WICK AGAINST THE FLAME OF OUR FRIENDSHIP. Leif: Such fearsome flames, all the more terrifying to see them burn with such a sickly hue... but not even those flames will melt the ice around your heart. To a bug who has grown cold to the needs of the world, let me show you what the cold can really do. Vi: You think you almost got me?! Well you're wrong! *I HAD A MILLION HP! WASN'T EVEN CLOSE!*

>Starts video >Sees gameplay >Shuts off video and buys game >Drops 30 hours into game >Comes back to finish video and leave a like for showing me this gem

Bruh, I took All BP (because I knew how powerful it was in Paper Mario), and dumped EVERYTHING into making Vi stronger. I was dealing 35 damage per turn, and over a hundred per round. I *literally* melted bosses before they could get in an attack because, by the time it was their turn... they'd trigger "Phase 2" (which generally isn't a damaging attack) and I'd be able to do another 100+ damage again. It was VERY hard at the start, but WHOO BOY, at the end the only things that were tough were the normal enemies in the Deadlands. FANTASTIC game still.