A surprising late-game release in 2019 has fans of the long-dormant Paper Mario series talking up a storm, that game being Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling released earlier this week for PC by Moonsprout Games and Dangen Entertainment.
Bug Fables stars a trio of plucky adventurers in the kingdom of Bugaria looking to find the long-sought-after treasure of the Everlasting Sapling, which is said to grant everlasting life to whoever eats one of its leaves. The three characters are Vivi, a young bee who wants to prove herself just as useful as her older companions, Kabbu, a stalwart warrior of a beetle with great insight on many aspects of life and a solid code of honor, and Leif, an ice-mage moth shrouded in mystery and possible royalty.
It cannot be stressed just how much Bug Fables borrows and imitates from the Paper Mario series. From the button prompts, to the types of collectibles, to the combat and aesthetic design, it is all highly reminiscent of the classic Mario side-series. Many fans of the original series may revel in this, as the current state of Mario related RPGs is questionable, with Paper Mario having seriously diverged from its original style with recent installments, and the Mario & Luigi series’ original developer AlphaDream no longer in business, it might be relieving to see that some developers are willing to take up the task with gusto. For those unfamiliar with any of the aforementioned series’, they share a number of similarities but are namely defined by their strong, often light-hearted and comedic writing, colorful 2D aesthetics, and unique twists on adding extra layers of interactivity to traditional turn-based combat, all of which Bug Fables has in spades.
Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is available now for PC, and will be coming to Nintendo Switch and PS4 in the future. You can watch a trailer for the game down below:
Greyson Ditzler is a freelance writer, aspiring author, and YouTuber. He loves games of all kinds and is always looking for something new and interesting to try. When he isn’t writing you can likely find him speedrunning Donut County or trying to convince his friends that Danganronpa is actually really cool. He can also beat the first world in Super Meat Boy without dying while wearing oven mitts.
