LP Beach

It's a game with the good kind of bugs! Let's Play Bug Fables

"The Paper Mario you've been waiting for [...] This is Paper Mario for grown-ups." -Arlo

"Bug Fables transcends Paper Mario." -KingK

Did you know that if you talk to an old man, then surf up and down the coast of an island halfway across the world, you can fight a block of glitchy static and multiply your items by 128? Of course you did, we all shared bug fables by word of mouth on the playground. Wait, I'm being told I'm getting this wrong, that's not what this LP is about? (I'm so sorry.)



Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling is an independently-developed, small-numbers RPG (or, in simpler terms, Paper Mario clone) set in a world of anthropomorphic insects. Developed by Moonsprout Games and published by DANGEN Entertainment, it was released on PC in November 2019 and consoles May 2020, after a successful crowdfunding campaign and over four years of development. The consensus among people who've played it is that the wait was well worth it; I'm inclined to agree with them, as this is one of my favourite games ever (maybe even my absolute favourite). Never mind the comparison to Paper Mario (though obviously fair, Bug Fables never tried to hide its inspiration), this game is just a really excellent JRPG-style experience all around, with a fleshed-out world and well-realised characters. Why did nobody think to use social insects as fantasy races before this?

Here are links to various places you can buy the game, if you want to play along. In my opinion, it's a great value for your $20-25 (this game is packed with content; my first playthrough ran over 50 hours, and it's very replayable).

Itch.io--Steam--Nintendo Switch--PS4--Xbox

(The itch.io page also has a free demo you can download, though it's an outdated build of the game. It doesn't run as smoothly as the release version and some mechanics were changed, but if you're on the fence about buying the game, try it out!)

The devs also have a Twitter and Tumblr. Nowadays, they mostly post fanart.

Introduction and Motivation:

I was something of a latecomer to Bug Fables, actually. I hadn't followed the crowdfunding or development history; I learned about the game from the Paper Mario: Master Quest LP thread on SA, and didn't get around to playing it until last April. Despite its popularity within the niche community of classic Paper Mario fans, and its general success, I still think this game deserves wider exposure.

Why do I want to LP this game? Plenty of other people (including but not limited to Paper Mario experts Kappy and Fatguy703) have already done video LPs on Youtube and several of those are quite good. I may have watched a lot of them. I think it deserves to be LPed in screenshot style, and I haven't seen one of those yet, so I figure there's a niche where I can still meaningfully contribute.

In addition to having a well-designed and strategic battle system, this game is very well-written and charming, and has excellent worldbuilding and characters. I want to show off as much of the text as I can in a single playthrough (trust me, there's a lot of it!). I seem to remember the developers saying they viewed the amount of text as overindulgent and were surprised how much players actually liked it. I will try to keep things organised such that you can read what interests you and skip what doesn't, to the best of my ability.

This is one of those games that just gets better and better as it goes on (the developers definitely improved in writing and design skill over the course of the 4+ years they worked on this game, and the early content seems to have been locked in before they really got into their stride); some people find Chapter 1 a bit dull, but I promise it's only upward from there. This isn't a perfect game, and I do have some minor critiques here and there, but it's damn good and it's worth playing if you like this genre at all.

Content Notes/Warnings:

This is a game about cartoon bugs. There are spiders in it. If you have arachnophobia, you might want to be careful.

Despite the cute art style, this game can get dark at times, dealing with issues of trauma and loss among other things. Nothing too excessive (IMO), but it's not green grass and sunshine the entire time, and you may want to know that going in.

There is a pair of recurring side characters (Mothiva and Zasp) whose dynamic comes across to many as emotional abuse. I don't think I can direct concerned readers to just skip certain scenes, either, because the issue is the overall dynamic that emerges more than any particular scene in a vacuum. The devs have stated they are intended to be a romantic couple, which suggests they might not quite realise how toxic a relationship they ended up writing. I'm not going to tell anyone not to read the LP or play the game because of it, but forewarned is forearmed.

Details for this LP:

This will be a 100% playthrough, completing side content as soon as it becomes available (more or less; I do have some exceptions in mind).

Please keep the thread friendly to unspoiled readers. Specifically, please don't spoil the story. Talking about upcoming mechanics, items, medals, strategies, etc. is fine (within reason) as long as it comes up naturally in conversation, but this game's writing is great and I'd like the LP to stand as a way for newcomers to experience it.

I will be playing on Hard Mode, with no other modifications. The developers have said that is the intended experience, and if you're playing along, I highly recommend doing the same for your first playthrough (you can switch off Hard Mode at will without losing any progress if it proves too much for you). This game offers a lot of difficulty options to customise subsequent playthroughs (including a built-in randomiser mode!), which I love, but I want to show off the baseline experience here. Once you get to know the game, the higher difficulties can be fun, but I think vanilla Hard Mode hits the sweet spot for a newcomer: challenging enough to make you pay attention and think, while not too overwhelming to be accessible.

I am playing on PC, version 1.1 (released on the game's one-year anniversary, the most recent revision as things currently stand). This patch added new endgame content, as well as making several quality-of-life and balance changes. I'll admit I'm iffy about some changes relative to the previous version (1.0.5); I was almost tempted to revert to that version for the LP. I'll try to point out differences when they come up, but overall I think this is the version to play if you're starting now. (Later edit: a few minor patches came out over the course of the LP, and I updated to v1.1.2 during the postgame. I would recommend playing the latest version, though you may notice a few minor discrepancies relative to the LP.)

I am using an Xbox 360 controller with the default control scheme, because that works for me. Any button prompts ingame will reflect that, as will buttons I mention in commentary (although I have a habit of calling the "Back" button "Select", I was a Nintendo kid). The game can also be played natively with a keyboard and will change the displayed prompts appropriately, and has fully customisable controls.

I am sourcing various icons (character portraits, items, medals, etc) and some data from the Bug Fables Fandom Wiki.
Music links will all be to the OST on Youtube
This icon is of Tristan's (the composer) ingame avatar, and will be used to indicate music links.

While I have some definite plans for this LP, there will be opportunities for reader voting about things like how I build my party or what strategies I use for certain encounters. More on this later as it comes up.

(This is also my first LP. I've been lurking/reading/commenting here for a while, it's about time I contributed something. If you have constructive criticism or think anything I'm doing isn't working, please don't hesitate to let me know. That said, as I'm still ironing out my workflow, don't expect a consistent update schedule for a while; please bear with me while I figure things out.)

But enough ado. Let's get started.

TABLE OF CONTENTS


Chapter 1
01: First Meetings
02: Snakemouth Way
03: Snakemouth Spelunking
04: Snakemouth Depths
05: Vicious Spider


Chapter 2
06: Meeting the Ant Queen (Part 2)
07: Cooking with Fry (Part 2)
08: Sidequesting in the Ant Kingdom (Part 2)
09: Golden Path (Part 2)
10: Golden Settlement
11: The Golden Festival (Part 2)
12: Festival Ceremony
13: Post-Festival Cleanup
14: A Pitcher's Worth a Thousand Words
15: Into the Golden Hills
16: The Sun is Also a Flower


Chapter 3
17: More Meetings, More Missions (Part 2)
18: A Study in Scarlet
19: Games Within Games
20: Sandbox Gameplay (Part 2)
21: Defiant Root (Part 2)
22: The Great Bugarian Bake-Off
23: The Queen on High (Part 2)
24: Lockdown (Part 2)
25: The Blob
26: Drone Strike


Chapter 4
27: New Complications (Part 2)
28: The Butler Did It, and Other Stories
29: Mother Mayhem
30: Chasing Cards
31: Metal and Paint (Part 2)
32: Victory is in the Cards
33: An Unknown Dungeon
34: Friendship Bites
35: One-Armed Bandit (Part 2)
36: Concerning Horns
37: Impostor Syndrome
38: The Magician and the Fool
39: Crossing the Streams
40: Tide Comes In, Tide Goes Out (You Can't Explain That)
41: Emergent Mysteries
42: Temple of Doom
43: The Mummy


Chapter 5
44: Bug is Weak to Fire (Part 2)
45: Follow the Leader (Part 2)
46: Unearthing Horrors (Part 2)
47: Truth and Reconciliation
48: The Hermit and the King
49: Maki the Mighty
50: A Bridge Too Far
51: Heart of Darkness
52: Too Angry to Die (Part 2)
53: Wasp Kingdom Sting (Part 2)


Chapter 6
54: Desperation and Diplomacy
55: Time For Reflection (Part 2)
56: Damsel(fly) in Distress
57: A Fog of Confusion
58: Lord of the Flies
59: Primal Screaming
60: Termite Territory (Part 2)
61: Colosseum Clash (Part 2)
62: Sidequest Smorgasbord (Part 2)
63: Subbing Out (Part 2)
64: Dancing With Danger (Part 2)
65: Team Snakemouth Goes to Prison (Part 2)
66: Security By the Books
67: Chekhov's Howitzer


Chapter 7
68: What Can Eternal Lie (Part 2)
69: A Chilly Reception
70: Through the Fire and Flames
71: Long Live the King (Part 2)
72: Dawn of a New Day


Postgame
73: Lore World Tour (Part 2)
74: Trials & Tangy Tribulations (Part 2)
75: Escort Missions and R&R
76: They Grow Up So Fast
77: Slack Off, Slack On
78: B.O.S.S. Me Around
79: Not the De-Bug Room!
80: What a Long Way We've Come (Exploring the Demo)(Part 2)
81: Fool Me Once... Fool Me Too Many Times (April Fools Gags)
82: Spy Cards Showcase(Part 2)
Final Thoughts and Wrap-Up

Miscellaneous Posts
Design Interlude: Fixing the Devourer
Design Interlude: Discussing Astotheles
Design Interlude: Hopeless Boss Fights
Design Interlude: Time and Ludonarrative Dissonance
Design interlude: Degenerate Strategies
Bonus: Menu Codes & Randomiser Mode Preview
Bonus: A Quick Look at Ruigee (Luigi's Challenge) Mode
Interlude: Welcome to the World of Pokémon

Appendix (Bugs may not have one but this LP sure does!)
Dramatis Personae
Bestiary (Chapter 1)
Bestiary (Chapter 2)
Bestiary (Chapter 3)
Bestiary (Chapter 4)
Bestiary (Chapter 5)
Bestiary (Chapter 6)
Bestiary (Chapter 7)
Bestiary (Bonus Bosses)
Mechanics & Skills
Medals
Items & Recipes
Spy Cards
Title Screen History

Fanart!

Bee smiley
(by vilkacis)


"We do not see the appeal of your 'robe and wizard hat'."
(by vilkacis)


"We'll be right back"
(by Leraika)


Look who finally stopped by for a visit! It's the Team Snakemouth Makeship plushies! (These are mine)


More plushies! More!


It's Tanjerin and Cerise!


And the full cast group shot!

01: First Meetings

01 - Bug Fables



(The title screen evolves over the course of the game. I'll be posting changes as I see them, and will edit the most current one into the OP, but this is what it looks like when starting fresh.)







That'll do.

02 - The Everlasting Sapling



Ahh, the land of Bugaria. A peaceful, prosperous place where many adventurous bugs gather. Although it wasn't always that way...



Lured by the promise of riches and lush fields, a young Queen visited these lands many moons ago. Together with her daughters and fellow ant servants, she established Bugaria's modest first settlement. Her people were happy, the Ant Kingdom flourished... And yet, the Queen's dream had still not been fulfilled. For she had heard of an ancient people, who safeguarded a treasure of unbelievable power. It was none other than...



The Everlasting Sapling! A plant which would grant unending youth and strength to any who ate even one of its leaves!

She searched, and searched... and searched... Alas, she never found it.

She entrusted her dream to the princess, before falling into a hard-earned sleep.



Determined to succeed where her mother did not, the new Queen rallied the people together under her cause. Opening the doors of the kingdom to bugs of all shapes and kinds, she attracted ambitious and skilled adventurers!

Her decree was loud and clear: "Find me the Everlasting Sapling, and you shall know wealth like no other bug ever has!"

With this, the Explorers' Association was founded, with its many members searching across the kingdom for clues and treasure. Even though, to this day, the sapling has not been found. But every bug dreams of one day claiming it for themselves...

03 - Where Adventurers Gather



(Before we get started, let's address the elephant beetle in the room. You might have noticed everyone has four limbs. The devs have actually commented on this; I don't remember exactly what they said, but essentially they tried to design them with six limbs at first and couldn't get it not to look awkward. They wanted everyone to walk upright and not look like centaurs, and couldn't find a place to put them on upright characters that didn't look weird. It's not that they didn't know, they just made a stylistic choice.)

We open somewhat in medias res, here, this green beetle and mantis swordsman are clearly in the middle of an ongoing conversation.



Despite many unfortunate incidents, tales of your people helped me keep my adventuring spirit alive.

Rest assured, Kabbu. They are not mere legends, but real history. This Explorers' Association, and all the explorers who risk their wings for glory, are proof of that.



While Kabbu and Maki are talking, this bee sneaks into the scene behind them and approaches the blue beetle in the background. She walks at a fixed speed, irrespective of how fast you advance the text.



Unproven!? Maki, I've bested many hardships in the north!

Or so you say. Your knowledge of our culture, and your passion for exploring are as true as my blade's edge, Kabbu.







I'M NOT A KID!



Hm? Well, if you insist.



After that bit of tutorial text, we are placed in control of Kabbu. We'll get to know him more in a bit, but first, since the game wants us to follow Maki and see what the commotion is about... let's not, and talk to everyone else in the room first. This game has a lot of situational dialogue, and if we don't talk to these people now we'll miss out on what they have to say.

First up are these two over here by the table.



No, he's just gonna cause a scene again. Like always.

This sort of thing occurs frequently?

Hey, didn't Maki ask for you? Don't make him wait, or I'll make you pay!

Gen, you're embarrassing me! You're not the head of his fangirl club!

Yes I am!



Now, to go upstairs. We have this charming wasp:

Greetings, explorer.





Kabbu asking "why am I even up here" might be one of my favourite lines. The game knows you're going to want to meander around, so it simultaneously rewards you for it and calls out how little sense it makes.

Last up, we have the orchid mantis behind the desk.



(Hm. I shouldn't disrupt his work.)

Okay, enough procrastinating, let's get back on task.

When we get Kabbu close, he moves into position automatically and this cutscene triggers.



This guy's calling me a kid, says I can't explore!

Shouting isn't going to change the rules, you child!

Shut it. It's not about age, it's about skill!
I'm Vi, the best explorer the Hive has ever seen! I'm not some random bee!

(By the way, since a lot of people find it ambiguous, her name is officially pronounced like "vee", it rhymes with "bee".)

An explorer bee?

Yeah. Got a problem? Saying bees can't explore? Expected honey and paint?



Silence, please. This guild of ours is no place for petty squabbles.

Look. I can't just give a permit to some bee. Much less without a partner. Teams should be a duo of explorers, you know?

I'm worth like four bees, okay!?



... Hey, Vi.

What do you want?



What, do I look that desperate? I don't even know you!

I have a promise I must keep, and for that I must explore. How bad could it be?



Wait, you two are just crazy! You won't last a second at Snakemouth!

I'll prove you wrong!



Now it's Maki's turn to hesitate, it seems.

No.
You are both, most likely, mere novices, ruled by your strong emotions...
I have no doubt that if you left today, you would return inside a bag.

Sir Maki. Although you outrank me in spades, you shouldn't underestimate me.
I... went through quite a bit to get here.

Yeah. Bugs like you that look down on others are really annoying!

Hmm. Very well. I shall test your resolve.

Test us, huh? Who named you king of this joint?





I accept your challenge! Vi, get ready!
Watch your own horn, I was born ready!

04 - FIGHT!



We get this nice animation of leaves flying in to cover the screen for the battle transition. The game has lots of different variations on this animation, changing to fit the area and the circumstances, but for now we'll be seeing these bright green ones.



Kabbu kindly offers to initiate the tutorial. I'm going to take him up on this for now.



Listen, then. We can both perform one action per round, be it attacking, using an item, etc.
We can power up our attacks by performing commands unique to each move. Watch this.

(This game doesn't have a catch-all name for these, so I'll be calling them Action Commands, ala Paper Mario.)

If I hold D-pad down long enough... I can power up my horn strike!



Holding a button? Lame. Look at this!
If I press A at the right time, I can power up my Beemerang!
A... beemerang?



Kabbu and Vi have each dealt 2 damage. Once you know more about the game's battle system, you might notice something peculiar about the numbers this turn; I'll explain in a moment. (It took me forever to catch this, I wouldn't have except I had to keep replaying this while troubleshooting recording methods.)

See, we're doing great!

Don't let your guard down, Vi. After our turn ends, the enemy's next!





Pressing A a bit before an enemy hits you reduces damage received!
With perfect timing, you'll reduce even more damage!

This is Bug Fables' version of timed defence. There are two overlapping timing windows; decent timing will reduce damage by 1, but if you hit the tighter window, that becomes a 2 point reduction. The game calls this a "Super Block". I am... not great at this.

This should seem somewhat familiar to Paper Mario players, though it's a bit different to the systems those games used. PM64 had a single block timing, and TTYD had two different buttons: A to block normally, or B to "Superguard", which had tighter timing but negated all damage and also counterattacked. While the risk-reward tradeoff could be interesting, that system was horribly unbalanced and I'm not sorry to see this game using something a bit more reasonable.

O-ow! What the heck?! You trying to kill us or something?





We should pay him back, tenfold!

It's time to use a skill! They're just like attacks, but you select them from the yellow flower!



Teamwork Points (TP) is this game's name for magic points. Think Flower Points (FP), in Paper Mario terms. Our team shares a combined pool, and right now we have 10 to work with.



This is actually a bad idea right now (though I'm going to do it anyway to show off how items work), because we started with one item and this will use it up. Vi has only taken 1 point of damage. Still, I guess it's good the tutorial covers items.





Here are Vi's skills. Right now, she has one: Tornado Toss, which costs 3 TP. Let's take it for a spin.



I messed up the action command a bit there, but hey, you can see what that looks like! Tornado Toss does multiple hits (one for each time we successfully press A). The damage starts at (Vi's attack - 1) for the first hit and decreasing by 1 on each subsequent hit. As long as the first hit did nonzero damage, the follow-ups will always do at least 1 each.

This move might not look like much now, but it has some serious potential.

Now it's Kabbu's turn. Let's look at his skills:



Kabbu also has one skill right now: Taunt. This costs 2 TP, and forces any enemy which is using single-target attacks to aim them at Kabbu. This also might not look like much now (Kabbu has 9 HP to Vi's 7, that's not exactly tank material yet), but as you might imagine, becomes very useful for a variety of strategies.

Instead, I'll do what the tutorial wants and have Kabbu use an item. Right now, we have this Crunchy Leaf:

A dry leaf. Has a satisfying crunch when bit. Restores 4 HP to an ally.





Maki attacks Kabbu this time, and I flub the block, so he takes 2 damage.

At this point, no more tutorial text is forthcoming, it just goes to the next turn. So I'll just have Vi and Kabbu use their basic attacks.





What gives? This time, Vi did 3 damage! Okay, it's time to explain the irregularity I mentioned earlier. Bug Fables has a positioning system in battle: the character in front deals 1 extra point of damage, in exchange for being targeted more often by enemies. (We'll discuss this in more detail once we get into some real battles.) But for some reason, this isn't the case on that first scripted turn.



Maki went after Vi this time, and I managed to get the Super Block! That's what that looks like. At the end there, you'll notice the screen beginning to fade out: this isn't a normal fight, and ends automatically after Maki's third turn.

03 - Where Adventurers Gather



Kabbu seems impressed.

You pass.



This reaction is great, I had to show the animation.

What?

You performed well enough. I could feel your desire to see the world through your attacks.
I am no one to keep you from your Explorer Permit. Eetl, you may grant it to them.
I get no say in this, huh?
...But Maki IS the Queen's Blade. Here, you can have it.



11 - Key Item!

And we get an Explorer Permit. This is our first Key Item and we'll have it in our inventory for the entire game.



Snakemouth Den, it lies to the west of the association. A simple path, although filled with danger.





Just as Maki might have told us more, someone shouts for him from off-screen.



My apologies, Kina.
Vi, Kabbu, I must be going now. As you can see, duty calls me. May you succeed in your mission.

Maki and Kina walk away. I guess he won't be telling us anything else for now.

What a weird bunch.

He ended up causing quite the scene himself. That fighting prowess... How many years must he have trained?

...So, uh. I'm Vi, I guess. From the Hive near the big tree.
Oh! I am Kabbu. I moved in just one moon ago, from the north.
Cool.
Indeed.



Well, this is awkward.

Um, Sir Maki said Snakemouth was to the west, right? Should we get moving?

Right! Yeah! Let's go right away! Don't fall behind, okay?

...



Something wrong?



I'm going to say no here, because that gets us the more interesting version of this exchange. (I'll show the alternative at the end.)

What!? You'd go there without knowing anything!? It's like asking to perish!

Shush, Eetl. Just say it.

Your goal is to find an ancient artifact that is fabled to be inside Snakemouth Den.
Many tried, but no one ever found it. Most never came back.
I don't know what the Queen wants with that, but she is very determined to find it.

We will find it. Don't worry.
Yeah! I'm on the case, after all!



05 - Chapter 1



Guess that's it for the prologue. Chapter 1 begins here. We're now given some more tutorial text:

Change the party leader by pressing (X)!
You can check your inventory, stats, and other things by pressing (START)!

Okay, let's have a look. First, here's what changing the party leader looks like. Now that Vi has joined the party, we're in control of her by default, and if we press (X) it will change which bug is in the lead (and therefore who we're controlling). Only the bug in front matters for purposes of platforming, contact with enemies, etc. This order will also determine our formation in battle.

Switching looks like this:



If you look over on the left side, a little half-transparent icon of the character's face shows up when we switch to them. It's a nice touch.

While the game defaults to controlling Vi now and whenever we reload a saved game, I tend to find myself preferring to walk around with Kabbu. For now, it won't matter much, but you might notice that in later updates.

We'll look at the menus later. For now, let's talk to everyone again.



You can be sassy at me if you want, but I was just worrying about you.
Give him some credit, Vi.
Exploring isn't a game. Many... have been lost while searching for treasure.
I know that! But we're not going to be one of those.
Even Maki thinks we're decent.
I hope his intuition is right.
As do I. Let's not be careless, Vi.
We'll make it back, don't worry.

Now let's go check in with Gen and Eri again. (Gen, Eri. Get it?)



(This icon appears over someone's head if you're close enough that pressing A will talk to them.)

Oh, Eri, why must Maki be so dreamy?
Have you gone mad, Gen!? He's so arrogant!
You tell her, Eri.
Pompous as he was, he was at least kind enough to test us.
Oh, no. He does that to everyone. You see this once a week.



Gen's text is dancing here.

Argh! That stupid, roleplaying wannabe gatekeeper! I'll show him!



Kabbu mad.

I shall challenge him to a duel to the death, our honor on the line!

H-Hey! You don't have to go that far!
Oh, um, he's just kidding! Right, Kabbu?
Err, yes. Of course. "Kidding". I was most certainly only jesting.
You better have been!
Let's just go, Kabbu.

I love this exchange, even if it's a tad out of character for Kabbu. He's usually not this bloodthirsty.

If we talk to them again...

Stay out of trouble.
And far away from Maki!

Now to go upstairs.



Greetings, explorer.
Hm. Good showing. Not many stand Maki's blade.
Why, thank you. I assume you've endured it as well?
Anyone who belongs to this association can say at least that much.
Woah. So everyone here is crazy strong!
Or they've found a reliable partner to carry them.
What? You trying to say something?
Not at all. If you're offended by it, it only shows your insecurity.
What's your deal!? You wanna fight!?



Heh. Good luck, you two. You'll need it.

If we try to talk to him again:

Let's go, Vi. It'll do you no good to get angry.
Hmph.

And finally, in the back, the guy with the ! thought bubble. (If you're playing along, don't forget about him! A lot of people seem to miss this.)



Uh, okay. Who are you again?
Excuse ya! I'm Artis, and I keep this place running.
Oh? Thank you for all your hard work.
Uh, yeah. Thanks.
So you two faced Maki, eh? Bet ya found it a tad too easy?
You know it!
Heh. I see you lot like challenge. One sec, I have this one thing... Please take it.



10 - Medal Found!

You got a Medal! These artifacts help you by giving different effects. To equip Medals, go into the Pause Menu by pressing (START), and select Medals and Stats. Once there, you can equip Medals to different party members using (D-pad Left) and (D-pad Right) to switch who you are equipping to. Medals cost MP to equip, be sure to check how many you have left!

What is this? A Medal?
Let's say it should make things more interesting for ya. The higher the risk, the higher the reward, as they say.
If you defeat any powerful enemies while wearing it, come see me, alright?
I won't say no to free stuff! You've got a deal!
Thank you for entrusting us with it! Take care, Artis.
Safe exploring, folks. Remember to check in every now and then.

If we talk to him again:

What're ya waiting for? Go explore! I gotta deal with the work coming in.

Okay, so a lot just happened at once there. Let's break it down. Artis just gave us our first medal of the game, and it's Hard Mode.

Medals are, essentially, equipment. We have a pool of Medal Points (MP) for the party (we start with 5), and each medal costs some amount of MP to equip. Medals can do all sorts of things, and there are 80 different types for us to find over the course of the game. If you've played Paper Mario 64 or Paper Mario TTYD, this should feel familiar: it's almost exactly the same as Badges and BP in those games (I fully expect to slip up and call them badges from time to time), though now we can choose who equips which medal.

Because Hard Mode is just a medal, you can put it on or take it off any time you want. If it ever becomes too much, or a specific encounter is giving you trouble, etc, you can always take it off, and then put it back on later if you so desire. You won't be punished for this at all. I like how willing this game is to let you make the experience exactly as hard as you want it to be at any given moment. (My only quibble is that, as Hard Mode is the intended experience, I think that would have been communicated better if it were the default and there was an Easy Mode medal instead. That said, I understand why they chose not to do that: psychologically people tend to be more comfortable saying "I opt out of Hard" than "I want Easy Mode", so maybe this way is better.)

Hard Mode changes a lot of little things (the wiki has a full list here). The short version is enemies usually have increased stats, and their resistances to status effects increase faster so they're harder or impossible to stunlock (more on this later once we learn about status effects). Most bosses' behaviours change, and they usually get at least one new attack.

And as Artis was hinting, there are also extra perks for playing Hard Mode. Every time we defeat a boss or miniboss with the Hard Mode medal equipped, we can come back and talk to Artis and he'll give us a new Medal. There are also achievements for beating each chapter boss in Hard Mode.

None of this is lost forever if you choose to play without Hard Mode, however. The medals will all become available for purchase in a certain shop instead, and you can make up the achievements in boss refights (which I'll discuss more once they become available). That said, a warning to PS4 and Xbox players: some people report only getting the ingame achievement if they do that, not the global system achievement.

Anyway, Hard Mode. Let's put it on.



Okay, this is a good time to show off the pause menu too. First off, let's check our inventory.



Here's our items. We don't have anything right now because I wasted the Crunchy Leaf during the Maki fight, but if I hadn't it would be here.



And our key items. We just have the Explorer Permit right now.



Now let's see our medals.



Hard Mode costs 0 MP, so equipping it doesn't cost us anything. Press A and...



Hard Mode shows up highlighted in orange, indicating that it is now equipped. This orange colour is because it's what I'll call a "global" medal, it doesn't need to be equipped to any specific bug. Some medals work like this; others need us to choose a bug, and we'll see what that looks like once we find one.

We can also press Y here to cycle through a few other screens: Equipped Medals (which shows only the medals we currently have on, instead of our entire supply), and then Skills (where we can see a summary of each character's skills). As we've already seen all the information that would be on those pages if we looked at them now, I'm not bothering to show them.



Next up is the Library. Let's see what this is...



Looks like we have our work cut out for us. These tabs are, from left to right: Discoveries, Bestiary, Recipe Book, Records, and Quest List. We'll learn more about all of these things later. For now, let's look at our quests...





And finally, there's the options menu.



I want to highlight one particular option here. "Mash Action Commands". You can change this between "Fill Bar" (which asks you to rapidly mash buttons) and "Sequential Keys" (it will display a button sequence which you have to match).





I'm going to be leaving this on the default, I don't have a problem mashing buttons, but I like that they give you a choice since this can be an accessibility issue for some people.

That was a lot of menus. Let's actually go outside now?

06 - Outskirts



Looks like the staircase up to the Explorers' Association is made of flowers. Isn't that cute? Anyway, there's something weird over to the left, let's go check that out?





We can't actually do anything with this weird mound of dirt right now, but I wanted to point out that it's here and we can get over to it. It's worth remembering for (much) later.

Now, let's get back on track, we saw someone with an ! over their head...

When we talk to him, before anything else, he... strikes the glowing yellow rock with a sword?





Huh? You REALLY don't know?

Just tell us why.



This one's a screenshot because I'm not sure if you'd have believed me if I transcribed it. That's... awkwardly worded, Levi.

This is an Ancient Crystal, correct? They're unique to this land.
They can store the record of previous travelers, if you smack them with something.
This crystal is yellow, so it will even heal your wounds!
You expect me to believe that!? All that awesome stuff for hitting a rock?
Heh. You are one of little faith.
Come on, Levi. Show 'em!







It is done.
W-Woah! It really works! This must sell for a fortune!
All you'll get for this crystal is prison time.
Only the Ant Queen can authorize placing these rocks in public spaces.
Even if you find one in the wild, they are too heavy to be carried by a single bug.
There goes that idea...
Still, their properties are amazing! Let's use them when we can, Vi.
Yeah, sure. Let's get a move on.
Best of luck!
...

Okay, so that's our tutorial on save points (I like how it's integrated with all of these world details!). Yellow ones fully heal us in addition to saving; blue ones only save. Good to know.

If we talk to them again, Levi doesn't have anything interesting to say (he just offers to help us save)

Care for some healing?
(yes) Very well. May the Queen guide you.
(no) Let me know if you need me to do it again!

I actually need to stop here and explain something, because this might seem a bit weird. Why is Levi hanging out here to save the game for us when we can just smack the crystal ourselves? Well, in versions 1.0.5 and earlier, Vi and Kabbu didn't have their field abilities unlocked yet, so they wouldn't be able to interact with the crystal. In v1.1, for some reason, they changed something about the field ability flags and they're unlocked from the start. So that's why it's like this.

Celia has some new dialogue, though:

It's nice of you to make friends and all, but don't distract us too much.
We'll be going on an expedition of our own soon, and we must prepare.
Hm. Best of luck, then.

Let's have a look around the area.



The path to the north is blocked off by fallen rocks, but there are some travellers here with... a pack snail? Carrying canned tomatoes? How cute.



If this isn't cleared soon, we will lose money! Get on with it, ants! This should never even happen!!!

Well, someone's angry. (These are the merchant caravan, but they're clearly not open for business right now.)



He seems a little more reasonable.

There's also this fellow.



If we try to go east, the way is blocked by more large rocks.





But the ants seem to have workers on this.

If we go west...



A sign helps us get our bearings.



The way south is blocked off too. Guess there's nothing else for it, let's go talk to the guard at the west gate.





We're prompted to show our permit here. Interestingly, if we press B, we can actually decline this:



But let's just show it and go on ahead.







Looks like the way is open, and we can head out on our journey to Snakemouth Den! ... next time.

In the meantime, here are a few tidbits from alternate dialogue choices we could have made.



Let's have Vi refuse Kabbu's help.







Interestingly, Vi deals 3 damage here! It looks like the problem is specifically with the scripted attacks during the other dialogue. Also, interestingly, saying "no need" here doesn't actually skip the tutorial, it just changes this first turn and the rest of it proceeds the same way as it did before.

I did take the opportunity to show off Kabbu's Taunt, though. Here's what it looks like:



Now, for the second thing. Let's see what Eetl says if we tell him we know what the expedition is.





Good luck out there.
Thank you. We will be back soon. I promise.

Much shorter this way.

Anyway, that's it for this update! Next time on Bug Fables, we'll set out for Snakemouth Den (actually leaving the first room of the game, good grief!) and see some real gameplay. See you then!

Ugh, I found a whole bunch of screwups after posting the first update. I've fixed them now; hopefully I got all the mistakes? Sorry about that...

This looks super cute!

02: Snakemouth Way

First off, I want to apologise for a bit of sloppiness in the first update: I intermingled screenshots from the two runs, and if you pay close attention to my HP and TP in the menus, you might notice things fluctuating weirdly. I'll try to be more diligent about this in the future. This is going to be a shorter update.

Also:

Junpei wrote: Fun minor fact: the name "Kabbu" is derived from a Japanese word for a rhinoceros beetle, 'Kabuto'.

Yes! I wish I'd remembered to mention this, so thank you for reminding me. It's really the perfect name for him, since a kabuto is also a warrior's helmet.

06 - Outskirts



When starting up, we spawn in close to the crystal we used to save.



Let's get back to business and head through the gate.



As soon as we go through, we see this little guy. Let's say hello?



When we get close, it sees us and starts trying to chase us. When it touches Kabbu, a battle starts.

04 - FIGHT!



First things first, this is a new kind of enemy and we don't know anything about it. Can we fix that?



Yes we can. There's a lot of stuff in the Strategies menu, but right now we're only concerned with one option: "Spy". It says that'll give us information about enemies, so let's see what happens.



Despite their adorable looks, they plague many fields and have no qualms about devouring crops.
Although weak and puny in comparison to me, their flying variation is troublesome, as I can't reach it...
I'll have to ask Vi for help.

We get a small dossier on the enemy (showing us its HP and defence), as well as some dialogue, which usually contains both flavour text and hints. Spy is, more or less, the equivalent to "Tattle" in the Paper Mario games. The difference is that in Bug Fables, every character can do it (so you no longer feel forced to use a specific character if you want to gather information), and they each have unique dialogue when they do, so they get a chance to show some personality.

These are Seedlings. These plant ball things are the most basic enemy of the game (essentially Goombas), and we'll see more variations on them later. So far all the bugs we've seen have been based on things that really exist, but clearly the game isn't limiting itself to those. Walking plant monsters!



Once we've spied on a type of enemy, its HP bar will become visible. The little shield icon on the left side of the bar is their defence (this was added in v1.1 and it's very convenient, it even updates to reflect temporary changes like buffs).

Anyway, now that we've done that, let's go on with the battle. This should be simple.





I knew you'd never forgive me if I didn't show the goofy animations you get when you fail the action commands, so I figured this was a good opportunity to show them since I could do so and still kill this Seedling:



Kabbu falls flat on his back.



And Vi trips and throws the Beemerang overhand.



07 - Battle Won!

The Seedling dies anyway, and when it does, it bursts into these little icons. These are... Exploration Points. Not experience points, Exploration Points. Sure, whatever. It's functionally the same thing: when we get enough of these (right now we need 100), we'll gain a levelTeam Rank. (I will probably still say experience and level.)





When we get back to the overworld, the enemy sprite spins around and dissolves. It also drops this weird blue thing, which I'll pick up. A counter in the bottom right corner appears and goes up. We'll find out what this is later.

One other thing happens when we Spy on enemies: their entry gets added to the Bestiary! Here's what that looks like.



It keeps track of how many we've fought, and how many we've killed (pretend it doesn't say 9 there, I obviously took this picture at the end of the update). When we open the entry, this is what we see:











The Bestiary is even kind enough to show us what Vi would have said if I'd had her spy on it, so I don't have to do that manually! We'll be collecting entries on everything, but this is the last time I'll have it in the middle of an update, I'll make an appendix for these soon.

Let's press on.



These rocks help us jump across this narrow stream. Unfortunately, I timed it a bit off and Vi fell right in the drink - which gives me an opportunity to show how the game handles this. It just respawns her behind Kabbu and keeps moving on as though nothing happened. There are no consequences. (If the bug in front had fallen in, it'd fade out the screen and reset our position, though with no other consequences. This game is pretty forgiving about things like that. Paper Mario used to ding the player's HP in similar circumstances, but this game doesn't let things deal damage outside of battles.)



It's another Seedling! Looks like this one can fly, like Kabbu hinted earlier. (Though you'll notice we can still see its HP bar: a flying Seedling is still a Seedling.)

Kabbu can't reach it, though. (See how the attack icon is greyed out? We can't choose it.) Oh no! There must be something we can do...



If I press B, the cursor moves to Vi and I can have her act instead! Her Beemerang knocks the Seedling down, and now Kabbu can finish it off.

Notably, switching to Vi this way doesn't change our formation, nor does Kabbu lose his turn. Our bugs can take actions in whatever order we want on any turn, irrespective of their arrangement. As you might imagine, this adds a lot of strategic elements to consider.

Anyway, I finish that battle.



Ask a friend who can fly or toss something at it to bring it down! Press (X) to switch positions in battle and attack!

That said, this sign tells us how to change the formation if we want to do that, so let's try that out against the next one.



If I press X (while all characters can still act), it will rotate my formation to put Vi in front. Now she's getting the damage bonus!



Our two characters' attacks are just enough to take out this Seedling again (notice Kabbu does 2 this time, because he's in the back).

I like how the design elements here are set up to encourage the player to learn the mechanics. Seedlings have 5 HP, which is exactly enough for Vi and Kabbu to kill in one turn if they both attack correctly. And the flying ones teach us to think about which attacks we're using when.





Now the Seedling encounters start having two of them. This means we're going to take some guaranteed attrition; right now there's no way we can output enough damage to kill both in one turn, even if we spend some of our TP on Tornado Toss. Better practice that blocking! (Especially since I don't have that Crunchy Leaf!)







Now I'll just finish off the second one. No need to show this, you know the drill by now.



That encounter was worth 14 EXP, 7 per Seedling. It's starting to add up!



That's all the enemies in this area accounted for, so let's move along.





More Seedlings are here.



This is another two-Seedling battle, this time one's flying and one isn't. You know the drill at this point, no need to show it.



Ooh, there's someone over there!



But let's check out this path to the south first.



Uh, yeah. I knew that.

Or not. The game won't let us go this way. This looks a bit weird because I had Kabbu in the lead, so it looks like he tries to walk off, then stops himself; this dialogue would've made more sense if I'd had Vi in front. Oh well.



A cutscene starts when we get close to this brown wood-borer beetle. Vi tried to walk past him, but Kabbu stopped and initiated the conversation

Hey! Kabbu! We're supposed to be adventuring! Snakemouth Den? Endless riches?
Sorry, Vi. I cannot ignore an old bug in distress.
First of all, name's Chuck. And I bet I'm younger than both of ya! But if you've gotta know...
I'm almost done arranging my cozy rest space for travelers going to Snakemouth Den. I just can't pull out this darn weed!
You call this cozy?



Oh, Kabbu.

...Look, will you help me or not?
I'm not doing any pulling. At least not for free.
Hm. Watch this, Vi. If I press (B) near small bushes or rocks...



I love how Chuck jumps for joy here.

Woah, nice!
Something like this is no match for my horn!
I'll be! You actually helped me! This made my week!
You've got a reward ready, right?



Another favourite of mine, I love these little sarcastic asides.

It's really, really not.
Hohohoh. No worries. Helpful bugs deserve gratitude! I ain't got much, but please take this.



Berries, so many berries!
Use 'em to buy something nice later, alright?
Thank you, we surely will. We'll be going now. Make sure to warn others of the danger!

This is the game teaching us about Berries. That's what those things we've been picking up after battles are (and we have 20 now with the 10 Chuck just gave us, or 21 after I grab that one that spawned when I cut the grass). These are money. We won't actually be able to spend any of these until after the Snakemouth expedition, though.



This is where Kabbu's horn strike would be unlocked for use in the field, in v1.0.5 and earlier. I've been refraining from using it prior to this, but now I'll feel free. (One nice thing here: as that text suggests, that alert will appear no matter who's in front, even though only Kabbu can act on it.)



In particular, there's this suspicious weed over here. When we cut it, something pops out.



This will be useful. (Also, it amuses me that honey restores TP, because Honey Syrup was the basic FP restoring item in Paper Mario. They knew exactly what they were doing. Honestly, it makes more sense in this context!)

Before we leave, we talk to Chuck again:

Good luck, ye two!

That's all he had to say.



In the next screen, there's this sign that helpfully explains how Spying works.



Cutting down weeds occasionally makes berries appear. Just assume I'll be doing this whenever I pass something Kabbu can cut, it's practically a reflex at this point. The weeds that have items in them (like that Honey Drop we found) are guaranteed to have those, and only once, but berries appear randomly.



Let's try out Kabbu's horn on this Seedling! It launches it into the air, and if we touch it after it lands...



Kabbu starts the battle with an extra turn! This is how first strikes work in Bug Fables. Hitting enemies outside battle will stun them, and if we touch them while they're stunned, the bug in front gets one bonus turn. Notably, it doesn't matter whose field skill did the stunning, it's the bug in front who gets the bonus. Kabbu should be able to kill the first Seedling by himself...





Wait, he only did 2 damage the second time? It was still enough to kill, but what's going on?

This is a mechanic the game calls exhaustion. Each time a bug takes an action, each subsequent attack they make that turn will be reduced in power by 1. That second action is still good, but it's slightly weaker than the first one. (It's tricky to see in screenshots, but a character with exhaustion will have sweat drops coming off them while they idle. I'll point it out if we catch a better view later.)

Anyway, the rest of that battle is nothing special.



Cutting down a weed over here yields another Crunchy Leaf. This is good to have, since my characters are getting a tad low on HP. Onto the pile it goes.



Let's move along. (Also, since we've got a clear view of it here, these little pier things extending over the void represent area transitions. And also are a huge Paper Mario reference, because this is the exact style used there.)



Looks like we've reached Snakemouth Den.

It doesn't look that scary, you know?
According to rumors I have heard, it is the grave of a thousand explorers.
Having ended countless journeys, many a song has been written about its dangers.
F-For real?
Its interior must be absolutely riddled with monsters and death traps. We must be extremely cautious.
Geez, way to sell it to me, Kabbu.
But the higher the danger, the better the treasure!
Hm. It's true that the artifact is likely to be inside. But are simple riches worth such a risk to you?
Stop trying to scare me off. Let's get in there!
(...I must make sure she stays safe.)



What's this? Logbook updated?



Looks like we've gotten our first Discovery. Let's check it out.





Charming. Sounds like a fun place.



I cut down some grass and find another of these suspicious dirt mounds. Still can't do anything about it, though. Hmm, what's this weird shiny thing I see behind us...



You found a crystal berry! These are rare items sought by collectors around the world. Maybe someone will trade rare goodies for them somewhere! You can check how many you have in the Pause Menu.



You can see our Crystal Berry counter in the bottom right corner. Also, we have 63 of the 100 EXP we need to level up, and we're up to 32 berries.

Crystal Berries are one of this game's primary collectibles, and there are 50 of them for us to find. They're more or less analogous to Star Pieces in Paper Mario, though thankfully in this game we'll never need to worry about those !@%*# hidden floor panels. It'll be a while before we find out what these are for, but you can probably already guess.



The healing from this save point is much appreciated, my HP was getting low enough to make me a little uncomfortable.



Next time on Bug Fables, we go spelunking.

FYI, I've edited some more music links into the posts for things like the little fanfares that play when you get key items, medals, or win battles, I forgot to do that earlier.

03: Snakemouth Spelunking

It's time to go into Snakemouth Den.

12 - Snakemouth Den



Walking in triggers a cutscene conversation.



Uh huh... Hey, Kabbu? Do you really have to comment on every small thing?


!!! I... I'm sorry.
H-Hey, don't look so sad! Err, how about this?
If I wanna know more about where we are, or about something or someone near us... I'll just tap (Back). Sounds good?
... Very well. I will make sure to have information at hand for when you do.
Cool. Now, let's keep going!

This conversation is our tutorial for yet another mechanic: we can press the (Back) button to get party banters. They'll talk about the room, or a nearby NPC if you're within talking range. Sometimes they give hints, sometimes it's just for colour. There are a lot of these - they also update situationally, so you might get different banters in the same room depending on plot flags, different conversations about an NPC before and after you talk to them, etc. It's going to make my life hell trying to get all of these (and I'm sure I'll miss a few), but there's a lot of charm in them and some are really worth it.

Obviously I'm going to do this now.
Snakemouth Den is quite dangerous, but this room's quite cozy.
Let's go before you jinx it!



Is that an enemy there behind the pillar? It doesn't look like a Seedling...



Well, I managed to hit it with Kabbu's horn at least.

04 - FIGHT!



There's a new battle transition animation. The leaves are purple now!



Definitely a new enemy. Let's spy on it. I'll let Vi do the honours this time:



Its armor is really strong, so I can barely hurt it.
I bet Kabbu can flip it over, though!

Inichas (I don't know what if any real-life bugs these are supposed to correspond to, they seem to have features in common with pillbugs and caterpillars?) are our introduction to enemies with defence. Defence works the way you might expect: subtract it from the attack value to get the actual damage done. This is pretty scary, since Vi and Kabbu both have 2 attack right now: are we going to have to plink away at this thing, doing 1 point a turn from the positioning bonus?



Not exactly. Kabbu's done 2 damage, which might seem a bit weird. The game will explain this in a moment, but his horn attacks have the bonus property of ignoring 1 point of enemy defence. He can also flip enemies, if they're vulnerable to that.



That blue swirl icon indicates the Inichas has been flipped (if we couldn't tell from the way its sprite is upside down). While flipped, its defence drops to 0! (We can see that now, on its HP bar.) Let's finish it off.



Even with 1 turn's worth of exhaustion (if you look closely, you can see the sweat drops here), Kabbu still deals enough damage to finish off the Inichas.



The Inichas was also worth 9 EXP.



It also dropped a Crunchy Leaf, in addition to a nice few berries. Not bad.

What's that green mushroom back there? That looks important.



It acts like a spring, launching us up the cliff.



Going south, there's a mushroom on top of the column. Unfortunately, we can't jump far enough to get to it (nor to see if there's anything on top of the second pillar further east). Let's go check that sign.



Sharp horns ignore some defense, and can even flip certain enemies, negating defense entirely!

I'm glad the game explains this (though I do think it's a bit awkward that, as far as I remember, this sign is the only place the game mentions it; a player who skips reading signs is probably going to find the damage numbers confusing for a while). Let's move on.





Well, that's it. Game over. Let's go back.
Wait, Vi. Hold on! It's too soon to give up! There must be a way...
Duh. I was kidding, you know? Look over there!



You can just fly over to it, right?

(I'm glad someone is asking this)

That's too much effort. I've got a better plan.



I will trust you with this, then. Give it your best shot!



The Beemerang hits the cord (not the crystal switch), breaking it and causing the bridge to fall.

Well done, Vi. I wasn't expecting you to do that!
Um, yeah! Of course! Just as planned!



Whatever works, I guess. The bridge is certainly down and we can cross it now. (This is also the point at which Vi's Beemerang field skill became unlocked in prior versions. As such, we could also backtrack and use it to grab that mushroom on top of the pillar... but I forgot to do that.)



If we check the switch, we get this message. It doesn't do anything, no matter what we do with it. (I'm not sure what to make of this. I think that scene was supposed to teach us that these things are switches we should hit, and in the future they always will be, but this scene pointedly has the switch be completely irrelevant. It's just a little odd.)

There's another Inichas walking around over here. It notices us.



Oh no! It hit us. And the leaves are red this time. Looks like the enemy has gotten a first strike on us.



The enemies don't give us time to wait, either, and start attacking as soon as the transition animation ends.



And it's not just the front enemy (or the enemy we saw on the overworld)! Every enemy in the battle gets a free swing at us (in Hard Mode, at least; without the medal, only the front enemy gets to attack). Both of these enemies went after Kabbu, too; his HP's starting to get low.

Once that mauling is done with, it's finally our turn. This battle isn't particularly hard: two attacks takes down the Seedling, then the next turn Kabbu can flip the Inichas for Vi to finish off. Kabbu does take another hit, though, bringing him down to 3 HP.



It's worth a lot of EXP, though! Next battle we should level up.



It also drops a new item we haven't seen before. This Aphid Egg isn't quite up to the standard of the Crunchy Leaf we're familiar with, but it's still a healing item and much appreciated. (That description's a bit morbid though, isn't it? Eat it before it hatches? This is just flavour text though, there's no actual mechanic for it to hatch: this isn't Earthbound.)



Cutting down the weeds lets us get to this sign in the corner. Let's see.



"We have already lost one of ours to this wretched place..."
Curses! This coziness was an illusion. Our path won't be easy, that much is for sure.
No place full of treasure's ever been safe.
So many have fallen looking for riches... Let's find the treasure quickly, so no one else ventures in here.
(I will do this for them.)



We also get the logbook message again. Looks like this is another discovery.





This sounds worrisome. We're definitely not the first to undertake this expedition, and it seems to have gone badly for our predecessors. We can't do anything about that now, though, we have to just press on. (Kabbu certainly intends our expedition here to be the last.)





Ouch! Another first strike. (Full disclosure: the last one was completely intentional, I wanted to make sure I showed the mechanic at least one. This one... wasn't. This caught me by surprise and, well, look what happened. I swear I'm not usually this bad at this game!)





Both enemies get free hits, and both of them went after Kabbu. Who was on 3 HP. I managed to Super Block one of them, but I'd have needed to nail the timing on both to prevent this outcome. Kabbu goes down.



She probably wouldn't admit it, but there's no way Vi could win this fight on her own. My only choice is to run away.

The way running works in this game is pretty simple. The game presents a button sequence, and you need to hit the designated inputs in order before the timer runs out. If you get all the inputs, you flee successfully. Miss a single one, or run out of time, and not only do you fail to escape, it immediately becomes the enemy's turn (even if another bug had turns left). Running away also causes us to lose berries: the longer we take on the button sequence, the more berries we lose.

Anyway, we get away successfully.

One other important thing to mention here is that characters downed in battle will revive with 1 HP once the battle ends. So Kabbu is okay here; I don't need an item to revive him or anything. Let's try that again.





Much better.





Kabbu uses his two turns to get rid of the Inichas immediately, while Vi knocks down the Seedling. Unfortunately, the Seedling goes after Kabbu again (honestly, I should probably have taken him out of the front).



That said, the Seedling is on 3 HP, so Vi can just switch into the front and take it down. (Yes, downed characters still count for positioning.)



08 - Getting Stronger!

That's more than enough EXP to levelRank up! Among other things, gaining a rank fully heals everyone, so poor Kabbu's out of the woods at last.



We have a choice to make!







Pretty self-explanatory. Each time we Rank Up, we get to choose one of these three stat bonuses: +1 HP for each bug, +3 TP, or +3 MP. (This is very similar to how levels work in Paper Mario, but you'll notice the numbers are pretty different. I honestly think these numbers end up working out a lot better.)

I'm choosing MP for now because I have to pick something, but that might change! I'm taking input from the thread on my stat build; at the end of this update I'll outline the options and explain how to vote.



Vi also learns a new skill, Secret Stash! Each level, we'll usually get some kind of bonus, whether it's a skill or something else. Our characters are going to be learning a lot of skills this way. Let's see what Secret Stash does...



It's a healing move! It's pretty expensive for what it does, but that doesn't mean it's not useful.

Back to exploring.



There's a mushroom back here. If we bounce on it, it launches us up...



To this ledge, where there seems to be some kind of block stuck in a vine. Vi's Beemerang can knock it down, so let's do that.



This room has a big door and some mechanisms on the floor. Before anything else, let's see what our party have to say about this room:

We've reached a dead end.
But it's ancient ruins, so not really.
Right. If we leave no stone unturned, we will open a path!

Subtle, game. Block pushing it is. (This is why we needed to bring down the block from above, there are two big round switches to hold down.)



When Kabbu gets close to the block, the ! icon indicates his horn will do something. Also, that bright green arrow appears, indicating the trajectory the block will take if he hits it from his current position. This is a really nice quality of life feature, and makes manipulating these blocks a lot less painful than it might be otherwise (but it wasn't always in the game, the arrows were added in v1.0.4).

Let's get the blocks onto the switches.





Well, that's disappointing! That shaking made it look like the door was going to open, didn't it? Instead, all that happened was this mushroom falling from the ceiling.
A mushroom?
What!? We did all this for THAT?!
Seriously? It wasn't even a rare item. Heck, it wasn't even a rare mushroom!


Come now, Vi. Unfortunate as it may be, let's pick it up and start looking again!
Grr!!!



No being cheeky, the Beemerang won't pick up this mushroom. (Which should be a clue, really. Normally it can pick up items, like that other mushroom I forgot to go back for.) Oh well. We don't really have a choice.



Mushroom is a new item, though. In addition to healing, it cures poison. Could be useful.




IYAAAAAAAAAA--



Oh, so she can fly after all!

Phew. That was close.
Hrgrgh...
Kabbu! Are you okay!?
Mrggfgh...
I guess he is. Hmm...
This is the perfect time to go home. I don't like the look of that place...
But I'm his reliable teammate...
...I'm going to regret this...



The door opened after all, but Vi and Kabbu have no way of knowing that. (I do love dramatic irony.)



Things don't look very good for Kabbu, do they.
Nghgh...
No rush. I can wait.



I would have carried you, but you seem really heavy...
I assure you I am lighter than I seem.
Uh huh.
Anyways, this place is really creepy.
I must agree. And there doesn't seem to be a way back up for me. We will have to look around.
Let's be careful, okay? You were almost a goner!

(Is she talking about his fall here, or my lousy gameplay? You decide!)



Coming down from the mushroom, we see a yellow save crystal. We're still at full health, though. Let's see the banter here:

We're trapped. Well, I am.
How shameful, to make Vi come to such a dangerous place.
Look, I can take care of myself. Don't make me regret coming with you.
Sorry, I shouldn't undermine your choice. Let's press forward!



At the far end of the room, it looks like... that's a spider web. Is someone caught in it?

By the Queen! What a terrible fate... A moment of silence, in solidarity for a fallen explorer.







Quick! We must free him!
Okay, I'm just going to see if the Beemerang can cut through web...
I will make sure there are no other surviv--
Vi! Watch out!



13 - It's Getting Scary!

He knocks her out of the way as a strand of web shoots in from offscreen, followed by this big spider.



How could a beast so huge sneak up on us!?
Kabbu! We've got to run! Treasure ain't worth this!
It's not that! We can't abandon this poor moth to his fate!
I...I...



Vi! Vi, wait! Curses!



14 - His Friends Call Him Spuder (Don't Call Him Spuder)





Looks like Kabbu's facing off against the spider alone. Can I spy...?



Doesn't look like it. Guess I'd better just attack...



That's not good.



Neither is that.





After another turn of back and forth, the spider raises itself up on some silk.



Must I really sit here and do nothing!?



Yes, unfortunately. There's literally nothing else Kabbu can do.



The spider is still perfectly capable of attacking him, though, by spitting these purple globs. This isn't looking good. After this, it fades out and we leave the battle screen, though; clearly this is a foregone conclusion.

13 - It's Getting Scary!











Look, I--
By the holy jaws of the Queen, Vi! You left me to my fate! You are vile!



You pushed me away from the web, but I still left, so I'm--
I will properly scold you later. The situation is dire, but I've got a plan.
We will attack the web holding the moth while battling the spider.
And we bail when we free him?



H-Here it comes. Let's do this!

14 - His Friends Call Him Spuder (Don't Call Him Spuder)

(While I do like this song, I have to say this upbeat jazzy dance number feels incongruous to the tense moment our characters are in; it's a strange choice.)





Well, we're back in battle with the spider again (although we still can't spy). Kabbu's told us what we have to do, though. Attacking the spider is pointless, but now we can target the web.







We repeat that sequence of events again. As far as I can tell, the web has exactly 10 HP, and when we've done enough damage, this happens:





With this, we exit the battle scene.












Huff... Huff...
Gee, glad it's too fat to come in here.
Um, Kabbu? Sorry for running away...
...Sigh. Very well. You are forgiven, Vi. It was understandable.





Let's turn over a new leaf, Vi. This moth is our priority.



15 - The One Left Behind (Leif's Theme)





What the... Hey! You okay? You hit your head?
Jsgsn. Sjaika? Hsjaosidjs...?
Could this moth be speaking in an ancient tongue? Perhaps he is of the fabled tribes lurking underground.



Do you need, like, a minute?
......No.



Thank goodness. You had us quite worried.
Where are we? Where is the spider?
Right... let's get you up to speed.





No big deal. It sucks that we're trapped, though.
Were you looking for treasure as well, alongside fellow explorers? Err, what's your name?
Leif is fine. And somewhat. A scouting mission, in fact.
You've got some luck to be alive... Did you learn anything scouting? About the artifact?
Artifact? If it is here, it's probably ahead.
If we work together, we will surely find both it and the exit!
We have little choice. We will accompany you.
Can you fight?
...Not really part of scouting.
Seriously!? You came into this place without knowing how to fight!?
Make sure to stay behind us, so we can protect you.
How reassuring.
Ok. We've spent too much time here. Let's look for the exit!



Another discovery?





As there's a save crystal just here, I think this is a good place to end the episode. Before we go, though, let's see if there's a banter in this room.

This is that blasted spider's den. I really don't want to stay here any longer.
No kidding. Can we just go?

Sounds good to me. Next time on Bug Fables, we'll get to know our new companion. The only way out is further in.

That said, before we go, it is...

**VOTING TIME**

We need to decide what I'm going to choose for my level-ups. There is a respec option in this game that lets you redistribute your level-up stats (and any other permanent stat upgrades you may get), so no choice we make is final. That said, it doesn't become available until pretty late in the game (chapter 6 of 7, which I do think is kind of unfortunate). So what I want to do is let the thread pick a plan for how I'll build my team, and I'll follow that plan until we get the chance to respec. (I can't ask for voting for each level-up because that would drastically inhibit my ability to actually make the LP.) Here are my suggestions:

Plan A: Alternating. HP-TP-MP so everything is distributed evenly, repeating every 3 levels. This is honestly suboptimal, but it's what I did on my first playthrough (on principle) and I think it's the approach that most leads to the game feeling like a traditional JRPG. This makes it harder to break the game, but it also means it'll be trickier for me to show off some of the cooler strategies because we'll have fewer MP (but of course I could respec to show them later).

Plan B: MP only. This will leave my characters a bit fragile in the early game, but nothing I can't deal with and long-term it's easily the best way to go. The more medals you can equip, the more crazy combos and strategies you can put together; you end up with a negative difficulty curve as you accumulate more and better tools, until you hit critical mass and basically become invincible. We'll get plenty of HP Plus and TP Plus medals to increase those if we need them; there are a handful of strategies that might want more TP, but not many, so we'll be able to do most anything.

Plan C: Hybrid. We'll put a handful of levels into HP and/or TP (I'm open to suggestions for how many and when, but my preference is no more than 2-3 levels each), then go MP only past a certain point. This would allow us to see some of the same complexity we would in MP-only, while not quite going all-in.

I'm putting a preemptive veto on "nothing but HP" or "nothing but TP". As far as I know it's still possible to succeed this way, but these are very much gimmicky challenge runs that would twist our experience of the game (for better or worse, like BP in Paper Mario, MP is overall the best stat). Otherwise, I don't really have a preference between these three plans, so tell me what you think. Please put your votes in bold.

I’ll just say MP only!

I'm seeing a decent lead for MP only over Hybrid right now (currently 9 to 6 between here and SA), so let's say I'll give another 24 hours for voting and then call it decided so I can start working on the next update?

04: Snakemouth Depths

12 - Snakemouth Den



When we left off, we'd just met a new companion. We still can't get out the way we came, so we have to go deeper in.

Before that, I haven't showed our inventory in a while, so let's have a look at that. (Honestly, I expect most players would have more at this point, between the wasted Crunchy Leaf earlier and the Mushroom I forgot to pick up.)



Also, since I didn't mention it before, over on the right you can see we have a cap of 10 items and we're halfway there.



This room's pretty big, with lots of platforms over water. Let's see what our characters think of it:

This room seems surprisingly straightforward.
No issues here. I needed a break from all the death traps.
It's a good chance to stretch our legs.
Leif. If you need to take a break, let us know. Vi will carry you.
That is not happening.



I said it's not happening!

This is actually the first time I've seen this banter, and I love it. There's so much character in these.

Let's check out that glowing tablet.



It seems to be ancient script.
Hmm... These letters look familiar to us. We should be able to decipher it.
Let us check it again.

The first time we interact with one of these tablets, we see this dialogue. After that, checking again will read them like any other signs:



Whoever is in front receives a bonus to attacking power. In return, said person is targeted more often by enemies.
You can't switch if someone has exhausted all their turns.

These signs generally have tutorial text, and, awkwardly, most of them are now going to explain things I already talked about over the last few updates. I actually like aspects of the pacing of the tutorial here, in that you have a chance to experiment and start making observations before the game gives you concrete confirmation, but I can see how this might be ineffective for some players (and, for better or worse, a player who isn't diligent about reading signs might end up not understanding basic mechanics).

Anyway, one detail I didn't mention about this is that the bug in front is twice as likely as the others to be targeted, so it's 50/25/25 with three bugs, or 66/33 with two.



There's also a new kind of enemy here...



Let's spy on it.



That's just a story the Queen tells kids to scare them... This is too creepy!
I'm gonna take it out!

Cordyceps fungus is a real thing, by the way. I thought it was quite clever to use something like that as the justification for zombies in this game.



Unfortunately for Vi, she's not going to get a chance to attack. Zombiants have 1 defence, but with Kabbu's piercing attacks, he will do 3 and then 2 damage, killing it before it gets a turn. (We'll see what Zombiants can do soon enough.)



It's worth 6 EXP.

It's worth pointing out that the requirement to rank up has increased slightly, we now need 101 EXP. I don't really understand why, to be honest: it never increases enough to make a meaningful difference, and it no longer has the elegance of every level being 100 EXP as in Paper Mario. (Like Paper Mario, the experience gain of enemies decreases as we level up.)



It drops another Crunchy Leaf, too. It's pretty common to see enemies drop items in Snakemouth Den, which I think is nice for an introductory dungeon. New players really shouldn't have problems keeping supplied in here.



Let's head west first.



There's another Zombiant over here.



Just like before, it's only a single Zombiant, and with the bonus turn Kabbu can kill it by himself.

There's another encounter hiding just past the Zombiant, though:



A pair of Inichas. This is another unremarkable encounter, although at least this one isn't as much of a foregone conclusion: Kabbu can flip the first one and then either he or Vi can finish it off, then they're forced to take a hit from the second one before doing the same to it. Still, there isn't a whole lot to say about most of these battles, so I'm going to summarise them and keep moving.



We get a Honey Drop and some berries. Now let's check out the sign in the back:



Each party member has different ways of attacking, and different reaches for their attacks and skills.
Mind who is currently acting to not waste actions on the wrong enemy.



There's a weed here in this strange blue lighting. Let's cut it down.



It had a crystal berry inside! Well worth picking up.

Oddly, this is the only crystal berry in the game to be hidden inside a cuttable plant like this. Yet because this is here, countless players (myself included!) found themselves with a compulsion to cut down every single object in the game, just in case there might be another.



Platforming toward the centre of the room, I find this enemy encounter. They're mixing things up a bit, and we're now seeing Zombiants and Inichas together. There's still not much to this one, though: with the extra turn or not, it still boils down to "kill one enemy the first turn, take one hit, then kill the second enemy".

(I wonder if the numbers were deliberately chosen so that the battles would work out this way regardless of whether you get first strikes?)



Coming over to the left side of this central platform, there's something suspicious off to the side. Maybe Vi's Beemerang can grab it?



Looks like it's an HP Plus medal! Let's check that out.



It costs 2 MP and increases the equipped bug's maximum HP by 2. Not bad. We could give it to Vi, and even her out with Kabbu...



But let's give it to Kabbu instead and make him a bit more durable, since he's been spending most of the time in front. You'll notice that there are two indications of who's equipping the medal: the colour of the bar, and the small head icon.



Heading east, since there's no other way to go, there's a tablet to read over here, as well as an Inichas sneakily trying to hide behind some rocks.



It doesn't have any friends, so this fight is trivial.



Entering battle while an enemy is stunned grants one more action to the party leader.

Nice to have the game formally explain this.

What to do now, though?



There's a switch we can hit with Vi's Beemerang, which makes a platform appear and opens the way forward.



We reach the top.



Wait, did that mushroom come alive and start flying?



Leif! Watch out!







By the great antcestors... what kind of sorcery is that!?
We, uh, are unsure? This is new.
You seriously expect us to believe that!?
We mean it, it's the truth.
Magic's no common feat. There are less than ten known sorcerers in history!
You're not some criminal with a HUGE bounty, are you?
You seriously believe that?



We will talk later. I take it you can fight now?
We'll try.

04 - FIGHT!





Now that we're a trio, let me share a useful technique.
With Turn Relay, picked from the colorful flower...
One of us can lend our turn to another.
How is that useful? It sounds tedious.
Well, for example, we could let Vi attack twice to knock down flying enemies.
Heh. You should let me attack three times! I'll take them all on!
You shouldn't abuse it like that, though.
The exhaustion will reduce your attack power by 1 every time you act in a round.
Grr. Fine.
Well, it sounds mildly useful... We'll try it out.
Now, on your guard!

Before the battle starts, we get this tutorial conversation. A new mechanic becomes unlocked at this point, and it's one of the more interesting ones in this game. Turn Relay lets any of our characters donate their turn to someone else. So not only can they attack in whatever order we want, we can have the same bug act more than once if we need them to. This is also where it teaches us about exhaustion.

I do have a minor gripe here. Unlike the rest of the tutorial text in this section (which is on signs we can reread at our leisure), this conversation triggers exactly once. If you aren't paying close attention, you might gloss over this, and then go quite a ways into the game without understanding a core mechanic. I like that they tried to have this conversation come up organically, but this can be a bit awkward.



Anyway, back to the battle. Regardless of what order we'd been in before, our party defaults to Vi in front. But hey, Leif is actually here now!

Let's do some spying. I'm going to switch Vi into the rear first and then have her do it (having a character in back do the spying is usually a good habit to get into, so you don't waste the damage bonus).



I'll knock it out of the air!

Short and sweet this time. Anyway, since this is Leif's debut battle, I decided to let him show off a bit. Let's look at his skills:



Icefall sounds pretty good. Let's try it out.



This is a new type of action command. We don't choose targets for this move directly; instead, a reticle appears, and when we press (A), it stops and Leif launches an icicle at that location. This deals damage equal to Leif's attack (in this case he's getting +1 because Jellyshrooms are weak to ice) in a radius around the impact point, and also has a chance to freeze any enemy it hits for 1 turn.

Jellyshrooms have 0 freeze resistance, so this is guaranteed to work on them.



Attacking a frozen enemy will break it out of the ice, but also deals an extra point of damage! Which is, conveniently, just enough for Kabbu to finish off this first Jellyshroom.



The remaining Jellyshroom thaws out on its turn, but doesn't attack us.



Here's Leif's normal attack, in the process of finishing off the remaining one. He has a slightly trickier action command than Vi and Kabbu: after the metre fills up, a random button between (A), (B), and (X) will appear and we need to press that. Leif can only hit grounded enemies, but unlike Kabbu, isn't limited to the one in front. This attack is also ice elemental, so some enemies (like this Jellyshroom) are weak to it, and others resist it.



And we finish that battle.



It's pretty cool.
If you truly couldn't do it before, this den is hiding more secrets than I first thought.
Everything's just too suspicious. I don't believe Leif yet.
We're telling the truth. If we had ice magic, that accursed spider wouldn't have caught us.
I say let's focus on getting out alive. We can collect our thoughts when we're safe.
Very well. If you need us to freeze anything, press (B) while we are leading.
I guess it's fine for now. Onward! I can almost smell the treasure!

I don't think that's how bees' senses work? Anyway, this is telling us about Leif's field skill. Which is ice, like everything else he does. We'll see more of that in a moment.



The enemy also dropped this new item. (This isn't guaranteed, it's just a random drop that happened to trigger.) Danger Shroom is something we're probably not going to be too eager to use right now: it restores 1 TP, and poisons the user for 2 turns (if used in battle, characters can't be poisoned in the field). Still, I'm going to hang onto this for now.

There's also a new party banter, if we try again after seeing that battle.

The spores in this room are quite nice.
Yep. Blue and pretty.
Like that convenient ice magic you pulled off here.
It's made you more than formidable at combat.
If anything, it'll be easier to get out now.
Indeed. If we stick together, we should be able to do it.
As long as we can keep control over it...

Let's check the sign before we leave the room.



This is talking about freezing enemies in the field, not in battle.



In the corner, there's a Honey Drop inside a weed. May as well take that with us.



Through the door to the north, we find these ruins. When we get close...



A drop of water falls on Vi. She doesn't seem to appreciate this.

EEP!
It's not funny! I'm all soaked now!
S-Sorry, Vi. I couldn't help it. It seems the ceiling's dripping...
Ugh, why is there so much water in here!? Under us, above us... it doesn't make sense!
Hm. This is good, though.
What do you mean?
If it's water...



Then it can be frozen.
Impressive! If you can do that, it opens up a lot of options for us!
I bet I can push them with my horn, as well.
That's pretty cool, Leif!
Mhm. Enemies, the water around us... Even though they seem like obstacles, we can exploit them for our own benefit.
Let's give your ice magic a try on all we can find.



The ice block fades away at the end of the conversation. Get used to these water droplets and ice blocks, this game really likes using them for puzzles and we're going to be seeing them a lot. They usually don't disappear like this, though: generally if we make one it can be relied on to stick around until we do something to get rid of it.

There's also a tablet in the corner.



That it is. It's a shame this monument outlived its creators.
Yeah. You only hear about roaches in folk tales nowadays...
Pardon? When did the roaches disappear?
A bit before I was born, I think.



It was indeed quite a recent event. No one knows for sure the how or why, however.
This is depressing talk. We should really find a way out!
(...This can't be right...)



That was mysterious. Looks like we got a discovery out of it, though!





If we try to check the tablet again:



Nothing more to be learned here. We can go inside the ruined building, but there's nothing to be found there, just a weed that can be cut.



The enemy encounter is an Inichas and a Jellyshroom. Kabbu can take out the Inichas by himself, while Vi and Leif make a start on the Jellyshroom (Vi knocks it down first, so Leif can attack). They can't quite kill it, though, so it gets to attack:



It launches these purple poison globs. This attack would have poisoned Vi if I hadn't blocked. In general, timed blocks will protect you from status effects.



After finishing that battle, it drops another Crunchy Leaf.



But we have too many items! Oh no. This is what happens if you pick up an item while at maximum capacity. Whichever item we pick to throw away (or the item we just picked up, if we press (B) ), will literally be thrown away from the characters and bounce around briefly before settling on the ground. It'll stick around briefly before despawning, meaning there's an opportunity to use another item to make room and then pick it up again (which is generally a good habit to get into if this happens). Snakemouth Den is very generous with item drops, so it's not that hard to stay topped off.



Going further west, we see these pillars with some convenient water droplets. We can't climb up normally, but with Leif freezing them...



We can get up.



There's another droplet we can freeze here to make a path over to the Honey Drop.





Then it's a simple matter to platform over the pillars and reach the top. There's a convenient save/heal crystal here, as well as a big door that won't open and another sign.



The sign seems to want us to check the party banter for a hint.

This room is gigantic!
Indeed. It's hard to know where to go.
When in doubt, go left.
No way, right is right!
Given the way this cave has been laid out...
I believe we will have to go both ways.
What a drag...
No joke. Let's rest up and then explore some more!

It was already looking like the path would split here, but the game definitely confirms it.



Since Vi wants to rest so badly, I guess we may as well use the save crystal.



Heading left first, we need to climb up these rocks and mushrooms.



We need to freeze a droplet and then use Kabbu's horn to move the block close enough that we can get up to the next platform.



Up here is a Jellyshroom that wakes up if we get too close.



It's a battle with two Jellyshrooms.



We do get to see the Jellyshroom's other attack, though: it has this spinning dive thing. (They seem to do this attack regardless of positioning, but I think they only spit the poison globs when on the ground.) For some reason, I get a lot of Super Blocks against this attack; I don't actually know if the timing is easier or not.



Behind this fin of the big mushroom is a crystal berry. This one can be pretty hard to see if you don't know it's there.



There's also this mushroom hidden behind the stalk.



Let's go into the next room. There's a sign here:



By giving it a heavy strike, one can break them faster.
Geysers can also carry around light-weight objects on top of them.

Let's see what our characters have to say about this room, too:

Hey, I see some geysers!
Weird. I thought geysers were supposed to be hot, yet this room is very cool.
This place is very strange.
At least we should be able to freeze them.
Yeah, and maybe ice cubes won't melt when touching them!
Hm. The possibilities we could do with those two pieces of knowledge together...

This hint is a bit redundant with the sign we just read, but it's clear what the theme of this room is going to be.



We go in and quickly see a bunch of geysers. There's a battle to be had first though:



It's a Zombiant and an Inichas. This battle's pretty unremarkable, except for one thing:



I happened to use Turn Relay at one point in this fight, so here's a gif of the animation. Short and sweet, and no doubt a thing we'll be seeing a lot of.



With some attention to timing to freeze them at the right heights, Leif can make a staircase out of these geysers and reach the next level.





We can make an ice block and then knock it into the geyser. It floats on top, giving us just enough height to, once again, make a staircase to the next level.



However, hitting an enemy while it is frozen will thaw it out immediately.

A sign up here explains the freeze status effect in battles.



This next room is really big. Let's see what everyone thinks of it:

This room is really tall, isn't it?
How does this even fit in this cave?
That trapdoor we fell through must have been deceptively deep.
Hmm... are we really going to be able to get out of here?
Not to be a downer or anything. I'm just kind of worried.
Thinking about it isn't going to change anything.
...Leif is right. Our only choice is to push forward. That is our only way to get out.
Yeah. You're right. Sorry about that.
Let's keep going!

Well, that's a bit bleak. Still, everyone seems determined enough. Let's take this one step at a time: first things first, there's an enemy here.



That's a lot of guys. For better or worse, these still aren't very interesting. We have to rely on Kabbu's defence-piercing abilities to take them down efficiently.



This is convenient. I kept forgetting to get a shot of these, but sometimes the enemies drop these bigger red berries, which are worth 5 each.

There's another sign in the far corner of the room.



If you block exactly when the enemy hits, an audio cue and different message will show up to confirm you have done so successfully.
That's what is called a Super Block.

This is a convenient time to talk about blocking mechanics in a bit more detail. According to the wiki, the window for blocking (at 60 FPS) is 19 frames, and the last 4 frames of that count as a Super Block (which is pretty tight timing!). There is a 36-frame cooldown between block inputs, so you can't just mash the button either.



Activating this crystal switch makes the floating platforms start moving up and down.



We can use the bouncy mushroom to get up here.





Then freeze the geyser from the first moving platform and use it to reach the second and get across.



Another elevator takes us up to this level. There's a Zombiant here.



This is just a fight with two Zombiants. Not very remarkable, except:



We finally get to see the Zombiant's attack animation! They hit us with the cordyceps coming out of their heads. Gross.



This battle gets us enough EXP to reach the next level!





In accordance with the thread's voting, I choose MP (now and forevermore). We now have 11 MP.

There are no other bonuses this level.



We can freeze this geyser to get up to the ledge...



freeze a droplet here to make a block...



and knock the block onto the geyser after it thaws, then ride it up the cliff.



There's a big crystal up here, so let's hit it.



This causes the wall to the right to lower.



Did we cause the tremor?
I guess. It was a pretty big switch.
We must have made progress in unlocking the door. Let's keep going!







Conveniently, this is where the exit lets us out.



Time to take care of the right side.



It's another battle with two Zombiants.



Looks like we'll be needing 102 EXP for the next level now.



There's another ruined building back here. If we go inside it...



We can find this Poison Defender medal!

This is going to be a theme in this game, by the way. A lot of medals activate situationally, and many are designed to synergise with various status effects that would normally be detrimental.



For now, I'll put this one on Kabbu also.

You can start to see why we might want an item like that Danger Shroom, also! Sometimes we might want to be poisoned. (Although, admittedly, right now it's not the best idea, the damage from poison and the benefit from this medal will mostly come out a wash. Still, it's worth equipping to somebody: if they do happen to get poisoned, they'll still be better off with it than otherwise.)

Onward.



Must've sucked to live here.
The residents probably didn't frequent this area. It's most likely security for the giant door.
A giant door wasn't secure enough?
Well, whatever. If they're guarding it that much... there's got to be something valuable behind it!



If we stand on this platform and hit the switch with the Beemerang, it'll start moving and carrying us further east.









For the second platform, there's a beam we have to jump partway across.





There's another battle here.



I happened to screw up the action command on one of Leif's attacks, so here's what his failure animation looks like. Seems he hurts his hand and needs to shake off the frost?



There's a switch here.



Hitting it causes this long platform to rotate so we can walk across.





That mushroom was actually a Jellyshroom.



Cutting down the weed on this platform reveals an important item. This Magic Seed is the only one we can find at this point in the game; we'll be able to buy these later, but not until after we finish the chapter, so we should definitely save this in case something goes wrong against the boss. (Oops, spoilers, there's going to be a boss in here. We've played a video game before.)

There's also a sign in the back.



Many different creatures have different weaknesses and resistances which could change the outcome of a battle.



Getting back on the platform, we can hit the switch with the Beemerang to make it vertical again. I check the southern end but there's nothing there, so let's go north into the next room.







Another battle.

This level of security is excessive.
My Beemerang's paint is getting ruined from hitting all those switches!
It's quite the impressive trinket. I half expected it to break, but it's so reliable!
Good, cuz Vi's pretty puny.
What was that!? You wanna go back into the spider web!?
...We're almost at the end. Please keep your fights for when we get out.

I'd never seen this banter before either. This one's cute.



Hitting the switch makes the long platform rotate, just like before.



An ice block helps us get up.



And we can position another ice block to get onto the platform we rotated.



Now we make it go vertical.



Checking the south out of habit but there's nothing again.



Up at the top, there's another Jellyshroom.



Another straightforward battle.



And the second big switch!



Alright! That's two switches!
Pretty sure the door should be open now.
Good! Let's make our way back to the door!

Door no longer looks like a word to me.



The exit brings us out here, above the right side.



We see the door open in a cutscene.

One more party banter for the road:

The door's open. Hopefully there's not another trapdoor...
The one before got you as well?
Yeah... We fell straight unto the floor. The rest is history.
(Not a mushroom...?)
Okay. I'll go check it out first.
If there's another trap, I can just fly out of it!
Heh. Thank you, Vi.



And back to this save crystal. This seems like a good place to leave things. Next time, we go through this big door! Surely we're getting close to the end of this place?

05: Vicious Spider

12 - Snakemouth Den



Last time, we explored the lower level of Snakemouth Den and eventually caused this giant door to open. It's time to go through.



This room's very big, with lots of enormous mushrooms. (Well, they look enormous from a bug's-eye-view, anyway). Let's see what the party think.

There's so many cool mushrooms! I wonder how much they'd sell for.
They aren't that special.
Hmm. Don't be cranky, Leif.
There are quite a bit of bouncy shrooms in here.



Uh... Are you okay there, Kabbu?
Y-Yes, I apologize. I got excited.
Let's put that energy into our goal.

Heh.



Let's get moving.



Is that a medal up there?



Looks like there's nothing much we can do on this tier. We need to get up onto the mushrooms.



The bouncy mushroom gets us up here. (Notably, we need to bounce to this mushroom, not the one lower down to the right - we can't jump high enough to get up from there.) There's an enemy waiting for us.



These battles are getting a bit more complicated, aren't they? This is still pretty straightforward, though. I use the first turn to get rid of the Jellyshroom in front (our three characters together do exactly 7 damage).



I decided to get a little clever the next turn. I had Kabbu flip the Inichas, Vi attack the Jellyshroom in back, then used Icefall with Leif. This was enough to kill the Inichas, while also freezing the Jellyshroom so it wouldn't get to attack again. The following turn, we clean up.



This mushroom gets us up.



Then we fall down to this central platform. Remember that medal over on the right? We can't get to it from this level, but if we take this mushroom up, we can drop down to it.



It's Poison Resistance. This will give the equipped bug 50% resistance to the poison status. Not bad, although it doesn't combine well with Poison Defender...



So I'll give this one to Leif for now. (All these poison medals being given to us is a good hint that that's going to be relevant soon.)



One more battle to fight in this room, it seems.



Lots of Jellyshrooms! Once again, I decided to get a bit fancy in handling this.



Switching Leif in front, a well-placed Icefall hits and freezes all three, and deals 4 damage to each (Leif's 2 attack, +1 for being in front, +1 for ice weakness).



They're all on 3 HP now. Vi and Kabbu can each finish one off, with their 2 attack and the +1 for hitting a frozen target.



Kabbu wouldn't be able to finish it off on his bonus turn thanks to exhaustion... but Leif certainly can! (+1 for being in front, +1 for ice weakness, +1 for hitting a frozen target, 4 damage is more than enough).



There's a save crystal here. The full restoration is much appreciated.



Let's move forward.



That looks like something important!

By Venus! Have we finally...
It's the treasure room! We did it! We super ultra mega did it! Yeah!
It's too early to celebrate.
Leif is right. This place has been consistently dangerous. We must stay vigilant.
Last one to the treasure is a FAT STINKBUG!
Fat!? V-Vi, wait!
...

Yes, there's even a party banter here. This room is just a short corridor that immediately triggers a cutscene conversation, but they still put one here!



When we get closer, the conversation triggers.

Could this be the artifact? Some sort of mask?
It doesn't really seem special. Or valuable.
...



L-Leif?
Are you alright!?



That settles it, then. This is probably the real artifact.
Dibs. Leif shouldn't touch it anyways.
The Queen has claimed it already, Vi.
The Queen...
Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

16 - Lost Treasure



That was easy?









Or not. As soon as we pick up the artifact, the pedestal starts to lower, the room starts shaking and water comes rushing in.

Curses! It's a trap!
We need to leave!
And quickly!



We try walking back the way we came...





13 - It's Getting Scary!

YOU!
S-Seriously!? The spider!?
This is the worst possible timing!
We disagree. It's the perfect time for payback!



If it won't let us escape, we might as well defeat it.
B-But last time we had to run!
We are stronger now, Vi. And Leif is with us. Some battles we cannot run from!
G-Gah! Alright! Let's take it out, before the room floods!

14 - His Friends Call Him Spuder (Don't Call Him Spuder)

Also check these out:{Rock remix} {Piano remix}

Click me for video!



Looks like we're fighting the spider. Again. Hopefully things can go differently this time?





The spider does this immediately as the battle starts. This animation with the yellow arrow indicates an enemy gaining multiple turns for the rest of the fight (as indicated by the x2 over the spider).

First things first, we should spy. We're fighting it for real now, so the option isn't locked any longer (for future reference, if the game doesn't let you spy, that's a subtle hint that you're in a scripted battle). Leif hasn't done any spying yet, so let's give him a turn!



For all the time we spent inside that cocoon... you will suffer tenfold!
As long as Vi keeps it knocked down, we will attack it without a hint of mercy!

Leif deserved this, anyway.

I'm going to start things off slowly and just use normal attacks for now; it's probably a good idea to conserve TP for later in the fight when it can have a bigger impact.





On the spider's turn, it uses its first action to hoist itself up, then its second to spit a poison glob at Kabbu (blocking successfully means he doesn't get poisoned). One of the reasons the spider gets two actions every turn is that it takes it a full one to lift itself, and if it spent an entire turn doing that, it'd be a complete pushover. We like seeing it raise itself up, because that means it spent that action not doing damage.



Here's where things stand at the start of turn two. As long as Vi attacks first to knock it down, we can get a full set of three attacks in.



Once again, it raised itself up and spit poison, this time at Leif.



Second verse, same as the first.





This time, it seems to have had enough of wasting actions, and uses both its turns to attack. Even getting a Super Block there, Leif's HP is starting to look a bit low.



So far, so good. We've taken a bit of damage, but we're nearly halfway there. I decide to have Kabbu and Leif attack again, while Vi heals Leif.



If you watch the video, you'll see me hesitate a bit here: I thought about using Secret Stash at first, before realising an item made more sense to preserve TP. That TP did end up mattering later.



At the beginning of the spider's next turn, it has a surprise for us! It screams and calls for reinforcements, and this Inichas and Jellyshroom join the fight. This is guaranteed to happen the first turn the spider is below half HP, and it doesn't cost the spider one of its actions. It still gets to take two swings at us!



The spider bites Vi...



before breaking out this new attack, poison breath! We have to mash (A) to fill this bar; if we don't get it all the way there, it'd be 2 damage and poison for everyone. (The timing's pretty tight, too, I only barely got there. The sequential keys version is a bit easier.)



Well, this looks a lot more complicated. (It could've looked a lot worse if I hadn't pulled off the mash command on the poison breath!) Still, if we think about it for a moment there's a pretty obvious way to handle it.



Kabbu and Vi team up to kill the Inichas.



Then Leif uses Icefall to put the Jellyshroom out of commission, while still damaging the spider a bit. (The spider has 70% freeze resistance; it is possible to freeze it if you're lucky, but I wasn't.)



The spider attacked Kabbu and hoisted itself up; the Jellyshroom didn't get a turn thanks to being frozen. This could've been a lot nastier without neutralising the adds.



Switching Leif into the front here is a good idea for a couple of reasons. He's the healthiest right now, but also being in front gives him exactly enough damage to finish off the Jellyshroom so we no longer need to worry about it.

Vi and Kabbu do a bit more damage to the spider.







After another dose of poison breath and another bite attack, everyone's looking a bit worse for wear. Including the spider. We could spend this turn healing and then whittle it down afterward... but sometimes the best defence is a good offence, and there's a way to end things now.



Moving Vi in front for a Tornado Toss takes off 5 of its remaining 10 HP.



Kabbu attacks for 2 damage...



then Leif relays to Vi...



and yet another Tornado Toss, with our final 3 TP, is enough to finish it off.



It's not quite enough to rank up, but we're close!



And that's it for the spider! Thank goodness. (Although I have to admit, I think its facial expression while dead is pretty cute. That's kind of morbid, isn't it.)

That ended up being a very clean fight. This can go a lot worse, depending on how the damage gets distributed (if the spider decides to focus someone down, you can end up on the back foot a bit, needing to either spend turns healing or reviving someone). One mistake I see a lot of people making in this game is blowing all of their TP and/or items early in the fight; as we saw with the spider, bosses in this game tend to have at least one phase-shift where they become more aggressive, so it's often better to conserve resources until this happens and then use them to mitigate the impact. This isn't true of every fight (and later on, glass cannon strategies can go very far in this game), but it's definitely the case early on when medals are scarce.

I was planning to talk about the poison mechanics the first time it came up organically, but I never ended up getting poisoned, so I guess I may as well do it now. Poison causes the affected bug to take 10% of their max HP (rounded up) in damage at the end of the turn. This damage can't kill, and will instead leave the affected bug (or enemy) on 1 HP. Any attack which causes poison will also have a set duration: all of the poison sources in Snakemouth Den last 2 turns.

There's no music after the fight ends, just sound effects of rushing water and rumbling.



Heheheh... Hahahahaha!
We really did it! What a scare... but working together, we were victorious!
We did it...
Thank you. We don't know much of what's happened to us. But beating up that spider was great stress relief.
No problem! I was gonna beat it up anyways!



There's a tremor.



We should probably leave while we can.
...Aw, heck.





A place known for having consumed any previous explorer that dared to enter. Even so, the team stuck together, and were surprised with a new friend, Leif. Together, they found one of the fabled artifacts that the Ant Queen has been looking for. Triggering a trap, they defeated the vile spider before being swept away. What will happen to this trio who met due to chance? Will they stick together in their journey? Little do they know that their adventure is just starting...











Vi! Leif! Are you alright!?
Ugh! I'm all soaked!!!
Cripes, we really got lucky.
I'm a bit hazy... We got the artifact... then that spider attacked.
Eep! The artifact! I dropped it!
...



Seriously, Vi!? Worry about the artifact later! Let's make sure Leif is okay first!



Phew. I'm so relieved to see you well.
So? Did you catch the artifact or...
Uh, the artifact... It's over there.





Alrighty! Not a scratch!
Your concern is touching, Vi.
Oh, drop it. You look super fine!
Well, at least we've completed our mission!
Uff. We're going to need a good rest.
After we figure out where we are...
If we recall, this is close to the Ant Kingdom. We should get back to the city pretty quickly.
It's nice to feel the sun again. It'll be good to go back.
Honestly, Vi may be raving about the artifact. But saving you is the true victory in my eyes.
Um, thanks?
Geez, calm down over there! Let's report to the Queen and get our reward!
(Elizant...)



We'll see what this is about in a minute.



We also get an automatic save prompt here. This is actually a new feature; in v1.1, they added these save prompts at the end of each chapter. In prior versions, you had to go hunt down a crystal like normal. It's a nice convenience thing, but these always take me by surprise and feel a bit like an interruption. Still, not worth complaining about!





We've actually gotten two achievements here, since we're playing on Hard Mode!

06 - Outskirts

There's a party banter here:

This place is a bit... unkempt.
This used to be the popular route to the Golden Hills, but the northern path is preferred nowadays.
Eh, at least it's a quiet place. No issues with me!

Though it's a brief one.



We can't sequence break by going into this cave, Kabbu will stop us.

This seems like a good place to wrap up for now. Next time on Bug Fables, we start Chapter Two... with politics. See you then!

This is just a heads-up that, at the suggestion of several posters on the SA thread, I've cleaned up (and shrunk) the character portraits, and made some minor edits and formatting changes.

Also, if you haven't yet seen them, I've made a few appendices that are linked in the OP. Feel free to check those out if they're of interest.

Next update in a couple of days, most likely.

06: Meeting the Ant Queen (Part 1)

01 - Bug Fables



First things first, look at that! Now that we've finished Chapter 1, the title screen has changed and shows our team hanging out in the plaza (awkwardly, a plaza we haven't seen yet, but we'll go there this update). I didn't mention it earlier, but this title screen is fully rendered and animated in-engine, the camera pans around a bit and the characters move around. This screenshot caught Vi in an angry pose, but other times you'll see her looking happy, or Kabbu talking, etc. It's pretty cute.

Fair warning, get ready for , there's going to be a lot of talking in this episode.



We left off with our team coming to at the bottom of this waterfall. We can't go into the cave, so let's explore and try to figure out where we are.





This weed has a new item in it! Spicy Berry is our first status buff item. With how small the numbers are in this game, +1 attack for two turns is pretty significant!



Oh look, another suspicious dirt mound! This one's up on a ledge we can't access.



That's all there is for this area.

06 - Outskirts



And this is where we come out. We're back in Bugaria Outskirts! You may remember this path as one that was blocked off by a fallen boulder when we were first here; it looks like the Ants made good on their promise to clean the place up. Just how long were we in Snakemouth Den?



Indeed. It's a relief to return to the association safely.
Was this area built pretty recently?
Uh... I haven't been out here that long, so I don't really know.
Regardless, it makes me pretty nostalgic.
Back then, everyone thought Vi was a small helpless child!
Stop! This nostalgia trip is over!
...

Party banter.



Looks like they put the portcullis back up, blocking off the way back to Snakemouth. We will eventually be able to backtrack, but for now, not so much.



Eetl stops us when we get to the bridge. Gen and Eri are waiting on the other side too.



It was a... rocky journey. What with the flood.
No kidding! I don't wanna see rivers for a while!
We're glad to finally be out of there, at least.
Rivers!? You're some lucky bugs!!!
But uh... Vi, Kabbu, who's this?
Oh! Eetl, this is Leif. We found him trapped in Snakemouth.
So you DID make it into Snakemouth!?
Honestly, we thought you'd bail. Going to Snakemouth is crazy!
Bailing would've been a good idea, really...
Well, we did! And we got the artifact!
Ah haha! Nice one, Vi. The river must have shaken up your hea-



Vi takes out the artifact to show everyone. They seem pretty shocked. Was everyone betting on us to fail?

I-Impossible! You actually made it into Snakemouth's depths!?
Yeah! We did it! In your face, Eetl!
How sportsbuglike.
Vi, it is folly to boast.
It's folly to tell me I can't do something!
Um, so is it like, the real deal?
Yeah. It's quite like another artifact we've been looking into. That must be the genuine deal.



Hmm?
I was just thinking that you should go see the Queen right away! She will be beyond ecstatic!
It has been some time since we last saw the Queen...
...Wait. Actually, looking around, we don't recognize that structure over there. Was it built pretty recently?



You are not from around here, are you?
We are. We recognize this place. But something feels off...
You're just fuzzy from the cave! I bet it'll come back to you!
(...)
Eetl, what about Leif? I heard that exploration teams can only have two members.
Oh, that! Well, it's unusual. But you did conquer Snakemouth. It's been a goal for ages...
(...Ages?)
I suppose that... Alright. With my authority as the association's caretaker, in honor of your feat...



05 - Key Item!

It actually plays the Key Item get fanfare here.

Team Snakemouth?
A proper explorer team name!
Uh, yay.
Well, that's that! Let's go see the Queen! She must know that the artifact was found!
Oh, I'm so jealous! I hope the reward is good!
Heheh. It better be!
Let us go, then.
Yes, a walk through the plaza should help.
(We need more information...)



And we're back in control. Eetl has joined the group and is following us now, too.



If you want to sell stuff, talk to my husband about it.

Looks like the merchant caravan is back in business.

Also, there's a new thing we can do now. If we press (Back) while standing close enough to an NPC, we can get party banter about that NPC instead of the general vicinity:

Cricketly's one of the members of the traveling caravan. I've heard she is pretty hot-headed.
No kidding, you can already tell by her looks!
She does have a soft spot for her husband, though.
It seems we shouldn't judge people by their appearances.

I'm not sure why Kabbu says "I've heard" when he personally witnessed her screaming at the ant workers cleaning up in the first update, but I guess it's been a while.





Let's ask Huscada about the business.

We are no more than a humble caravan trying to make a living.
We travel all over the land, selling different wares wherever we go.
Our trusty snail has been with us for generations and we intend to keep it that way.

We can also talk about him.

Huscada's one of the members of the traveling caravan.
He is always managing trades and sometimes calming his wife down.
How did someone like him end up with a hot-headed cricket like her, anyway?
Vi, we shouldn't pry into other people's affairs!
...Even if I am curious about that too.

I'm curious too, mostly about them being a cross-species couple. Especially when some species of cricket that are carnivorous and can prey on cicadas.

Let's check out their inventory.



Spicy Berry (12 berries)
Burly Berry (12 berries)
Magic Seed (18 berries)

This is good stuff, although it's kind of pricey! We've seen Spicy Berries and Magic Seeds before; Burly Berries are just like Spicy Berries, giving +1 defence for 2 turns.

I wouldn't normally as I don't feel the need for them this early in the game, but I'm going to pick up one Burly Berry, for reasons we'll see soon enough (probably next update). If I'd had to use my Magic Seed against the spider, I'd probably buy a replacement, I always like having one around for emergencies. (Since I didn't mention it before, it's worth noting that the game will let you use a Magic Seed on a conscious bug, and it will work just fine as a 7 HP heal.)



If we weren't playing on Hard Mode, we'd see this here. Quick Flea is the Hard Mode reward for beating Spuder, and we'll be getting it from Artis momentarily.

Any time there's a medal with limited availability that would otherwise be permanently missable (in practice this is mostly Hard Mode rewards, there are two others), it gets sent to the caravan and becomes available for purchase. If they have more than one in stock, they'll display one at a time in this fourth position, and you can ask Huscada to cycle through them if you don't want to purchase the showing one.

I like this, it's a nice compromise that allows them to include missable content while still letting the player catch up without much penalty. It does, though, mean that berries are probably going to be tighter on Normal since there are so many more medals to buy.

Over to the east, we find a pair of ladybug siblings.



Dib, please don't do anything reckless. I will take care of both of us.

And, of course, we can talk about them:

These two truly embody sibling squabbles.
That's because she keeps acting like he's a kid!
He's super able to do whatever he wants!
Vi, we can't help but feel you're being biased.
Hmph. Think what you want.

We get a bit of insight into Vi's insecurities here. I like this one.



We can also go in their house, and... steal their food?



Oh. I don't think they'll be missing that much. Like the Danger Shroom we saw earlier, this causes 2 turns of poison if someone eats it. (Just like in Paper Mario, a Mistake is what you get for messing up in cooking. We'll learn about cooking soon enough.) I'm actually going to keep this (I had to sell another item to make room!) for reasons I'll keep to myself for now.



We know! We know!

Eetl stops us if we try to cross this bridge.



Let's go to the Association, we need to check in with Artis.

Also, do take note, the save crystal has turned blue now! No more free healing for us. The game tends to do this in chapter transitions, new areas will still often have yellow ones on our first visit, but they won't stay that way forever. This can often mean that backtracking isn't quite as trivial as you might expect (on my first playthrough I remember finding some areas harder on revisit than they were the first time! though this was due to me forgetting about some things, honestly).

There are still free sources of healing on occasion, but we can't take them for granted any more.



Looks like Gen and Eri want to talk to us too. Before that...

P-Please, let's not deal with Gen and Eri.
They always drag me into their quarrels.
Hey! Gen! Eri!
Leif! Stop that this instant!

If you push the banter button before talking to them (and only then), you see this. Let's actually talk to them now (sorry, Kabbu).

Hey, Team Snakemouth!
You had Gen and me worried, you know? Good to see you up and running!
...The river was not pleasant.
Yeah, we got super lucky...
Thank you for your concern!
Concern is the least we can show.



Mmm... maybe. For a good reward!
...Nonsense, Vi. Fellow explorers have our help anytime!
Awesome! I promise we'll ask if we ever need help.
Sure...



But meh. Time to go questing again!
Let's stay away from rivers...

I think seeing this conversation actually unlocks a sidequest later in the game.

Anyway, there's also a different banter now after having spoken to them:

Gen and Eri seem a bit unreliable.
It's good to know they have our back, though!
Indeed. This camaraderie is what being an explorer is all about!



Now for Artis. There's a banter first:

That's Artis the Mantis. He is the accountant of the association, and someone who loves challenges.
I've heard he gives prizes to members that have accomplished difficult tasks recently.
By the time we're done, he won't have any prizes left to give out!

Now let's actually check in.

Hey! You're back. Let's see how you have been doing with that Medal of mine.
Hmm! Good job, folks! You defeated that hardened Spider!
Was it too challenging for ya? You deserve a reward. Here, take this!



Come back later when you've bonked some extra hard heads with that Medal, will ya?

Quick Flea is mostly just a convenience thing, it changes the button sequence when running away from 6 buttons to 3. That's pretty nice though, especially for just 1 MP.



For now, absolutely no reason not to put this on.

If we try talking to Artis again:

Hmmm... You haven't really defeated any hard-headed foes yet, have you?
Fret not, though. Nothing is lost in this world, only found in different ways.
That's how life works, eh?
Come back later when you've bonked some extra hard heads with that Medal, will ya?

This is Artis' default dialogue whenever you talk to him and he doesn't have a reward queued up. I think this is supposed to be your hint about how the caravan works.



Enough dawdling, let's get moving north.

17 - Ant Kingdom







The camera pans down from the castle ramparts down over the plaza to where we enter. This is the plaza we've been seeing on the title screen.







You don't need to worry. Let's go...

Leif seems pretty disturbed by how different the architecture is from what he remembers.



If I try to check out this statue, Kabbu stops us.



We can still talk to people, though! That wasn't particularly enlightening, but there's a banter too:

Tod's growing big and strong!
He's such an adorable kid!
So small. To think we looked like that, once.
You must've been cute as a baby, Leif.
(I'm not walking into this one.)
I can easily imagine a small, grumpy, sleepy Leif.
(I must preserve my cute baby image!)



I don't think Leif likes this topic of discussion.



Mmm. Agreed. Maybe we should give him two honey drops instead of one.
D-Don't do that! It's dangerous!
What harm could some more honey do?
Look. Don't ask me. Just don't do it.

This is a hint about something, we're going to have to try this out!

Oh, Ann! She grows every time I see her!
She's such a great bug - she listens to all my stories without complaining!
That sounded really sad.
We're not being... too mean to Kabbu, are we?

Another great one.

Pibuu!

If we try to talk to the pillbug, this is all we get, but we can also talk about the pillbug:

This is a Pillbug.
Its tiny, round and docile nature makes it a very popular pet.
A pet, huh...
Pillbugs are also obedient, and simply adorable!
Maybe we could...
Don't even think about it. We're not getting one!

There's someone else over on the left side.



Also, let's make note of that locked house for later. It'll be a while before we can get in there, but it's here to taunt us for now.

This Ant... I've never seen her before!
Or maybe I have? She seems to have no characteristics to make her stand out.
How tactful.
That's Janet, Kabbu. Remember?
By the holy spikes of Venus! I forgot Janet!
So cruel, Kabbu. So cruel.
I... I must go apologize...

Always fun when a game pokes fun at itself. Where would we be without forgettable NPCs?



Eetl complains if we try to leave this area.





And also if we try to talk to the theatre proprietor.

If we try to get a general banter for this area, Eetl also interrupts (yes, guest characters can also take part in these conversations!).

Ah, the Ant Kingdom's main pla-
We mustn't keep the Queen waiting.

Okay, okay.



This soldier doesn't have much to say.



Looks like Maki is waiting for us!



Maki! Perfect timing!
The news spread quickly. So, you two succeeded? You conquered Snakemouth?
You've made a friend, even...
...
You bet we did! You were all worried for nothing!
It seems my intuition was correct. I'm quite relieved...
I have arranged a meeting with the Queen for you. She is expecting us right now.
Well, since Maki is going with you, I guess it's back to work for me.
Thank you for accompanying us, Eetl.
No problem. Stay out of trouble, alright?



Eetl leaves and Maki joins us.

Before crossing the bridge, there's someone to talk to here too.

What is this Ant doing?
She is always staring at the castle. Leave her be.

Proof of concept that Maki participates in banters too.







Talking to her gets us a Discovery about the Ant Palace!





Let's get moving.



There are a couple of guards we can talk to here.

I know I'm keeping the castle safe, but I hope my friend isn't too bored waiting for me...

And on the right:

...
Greetings, fellow guard!
...
Not one for words, I see...

Riveting stuff. But there's a banter that's slightly more interesting:

Standing watch over the castle every day...
Must get super boring, right? Right?
Now, you two. All honest work is good work.
Easy for you to say. You spend the whole day exploring.
Yeah. I'd like to see you try being a receptionist!
I-If it is to make ends meet... I would endure...!

Some good character in this one. Let's go inside.

18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen



The Ant Palace is pretty big.



Geez. I wanted to get mad, but she was way too polite!

We can't get into the areas past these guards. We can, however, have our characters talk about this:

That's a big door.
That's an area only Ants can enter. Not even I know what is beyond that door.
Hm... such mystery.
We should head for the throne room, though.
Yes, I apologize. Let's get back on track.

Spoiler alert, the area behind this guard doesn't actually exist in the game. But I like that they pretty consistently do things like this to imply areas are larger than just the parts we get to see, it makes the world feel more realistic.



I was going to comment on how an invisible wall preventing us from going downstairs was a nasty contrast to that realism I just praised, but then I realised it wasn't an invisible wall, my eyes just suck! The entrance is cordoned off, there is actually a rope there. Always nice to be pleasantly surprised.



What's her problem!?

A mirror of the interaction on the left (the banter would have been identical).



Maki won't let us go down side passages, so let's go on with the plot.



Please forgive us for the delay.
We're ready, though!
Then you wouldn't mind if we stepped right in?
No objections. The sooner we answer our doubts, the better.
That'll do. Let us proceed, then.







Everyone files in.

You now stand before Her Majesty, Queen Elizant II.
(So it's true.)



...Wonderful. So very wonderful!
Lieutenant, you are dismissed. You have your own business to attend to.
As you wish, my Queen.



We have a choice here. I prefer the version of the scene where we don't protest (for a few reasons, honestly), so I'll show that version here and the other at the end of the update.

Just like that, huh?
(She wasn't expecting to keep it, was she!?)
Here you go!









Such beauty. Beauty which should belong to the Ant Kingdom...

Here, you've earned this.





W-Woah! This is a ton!
Brave explorers! You've performed a valiant task. Your place in the history of our kingdom is assured.
Congratulations. It is praise well-earned!
O-Of course! Thank you, Your Highness!
Heheh. First bee in the hall of fame!
Uh. Thanks. Could we ask something, though?
I suppose we could afford time for one question. What would it be?



What? What is this fuss about!?











I'm showing all these screenshots to emphasise just how much effort the game is putting in to make this look suspicious.

Maki. I leave you to your mission. While you're at it, inform Artis that the next expedition is confirmed.
Of course. I shall move out at once, Your Highness.
You three... I'll bless you with a head start. Zaryant, brief them about the Golden Hills expedition.
Heed me. Reports state that an ancient artifact lurks in the Golden Hills.
This is a small rural settlement behind our kingdom. It can be reached through a tunnel south from the Explorers' Association.

(Convenient. That's the tunnel we washed up next to.)

Uh, isn't that Bee Kingdom territory?
Do not dare interrupt us again, child.
The Bee Kingdom is our close ally. They are, of course, aware of our expedition.
Now... talk to the locals, obtain information, and seize the artifact. No matter the cost.



In other words, are we going to do what we were already planning to do? Don't be silly. (Asking to repeat here doesn't get any new dialogue, it literally just repeats it from when Zaryant began discussing the mission.)

Alright, then. Take this map, just in case. Although I'd hope you know how to head south...



05 - Key Item!

The map is a key item, we'll check this out soon enough.

Err, thanks. So, about our question...



Do not make Her Majesty repeat herself. Move out!

Geez, alright. Let's go!
Indeed. It'd be unwise to anger our Queen...

Poor Leif.

19 - Chapter 2



This is where we get the splash screen for Chapter 2; everything in the update prior to this point has been some kind of interlude, I suppose.

...Team, could we step out? We need to share something.

With that, we're finally back in control. Unfortunately for Leif, we can't leave this room just yet.



We can talk to Zaryant.

Zaryant... The royal guard is truly an imposing figure.
With a name like that, it's like it was decided from birth...
I mean, wasn't it? Ants are weird...
I'm not an expert, but she does seem quite different. Maybe it's genetics?
We're probably better off not knowing.

Sometimes it's really weird to think they're whispering these right next to the person. That said, as a member of another eusocial species, I don't think Vi really has room to cast aspersions here.

If we try to talk to the Queen, Zaryant doesn't let us:



There's also a banter:

...Elizant II...
You probably shouldn't keep staring.
It was a long briefing. You'll have a chance to speak to her later!



Let's check out the rest of the throne room. There are a couple of stained glass windows over here...





















Each of them triggers a Discovery.



The guard by the door wants us to leave. We can also, of course, talk about her:

It seems this ant guards the throne room's entrance.
Woah, she looks grumpy!
Looks like she's never had any fun in her life.
Y-You're both being too harsh...

And a general banter for the throne room:

The throne room hasn't changed, but the atmosphere's completely different.
What d'ya mean?
It's a bit somber. They've covered some of the other Queens, too...
Bugaria's history isn't perfect. It's a shame that there have been issues between the kingdoms...
That'd be weird. Going from full peace to nowadays...
(History can prove cruel...)



Let's check out this map Zaryant gave us. We can use it from the key items page...



to see a map. The honeycomb icon shows our current location, and the yellow dots represent places we've been before; the rest of the world is a mystery.

Okay, let's actually leave now.

(I have to split the update here thanks to the character limit)

06: Meeting the Ant Queen (Part 2)



When we leave the throne room, another conversation starts.

Hehe. I got a big scare earlier, but I have to admit... We did really well!
We've got to celebrate! Maybe in the Golden Hills festival!
T-That's right! How fortunate that our expedition would line up with such an occasion!
...



Vi... Kabbu... May we confess something?
Hm?
When our team left for Snakemouth...
The Queen was Elizant the First.

15 - The One Left Behind (Leif's Theme)



W-What!? Leif, that is not possible!
Y-Yeah! I wasn't even born when the new Queen took the throne!
It's... it's the truth.
The plaza has changed, there's a new Queen, we can't find our team anywhere...
We've been trapped for... decades? We don't even know.
We hoped we were too fuzzy, but walking around has confirmed it.
Leif...!



S-Shh! You can't just say that in here!



...Sorry. Too much has happened. We didn't get a chance to ask anything, either.
Yikes, what should we do? This isn't normal at all...
Leif...
...
I cannot understand the pain you are feeling. Probably there is no one who can.
But come with us. Maybe as we explore, we'll find the truth behind what has happened to you!
The truth...
Uh, yeah! Maybe there's clues around, or something...
...Alright. Once again, we're left with little choice. You're fun to be around, at least.
Well, yeah!
Thank you, Leif. Together, we conquered Snakemouth...
And together, we will figure this out!
For now, let's focus on this mission. We'll be okay.



I really like this scene. The player has almost certainly put together most of what's been going on with Leif by now, but the characters actually discuss it honestly, and there aren't any easy decisions. Even Vi gets in on trying to be supportive!



And we're back in control again! Now we can explore the palace. Is that a book on the sign?



It is! Welcome to the palace library.

This is the Library! A sea of knowledge! History in page form!
Meeeeeeeeeh...
We have a lot of catching up to do. Wonder if there's magic books, too...

Let's talk to the receptionists and see how this works.



Uh huh. We're looking for this book - "The 20 Ways of-"
W-Wait! That's Brooke's job!
I'm the head of the Explorer Fact Hunt!
You... hunt facts? You can't smack facts...
...
Please tell us more!
Right. Yay! Look, it's simple. This world is filled with "Discoveries"!
I'm sure you've seen at least one already. Super special places!
If you donate Discovery info to the library, we'll reward you!
Deal. How much info do you want?
The library will reward you for every 5 Discoveries you find. It includes berries, Medals and other goodies!
So it's good to drop by often!
It's like a fun school game! I'm in!
...Sure, were' in. But could you help us find that book now?
Nope.
Tch...

Libren explained that well enough that I don't have anything to add! In addition to giving us information about the world and filling up our logbook, every 5 Discoveries we find are worth a prize from Libren. She has some good stuff, too, it's well worth doing this. Let's talk to her again.

Hey there! Came to turn in some Discoveries? Let's see how you've done!
Seems you have found 7 Discoveries so far...
Looks like you have enough for the next reward tier! Here you go!



This is nice enough, if a bit underwhelming. I promise the rewards get better as we go.

That seems to be all for now! Come back once you have found more Discoveries!

Now for Brooke.



We'd like to read some history books, if possible.
Tch. They've... gotten lost.
Lost? How is that possible?
We lent them out to the Bee Kingdom... But blasted bandits attacked the caravan!
Now they're just scattered across Bugaria.
So, uh, what can we do?
If you find any, make my life easier and return them. Then you'll be able to read them!
The nerve! They just want us to do the clean up for free!
Still, this is important to Leif. Let's help out.
Mhm. We don't really have another choice.
Remember, if you find any books, bring them to me. I will let you read any books you find free of charge.

This is the other major collectible in the game, alongside the Crystal Berries and Discoveries. We can find Lore Books and bring them back to the library, and in return we'll get to read them and learn worldbuilding and backstory. There are 26 in the game, and in addition to getting to read them there's another reward for finding all of them.



Of course, there's nothing here right now.

There is also, of course, a banter about these two.

These two are like night and day, huh.
We can relate to Brooke's angry power reading aura.
Oh, then I'm Libren's joyful search for new stories!



Leif actually starts prepping ice magic here, I don't think he likes being called a nerd.



If we go over here, we can inspect this painting.

Grace, huh. I guess the new Queen has more of a power aura!
Mhm. Elizant was as kind as they came. Even some monsters would be friendly in her presence.
Her voice was soothing, and she saw the future in a bright light.
It must have been an honor. I must say I am envious of you having met her.
Aren't you giving the new Queen too much of a rough time, though?
Of all people to defend her, we didn't expect it to be you.
Well, she has a super big reputation to live up to. And a lot of bugs who didn't accept her from the start!
A lot of political and social issues forced her hand, too. Which you could even say Elizant's passing gave way to.



But it's still difficult to accept... We can't pledge loyalty just yet.
Just yet, huh.
As long as you're willing to keep an open mind, she may surprise you.
...Sigh. Until then, we have this painting to come back to.



As might be expected, this is also a discovery.









I quite like how our characters have different opinions on the political situation and are willing to acknowledge complexity and uncertainty.



That's for the best. No need to spy the same enemy twice if you write your thoughts down, is there?

This person gives us another tutorial about spying. I think this is specifically hinting at the fact we can see every character's comments in the bestiary, even if we only spy once. There's also a banter:

Her reading speed's quite impressive.
"The Flower We Lived By." Oh dear, I'd been meaning to buy this one!
Ugh, that one's super sappy. You read that stuff?
It's that promising bee author's first book! Even if she hadn't polished her work yet...
I really want to know what her beginnings were like!
Hmm. If you vouch that hard for it, we'll give it a go.
Okay, okay. I don't like it, though.

I love that these three just talk about books sometimes. Kabbu is so earnest.



Leif seems to have a strong reaction when I ask the party about this guy.

LEIF! What's wrong!?
...Nothing. We just reacted to this guy's geek energy.



This is just... I have nothing to say about this, it speaks for itself.

If we actually talk to him:

The Ant Kingdom's library houses the best books published in our time.
It's a shame, isn't it? Bad books are thrown out and forgotten...

Reeves loves reading awful books. I suspect a lot of us have a lot more in common with him than we'd care to admit... (Full disclosure, Reeves is my favourite minor character. We'll definitely be seeing more of him.)



Sneaky! The first Lore Book is hiding back here in this corner. (How did Brooke not see this one from her desk? As the player, we have the excuse of perspective, but she has straight line of sight!) Let's go give it to her.



Ah, wonderful. That is one of ours, yes. I'll put it on the shelf, so check it out whenever.



If we go over to the shelf, we can now read the book!

Our Lifespan. Before the Day of Awakening, they say we used to live very little... Only a few days or moons! And most of that time, we were helpless larvae... Marriage marked the end of life! It's inconceivable nowadays. For one, we don't even remember being larvae! Truly, becoming an adult is like being born. And then, we get to enjoy this beautiful land for many years. It's hard not to pity our antcestors, who had to give up life soon after becoming aware of it...!

There are a lot of neat little details in these. Also, unlike most "books" in video games, the short length of these doesn't fight verisimilitude because, well, they're bug-sized, how much text do you think could realistically fit on those little pages?

No matter what order we find or turn in the books, though, the lore blurbs always unlock in a fixed order.

That's all for the library. Let's check out the rest of the palace.



True. Back then, the Queen had to personally extend an invite...
Oooh. Did you get to visit, Leif?
Yeah. We were one of the first non-Ant teams willing to explore...
Although we all know how that turned out.
S-Sorry.
It's okay. Shall we go?

I remembered to check for a banter in here. Reminiscing always seems to depress Leif.



There's another room over here.



Leif seems really intrigued by this person. Let's talk to her.



...Wait... you're Rebecca, right?
Hmm? Yes, my dear. Just a humble caretaker...
Uh, you know her?
Yes! Rebecca, do you remember us? It's Leif! We scouted Snakemouth Den...
Hmm...



Curses.
Now, dear. It's no problem! We can be friends still. Although I have little to offer.
N-No, it's not that. We'd be pleased to be friends.
Hohoh! Wonderful! I don't get too many visitors... This must be fate!
...
We'll, um, come back. We're on a mission for now.
Come back soon, dear!

This always gets me in the feels a bit. Leif actually found someone he used to know in the past, and she can't remember him at all or tell him anything helpful.

We can talk to her again:

It's good to see you again. You bring me some peace of mind. I worry about Ellie too much!

Also, I like that she has a nickname for the Queen, it helps humanise her a bit after what we've seen. It's a bit of a cliche to have the overfamiliar elderly servant/nurse/etc type like this, but there's a reason it works.

So Rebecca was around, even in the early days?
Yeah. She was taller but dressed the same.
She's really stuck around... I've never met a bug so old!
Right here.
Eep! U-Um, sorry!
Heheh.
Really?



A bit of levity in the new banter after meeting her.



If we look around the room, there are several more of the stained glass windows of Elizant II, as well as another copy of the Elizant I painting on the far wall. We can't interact with these, though. (And, to my knowledge, only the prior ones work for getting the discoveries.)

There's also an amusing general banter in here:

I've heard of this place. It's the War Room!
So, what, they fight in here?
Err, no. This is a place to discuss strategy and missions...
Should just call it the Mission Room, then!
Vi's observations are, as always... very on point.
What's that supposed to mean!?

Weirdly, I don't think we'll ever see this room actually used for that purpose! All the councils take place in the throne room, like we saw before.



Outside, we can talk to the lieutenant.

Indeed... Our search for the artifact has helped others. I am truly glad.
(If only we had bested it back then...)

We can also talk about her:

The laiu... lieu... the ant captain's really cool!
Lieutenant, Vi.
...As I was saying, pretty cool!
Maki, Zaryant... The Queen has quite a dependable ensemble.
We just hope they follow out of more than obligation.

Speaking of Maki, there's also a new version of the banter about the door guards, now that he's no longer with us.

Now that's a big door.
I bet there's huge treasure on the other side!
Hmm... not quite. Ants have their own society isolated within this anthill.
There are probably housings and other structures for them to come back to after a hard day of work.
There's probably a lot of hoarded food, too.
Not listening. I'm not giving up on my big treasure dreams!

That's a bit more detailed than before. All Maki said amounted to "non-Ants can't go in there".



We can actually go downstairs now! And if you look closely, the cable is indeed gone now.

Hmmmmmmm...
Um, what is it, Vi?
This is a miner ant, right?
Seems like it.
But she's not mining at all! She's just guiding people to the mine.
It's like studying to be a chef, but having to work at the bank!
You've made us feel a bit sorry for her...
Don't be like that, you two. Maybe she doesn't even like mining, and this is her dream job! Guess we'll never know...

You could ask her, Kabbu. (Also, Vi's remark puzzled me at first, but I think it makes a bit more sense when you remember that the money of this world is edible berries? I think she's saying a chef at the bank would have to look at all the food and not be allowed to do anything with it.)



Going into the mines immediately triggers a discovery.







This miner recognises us!

I'm the overseer here at the mines. We're digging tunnels across all of Bugaria to make life easier for everyone.
Currently only explorers can use the tunnels we've finished. We haven't opened them to the public yet.
We do have someone out to open them, but she's probably slacking off.
We're behind schedule already... I hope the Queen doesn't get mad at us again.

And also, naturally:

The miners look cool. Way cooler than they need to!
Might as well do their job in style.
(Should we work on our style more...?)

And the general one:

Just what is Elizant up to with all of these tunnels?
It seems the Queen hopes to connect many parts of Bugaria with these Ant Tunnels.
It's gonna make clearing quests a breeze!

If it wasn't already obvious, this is going to become our fast-travel hub. Not quite yet, though.



Ants!



This miner is sleeping on the job, it seems.



If I hurt you swinging this thing, I'll get in trouble with the boss.

The exit there takes us into this back room.













These miners hint at some areas we might get to go to soon! (Also, sneaky, there's another one of those suspicious dirt mounds in here.)

I wanted to keep going and explore more of Ant City, but this update's gotten quite long and text-heavy (I already needed to break it into two posts!), so we'll do that next time.

Before we go, though, here's the alternate scene in the throne room:











Maki, you truly have a keen judge of character.
Count your blessings, explorer. Few do I spare the rod in respect to their accomplishments.

Full disclosure, I'm still not sure if the "keen judge of character" is meant to be sarcastic or not, and I find the "spare the rod" line really awkward. It's a strange saying to invoke in this context and the syntax doesn't help, I think it could have been worded better.

Y-Your Majesty! They are not worthy of being in your presence! Much less your pardon!

Stay put, Zaryant. They accomplished what your squad failed to do, didn't they?

Ngh...



At this point, it rejoins the scene we saw before. Vi hands over the artifact, we get paid, and we proceed to learn about the next mission. I don't like this version of the scene as much, even before getting into some of the awkward wording.

Next time, we'll continue exploring the Ant Kingdom, and get started on some side quests. There's a lot yet to see.

07: Cooking with Fry (Part 1)

17 - Ant Kingdom

When we left off last time, we'd just finished exploring the Ant Palace. Today we're going to take a look around the greater Ant City area.



It's impressive how well the palace stood the test of time.
...I wonder if the Hive's been remodeled, or something...

New banter in the bridge area.



Doesn't she have anything better to do?
You're one to talk.

And a new one about this ant. No, she doesn't have anything better to do, she has to stay here to ensure players can get the discovery! (Yes, she'll be here for the entire game.)



When we return to the Ant Plaza, Leif stumbles after a few steps and this conversation begins.

Sorry about that.
Heheh! Well now... Leif, after all you've gone through, you must be famished!
...Welp, he ain't the only one!
We should grab something to eat.
Yeah. It would also be a good time to prepare for the trip, would it not?
Yup! And the commercial area is right over there!



The camera pans over to the western exit here.

Indeed, and it's got it all! Medals, items, and even a chef!
With all that's been going on, a little shopping wouldn't be the worst.
Just go easy on the budget.
Anyways, let's go hit up Fry for some food!

So this is our next immediate objective. Nice and simple. This is a sort of tutorial, the game is making sure we know about the cooking system and forcing us to try it out. That said, I like the way they integrated it, it's not like the characters being hungry is hard to believe.

We can also inspect that statue that Eetl wouldn't let us inspect before.



Hmm, isn't it weird? I heard the Queen led everyone here.
How come she didn't make a statue of herself?
Apparently, the Queen was heading in a different direction when this ant got lost.
Rather than abandoning it, she decided to return with her people to find the ant.
When they finally regrouped... they were standing on this very soil.
Huh. So this whole town was built thanks to a clumsy ant?
Life works in mysterious ways.
The first Queen was extremely humble. Even if that ant hadn't gotten lost...
I'm sure she would have wanted this statue. It resonates with the people.



...Goodbye, Your Majesty.

Some nice detail in that conversation, the game is really making sure we don't forget how nice Elizant I was. (Also, of course, Vi being Vi.)



It's a discovery!







Once we have the discovery, checking the statue instead just shows this inscription.

There's also a general banter for the plaza now:

Ah, the Ant Kingdom's main plaza. It greets both tourists and citizens alike.
It is the bridge between the commercial area, the castle and the residential area.
To top it off, it has many historical points such as the Inn, the Theatre, and the founder statue.
Kabbu, you should look into the tour guide business.



Before we go west, we can also find this distressed lady over here by the theatre.



All right, Kabbu.

Sob... Sob...
Excuse us, fine lady. Is everything alright?
No! N-no, it's not. I've been trying to play in the theater for so long...
And I felt like I could f-finally do it... But now Mothiva's so popular... they only want her.
They said I'd never be as good as her... And now I don't know what to do, or how to make money.
So what? If someone says you can't do something...



If you enjoy it... just play! Just do what you can! Who needs that dumb theater!?
Y-You're right!



I just need to get fans of my own! Um... I'm hoping you'll be my first!
If there's any songs you like, I can play them for you. P-please bring berries and come hear me play soon!



Our team walk just out of earshot and keep talking.

You being so uplifting... We must say we're surprised.
I was just being honest! You don't have to make such a big deal about it!
I assure you, you've made a huge difference today!
Yeah, whatever... It's all up to her now, you know?
She'll be fine. Let us drop by later and see what she can do.

It's nice seeing Vi have a supportive side, even if it does get filtered through her... unique worldview.

Let's see what she has to offer, shall we?

H-hello. I'm really happy you came back!





Samira here is the game's sound test, more or less. Every song we've heard will be here, and she can play them for us (replacing the background music until we leave the screen). She charges a fee of 2 berries the first time you play each song; there is also a reward we can get if we buy every song (though not until the postgame, because "every song" includes things like the final boss theme), so don't feel like those berries are wasted.

It's also a bit odd: songs appear in the list in the order you encounter them ingame, meaning they may not be in the same order from file to file. This might drive you absolutely bonkers if you have certain kinds of obsessive tendencies, like me (I eventually got over it, but it was a struggle). I also really don't understand why it works that way from a programming perspective; are they actually storing the songs as some kind of list, rather than just binary flags? That has to be rather inefficient, if so. Why do this?

Also, you may notice some of the song titles are slightly different than in the OST. In some cases this is because they were too long and didn't fit (e.g. the Spider theme is just "Don't Call Him Spuder" here), but I'm not sure what happened with some of the others (e.g. "FIGHT!" became "Let's fight, Team!"). I'll be sticking with the OST names for this LP.



I don't understand how she's playing an ocarina with that proboscis. Does she have a mouth under there too? What is this anatomy.

(Also, she is a beefly; when I looked this up, I found out it is also occasionally known as humblefly. If her personality was deliberately chosen with that in mind, that's quite clever.)

O-Ok. I'm always here if you want to hear me play.

There's also a new banter about her now:

Samira's been doing good.
We do pay well.
Geez, it's not just that. Other bugs come to hear her play too!
Heh. I hope she gets a big following soon.

This one assumes we've come back sometime later, it's a bit silly seeing it now when we've barely paid her anything. Even so.

The two buildings here in the plaza are the inn and the theatre. We'll be back to see them later, for now I want to get on with things. Let's go to the Commercial District. (If we try to go the wrong direction, like back to the Outskirts, Leif will stop us.)

...Please. We need to eat.



The entry to the commercial district.

This is the commercial area, the best area of them all!
There's a Medal shop, a chef...
And Madame Butterfly's store! No other store can compare!
Commerce excites you too much, Vi.
Heheh. And there's a little something else. But I can't tell you what it is!
I suddenly feel like leaving no stone unturned...

The banter for this area.



Let's immediately get distracted by an obvious secret behind those weeds. Is this what Vi was talking about?



There's a big arrow on that building pointing at the ground, or more specifically, at that conspicuous lid (look at that! it's a cardboard box with "this way up" on the side, and the manhole cover is a bottle cap. There are a lot of repurposed human artifacts lying around, but the game almost never draws attention to them, it's just a nice subtle background detail). Also, hey, conspicuous dirt mound.



Hmm? What is this place?
Heheh. Check THIS out!



Entry Code.
2 - 4 - 0 - 5!
Last month's code is no longer valid after... the incident. Please use the new code.



That was great, Vi.
Shut it!
Hey! Let me in! It's me, Vi! Ask Shades about me or something!
There's no one here unless you know the code. Scram.
This place seems... shady.



Excuse me, what is this place?
...! Vi, you brought others with you!?





Seriously, what is happening here?
If you know what's best for you, you better stay away. All of you.
Well, that was a fun detour. Thanks for the good time, Vi.
Hmph... I guess we'll have to find the new code somewhere.
Maybe someone we help out comes here too!
Err... sure. But let us not get too sidetracked.

If we ask the party about it, all we get is this:

Hm. A weird cover on a shady place. I wonder what is underneath.

And interacting with it just gets a voice telling us to leave.

Scram.

This is obviously something suspicious, and it seems quite important, but there's nothing we can do about it. Vi has gotten herself barred from entry somehow (I love this detail) and we'll have to find another solution. It'll be a while.

Just past there, there's someone quite helpful to meet!



That bag looks really heavy.
Ants can carry many times their weight. It is quite inspiring.
Such strength... Perhaps we were born as the wrong bug...
You don't get to complain, you can shoot ice!
Please, do not fight in front of Lady Amber. Her work is stressful enough already.

Let's talk to her.



For a limited time, we're letting you sign up for a junior account! You can store and take out 35 items for free. For free!
Free!?
No more tears over having to skip that Crunchy Leaf!
Sounds pretty good.
Right? There's no way you wouldn't want this. I'll sign you up right now!
How wonderful. It's our lucky day!
It sure feels nice to get cool stuff without doing anything.



This is Amber. She's very enthusiastic about her job! Which is good, because it's a useful one. She manages storage for consumable items. As she said, she can hold up to 35, which helps alleviate inventory frustration (she can hold onto extra things we don't need and free up room to pick up more, keep the things that are too valuable or good to use right away, etc). She can be found offering her services in nearly every town, usually near shops, and even occasionally some other places (don't ask how she gets around or how she's always there when we are).

Don't ask me where the number 35 came from though, I have no idea.





The "select multiples" option is new in v1.1, you can press (Y) on an item to highlight it and then give her all the highlighted things at once.

Thank you! I will guard it with my life.
Would you like to store anything else?
(No) Oh, okay! Have a nice day!

As proof of concept, I gave her my Magic Seed.



And now it's in her stock, for us to take back whenever we need it.

Next to Amber is the shop, but let's talk to some people outside first.



Who's tough now, Seedlings!? COME GET SOME!

This guy's name in the internal files is literally "Seedling Slayer", by the way.

Pfft. Who boasts about beating up Seedlings? A little kid could do it!
That armor looks cheap, too. Oh lord.



Oh dear.



M-Maybe I should press (Back) near the townsfolk to learn a bit more about them?

Who are we to refuse?

Geez, Mun's still in the same spot as always.
Still gossiping, huh.
Yeah, that can't be a good look!
You two can't talk!



Over here we have some ant workers who seem to be erecting a new structure.

It's weird to see a Miner Ant out on the surface.
I wonder what they'll build here.
Maybe a house for us.
This is the commercial area, Leif. That is unlikely.
Details. A house is just what we need!
...I'm just going to end the conversation here.

Put a pin in this one.



Further west is the other exit, but we're not done here yet. That would take us to the Residential District, which can also be reached by heading east from the Plaza (don't ask me about the topology of this, maybe it's a long circular path that runs around behind the castle or something? It's convenient, though).



Let's go inside Madame Butterfly's shop.



It's Madame Butterfly! She's got the best prices in the whole kingdom!
Ahem.
Oh, sorry. I always get excited when I come here.
Everything's so cheap, and Madame Butterfly's so pretty!
I bet she's super rich, too...
Everyone has a role model.
Indeed. Let's make sure to shop here for what we need.

Honestly, Vi sounds like she has a crush.



If you wish to purchase something, stand in front of the item you desire and press (A).
You can do that by yourself, can't you?

Just like with the caravan, we can also sell items here.

Let's check out what she has in stock:

Mushroom (3 berries)
Danger Shroom (3 berries)
Aphid Egg (2 berries)
Honey Drop (4 berries)
Crunchy Leaf (3 berries)

Vi wasn't kidding about everything being cheap, either. This is a good place to get basic goods if we need them. She doesn't have anything we haven't seen before, though.





This person gives us more hints. I don't know the exact formulae, but this isn't a lie - the higher level an enemy is relative to you (and the longer you take on the button sequence), the more berries you lose when running away from battle. Generally speaking, though, if you need to run away, you probably don't care much about the berries.

Poor fellow. It must be rough being so preoccupied while traveling.
That's what explorers are for. Post an escort quest, or something.
But then you have to pay a reward!
As opposed to dropping berries all over Bugaria?
Fair.

Further south...



Aren't those poisonous?
To someone such as I, poison is nothing.
Hmm. We will have to try one as well...
Uh, no. We really shouldn't.

A hint that there might be reasons to eat poisonous items. There's also a banter about him:

This Beetle's always at Fry's. He eats pretty much anything...
Ah, a true gourmet. We may have things in common.
Yeah. You're both weirdos, alright.
...

Just to the left of him is the person we came to see.

21 - Fry it Up!

Fry's theme is proximity-based, it starts playing when we get close enough to him.

This is Fry, the fly!
Most chefs live in the royal castle, but he chose to work here.
Though I don't get it. He could make more profit at the castle.
He probably just wants to see his fellow common bug smile.
There has to be more to it than that...
What matters is I'm really hungry. Let's get him to cook for us!
We could go for a Mushroom Salad.
Hmm, a Cooked Shroom would do me good.
What's with you two and shrooms? Aphid Omelette all the way!
Let's make sure we have the proper ingredients, first.

Before we get into it with Fry, let's check to his left.



It's cute sleeping like that...
Uh. Well... Fry isn't complaining, so I guess we can just leave him here.

According to the wiki, Oma here represents one of the developers. He has several different lines when we talk to him, chosen randomly (I actually don't know if I've seen all of them), giving hints about various recipes we can try to make.

Wrapping some leaves with eggs... zzz...
Mushrooms go well with honey... zzz...
Cooked... or with honey... both are different... zzz...
A big seed... can be served for a trio... zzz...

There may well be more. There are a bunch of hints here and there about recipes, but this is a decent start.

Let's stop dawdling and talk to Fry.





Interestingly, we can choose whether to cook with one or two ingredients right away, unlike in Paper Mario where two ingredients had to be unlocked by finding a cookbook. Other than that, though, it's basically the same system: we give him one or two items, and get back something else.

(Two ingredients)

Oh! We've got some hungry bugs! First ingredient, now!
Second ingredient, now!



Let's try this first.

Watch a master do his work!



Fry puts the items in his pot and stirs them around. Hearts coming out indicates a successful recipe!

Here it is, a masterwork! Eat up, small fry!



And we get a new item.

Come back later when your stomach growls again! Ahahahaha!!

Fry is certainly enthusiastic.

Normally we'd just get the item and be done, but because this is our first time cooking (and loosely part of the plot), everyone goes over to some nearby seating and we have a cutscene.



Can't explore on an empty stomach!
It's nice to be able to share like this...



Everyone eats. (And, yes, they do eat the item we just made. It won't be in our inventory when we check. If you're trying to be practical here, make something cheap.)

Huff... We feel just like new. Literal ages since we ate something. And we get hungry real fast, so...
We'll definitely eat here again. It's been nice to share.
Sounds good. But it's time to get back to the mission!
We've gotta go south, to the Golden Settlement! Off we go!



The recipe gets added to the appropriate page of our logbook. I won't bother showing these, as there isn't any new information in them; I'll make an appendix for the recipes and add them to it as we discover them.

So why did I go out of my way to get a Burly Berry earlier, if whatever recipe we cook here is wasted? (I had to buy it then if I wanted to use it here, because Leif wouldn't let us go back to the outskirts after entering the palace.) Well, there are a bunch of different versions of this scene, depending on what we cook, so I wanted to test it exhaustively with every recipe that it's possible to make at this point. (I'm obviously not going to keep the save in which I wasted these expensive berries, I'll remake the Berry Jam later.)

This is also why I grabbed that Mistake from Leby and Dib. If I hadn't kept that one there'd be no way to test what happens if you cook it. And yes, something happens if you cook that:



Well well, you gave me bad quality ingredients! Not much I could salvage with this!



Yes, this is a real recipe. You can compound your Mistakes and make them even worse. (What does this thing do? If someone eats this thing, they'll instantly be sent to 1 HP as well as poisoned for 4 turns.)



Ngh... For the sake of the mission, we must eat...
(Poor them. I'll just eat some of my secret stash later!)

Then they eat it and the scene picks up from before. (You get this version of the scene for making any "bad" recipe. It's the same for a regular mistake, or also...)



...this thing, which is what you get if you disregard Vi's advice and combine two drops of honey. (What is "a big price"? This reduces the user to 1 HP. 12 TP is pretty good though, I can see situations in which someone might consider using this.)

Then there are special variations for making specific things our team likes.

Kabbu likes Cooked Shrooms:



Ah... Nothing like a plain smoked shroom. Healthy, yet filling...
It's such a boring meal though... Needs some honey!
We're just grateful to have a full stomach at this point. Thanks.

Vi, naturally, likes honey:



Glazed Honey is just the best! It's honey, but even better!
Mmm... A bit sweet for my taste.
We'll eat anything, really... Except a Mistake.

And Leif likes Mushroom Salad:



Ah... Our favorite. Fate has smiled upon us.
The textures work so well together!
... A bit too savoury. We shoulda put honey in it!

It's interesting that two of these (Cooked Shrooms and Mushroom Salad) were mentioned in the banter about Fry, but Vi said something about Aphid Omelette (which is actually called Leaf Omelet) and doesn't react to that.

I didn't find any other variations when testing the rest of the recipes, but let's have a full list of what we can make with the ingredients we currently have access to:

Mistake (01)
"Why would you let this happen? It recovers 1 TP, but don't eat it. Don't say you weren't warned."
Recovers 1 TP, poisons user (2 turns).
Sell: 1 berry
Results from any invalid combination of ingredients.

Big Mistake (70)
"Please don't."
Sets user to 1 HP, poisons user (4 turns).
Sell: 1 berry
Made by cooking a Mistake.

Leaf Salad (02)
"This salad is just many crunchy leaves chopped up, but it looks fancy. Restores 6 HP to one ally."
Sell: 3 berries
Made by cooking by itself.

Glazed Honey (03)
"This warm honey's delicious taste is the pride of the Bee Kingdom. Restores 8 TP."
Sell: 4 berries
Made by cooking by itself.

Abomihoney (04)
"You should never improperly mix honey! Restores 12 TP at a big price."
Sets user to 1 HP.
Sell: 4 berries
Made by combining two

Cooked Shroom (05)
"Nothing like some smoking to improve a shroom. Restores 6 HP to an ally and cures poison."
Sell: 2 berries
Made by cooking by itself.

Cooked Danger (06)
"Cooking amplified this mushroom's taste and danger. Restores 5 TP. At a price."
Poisons user for 2 turns.
Sell: 3 berries.
Made by cooking by itself.

Sweet Shroom (07)
"A mushroom with some honey on top. Yum! Restores 5 HP to an ally and 4 TP."
Sell: 5 berries
Made by combining and

Sweet Danger (08)
"While this looks AND tastes good, it is still bad for you. Restores 7 TP. At a price."
Poisons user for 2 turns.
Sell: 5 berries
Made by combining and

Fried Egg (09)
"Fry the Fly came up with the frying technique. Restores 6 HP to an ally."
Sell: 3 berries
Made by cooking by itself.

Leaf Omelet (10)
"Leaves wrapped in fried egg casing. Restores 9 HP to an ally."
Sell: 5 berries
Made by combining and

Honey'd Leaf (11)
"This is definitely more honey than leaf. Restores 5 HP to an ally and 5 TP."
Sell: 5 berries
Made by combining and

Roasted Berries (12)
"A plate of roasted berries, family serving. Restores 2 HP to the party."
Sell: 4 berries
Made by cooking a or by itself.

Mushroom Skewer (16)
"Mushrooms cooked on a stick! Restores 6 HP to an ally and 3 TP."
Not poisonous!
Sell: 6 berries
Made by combining two types of mushroom, such as and

Hearty Breakfast (17)
"Bugaria's staple breakfast. Restores 5 HP to an ally, 3 TP, and cures poison."
Sell: 6 berries
Made by combining and

Mushroom Salad (18)
"It has a different, yummy texture in every bite. Restores 8 HP to an ally and cures poison."
Sell: 4 berries
Made by combining and

Berry Jam (42)
"A thick and spicy jam made from two kinds of berries that boosts attack and defense during battle for 2 turns."
Sell: 12 berries
Made by combining and

That's a pretty good variety of things we can make! At this point I usually just see what I can make out of whatever I had lying around after Snakemouth.



Here's what I ended up with.

I will draw your attention to Roasted Berries, too: this is the first source of full-party healing we've seen (and the only way to do that right now), though it's not exactly efficient. It's expensive to make and not very strong. There will be a cheaper way to make them soon enough, but it involves an ingredient we can't get just yet.

That's it for cooking, at least for right now. From where our team gathered to eat, we can glimpse hints that there's a medal shop just to the east. Let's have a look at that.



Ever picked up a resistance Medal and thought "Pfft! I can just block! I don't need them!"
Well, they actually have a hidden effect! If you have them equipped and eat an item that causes a status effect...
Let's just say the results of that experiment should be obvious, huh?

This is an interesting hint! Medals like Poison Resistance give 50% resistance to the status when inflicted by an enemy attack (if you don't block; as he says, blocking, even a regular block, will prevent status from being inflicted), but confer immunity to that status from items. There are certainly times when this can be good to know.

There's also a banter about this guy:

What a fanatic! Some bugs truly live to equip Medals!
Medals ARE awesome! Wish they were cheaper, though...
Costing a bit less MP wouldn't be the worst, either.

I'm never sure how to feel about characters openly acknowledging game mechanics in dialogue. I usually dislike it outside the context of tutorials, as it can really break immersion.



Which he is now selling at high prices.
Indeed. It's surprising that he would part with his possessions, but I won't judge.
After all, these will be quite useful on our journey.
Travel, treasure, and power! Now that's the life!

This is Merab. He sells medals.



Medals! Those great things you see on display! They are really useful!
By equipping them, you can get many effects, from simple stat changes to new moves and challenges!
You can equip them to anyone on your team, so mix and match for different effects!
I change up my stock now and then, so be sure to check back often!

Specifically, he tends to get new medals in stock each time we finish a chapter.

(How do we use medals)

Easy! You can press (Start) and equip them from under the Medal menu!
Medals require MP to equip, and each Medal requires a different quantity of it. Your MP is shared across your team.
Some medals can be equipped to different teammates, others affect everyone at once!
Make sure to use (D-pad Left) and (D-pad Right) to switch who you are equipping to!
Please try out multiple Medal combinations to triumph in any situation!

He's not really telling us anything we don't know, but still, good to have it in one place I guess.

"We'd like to see more medals" will cause him to reshuffle which medals are on display; he can have more than three in stock, but only a random three will be displayed (and therefore available for us to purchase) at any given time. Let's see what he has right now:

HP Plus (45 berries)
Poison Resistance (35 berries)
Hard Hits (30 berries)
TP Plus (55 berries)
Sleep Resistance (30 berries)

We have HP Plus and Poison Resistance already, but we can get an additional copy of each if we so desire. Sleep Resistance is just like Poison Resistance, but for sleep.

TP Plus costs 3 MP and gives us 3 TP, so it's the equivalent of converting a level of MP into a level of TP (just like in Paper Mario, though in that game HP Plus was also a direct counterpart to levels. Here, well, we could give each bug an HP Plus and that would be the equivalent of taking two levels in HP, but we can't simulate a finer granularity with medals). That's good to have.

Hard Hits is a challenge medal, it increases enemies' attack by 25% in return for doubling the berries they drop. This is convenient if you feel the need for grinding, or also just if you're getting bored and want to ramp up the challenge a bit. I'm not planning to use it on-screen in this LP, but I'll definitely grab it for offscreen grinding if/when that becomes necessary.



Alright, take it on a great adventure!



Whenever we buy a medal, it also reshuffles the entire current stock.





Please check for other wares you might want!

Merab seems to have multiple possible lines after you buy something.

I also bought Hard Hits and TP Plus. I can't afford the other two right now, but I'll be back for them soon enough; I have other priorities for my remaining berries.



TP Plus is obviously going on. I gave the second HP Plus to Leif for now.



That's all for the Commercial District (for now). Let's go check out the rest of the town.

(Once again, I hit the character limit and need to split the post. Really hoping I'm not going to make a habit of this...)

07: Cooking with Fry (Part 2)



This is the Residential District. There's not as much here, but it's still worth a look around.

There's a lot of houses here now.
Is that so? How was it back then?
It was only the fountain. This was more of a social spot...
Huh. They turned a park into housing?
As more people came in, it was inevitable. But we do miss the park...





No probs. I'm the queen of multi-hit super smackdowns!

This person has some more tutorial/hint text for us. Some flying enemies need two hits before they'll fall down, but Vi's multi-hit skills will work on them just fine.

There's an odd banter here, too.

Hmmmmmm...
You okay there?
Look at the middle green coating covering its chest!
Maybe I should stick some leaves on myself... and try to emulate the look?
Were you seriously thinking about that?

Kabbu has really weird fashion sense. Then again, is this guy wearing the bug equivalent of a cravat? Maybe it's not so crazy.





This person seems to be trying to cosplay as a Seedling? Or is it camouflage?

Ants can grow hair?
Those are leaves, Vi.
(Really?)
R-Right...



Inside the house that person was standing near, there's a spring mushroom.



Eophi and Mun live together, but Mun is currently in the commercial district, we met him earlier.

Leaves can grow in such pretty patterns! What a cute mask!
And they never grow exactly the same. He's lucky.
It makes every mask more valuable, too!



The fountain is water. That, obviously, means only one thing.



Leif can freeze it like any other geyser, so we can get across.



There's a medal up here! Bug Me Not! is one of the reasons the save crystals turning blue never causes much of a problem. This lets you skip battles if the enemies are too low-level to give you meaningful experience (the game still always gives you 1 point of pity experience if you actually fight them, though). For the Paper Mario players out there, this is Bump Attack - except Bump Attack was always a late-game reward and cost a big chunk of BP (I want to say 5?), while Bug Me Not! is handed to you for free here at the beginning and only costs 1 MP. This is a really nice quality-of-life change, and makes backtracking painless.

Very occasionally, enemies defeated with Bug Me Not! can still drop berries or items, but it happens so seldom that walking around with this on is not an effective means of grinding.

That said, I personally don't care much for it, and almost always choose not to use it. It feels cheap to me and honestly I'd rather fight the battles anyway. (Also, I should warn people to be careful with this: especially if you're doing all the side content, bonus bosses, etc, you can end up slightly overlevelled and then this thing will make your experience of the story content underwhelming. It will work on an enemy even if you've never seen or fought it before.)



If we talk to this guy, he seems to catcall Vi. (Hey, that's a tophat, not a fedora. What gives?)



She is not amused.

It's called flirting, Vi.
I didn't ask him to!



I'm leaving. Bye.

There's a bit more in the banter:

That's a pretty charming dude.
He's gotta pick who to charm better!

Bomby isn't a bee. He's another beefly, like Samira. I don't think Vi is being speciesist though, she just seems annoyed.



In the other house on this level, we find this sinister-looking guy.

A tip for you: stay away from water.
You never know what kind of monsters might be lurking below the surface.

What happened to him?

I agree with this guy, totally. Water sucks!
If an artifact's underwater, we're done. We quit.
...Yeah. I will not pretend I would not be discouraged.



Is that a gumball machine?



Not quite. Or at least, not any more.

A bank, huh...
Sounds like a good idea to open an account, in case something happens to our berries.
I don't know. I don't trust anyone else with my berries. What if they run away after we give them a bunch?
This bank is endorsed by the Ant Queen. We believe we used to have an account here ages ago.
...But we are sure they have terminated our account ages ago, too...

Let's see how this works.



Welcome. I offer banking services here.
Annoyed when your wallet is full and no longer has space for that berry?
Panicking when thieves steal your hard-earned money?
Then my services are just for you!
I can offer you an account here at my bank to keep your berries safe when you're out doing whatever you do.
I don't know... I like my berries close to myself!
This is the kind of attitude that makes you never move forward in life!
Look, if you keep your berries here, you might even get some interest every now and then!
You'll earn a small percent of your account every 30 minutes! It's free money!
Free money's even shadier!
Just think about it, won't you?
...What's that, you don't even have 50 berries?
Well... come back when your wallet is a bit fuller. Then we can talk.

The bank is exactly what it sounds like. It's well worth opening an account, though maybe not this early since there's so much else to buy; still, I'll be doing this as soon as I can afford it. We can carry up to 999 berries on our persons, and the bank can store up to an additional 10,000 (which is far more than we could ever conceivably need).

They also pay out interest every 30 minutes of game time (and yes, this is as abusable as it sounds, you can just leave the game running and rack up the money if you're so inclined). It pays 2% of the balance at the time it checks (though this is capped at 75 berries per payment). Prior to version 1.1, it was 3% interest and there was no cap, so it could get out of control very quickly.



This person doesn't have much to say, but there's a banter, of course:

You know, this is a pretty good spot to sit in.
Perfect for some music!
Or for long team discussions... Let's enjoy it.



Further west, we can cut some weeds to reveal a bouncy shroom.



It launches us onto these ramparts.



What's this?



Oh dear. What will we be able to do with this?



This house in the corner is an inverted teacup!



He doesn't have much to say.

We're getting a huge nerd feeling.
Don't judge a bug by his cover, Leif!
It worked with you two, so...

Kabbu makes bad puns, but I'm left questioning why our resident wizard has such a grudge against nerds.



That's it for the residential district, let's go back to the plaza. As I mentioned earlier, these areas loop around; it feels counterintuitive to me and took a bit of getting used to.



Time to stop ignoring this.

Utter helps with the Notice Board.
He makes sure to keep the board in pristine shape, and to alert others of new posts.
I hear sometimes he helps out people himself!
Seems like an outstanding citizen. Vi could learn a thing or two.
I'm as outstanding as it gets!

Talking to Utter triggers a minor cutscene.



Why, yes I do! Looking for the quick and dirty ones, ain't ya Vi?
We would like to see any and all available ones, if possible.
Ugh, those are almost never worth it.
Nonsense, Vi. Helping others is its own reward.
Oh. How noble... It's moving, really. Kinda.
Alright! I will make all quests available for you lot.
Well... here's hoping for good rewards!

If we talk to Utter again:

No new quests right now. I'll keep you posted!

(This is a bit cryptic. What he means is "no quests have been added since the last time I told you quests have been added", not "there are no quests available".)



He does give us the option to accept all the quests at once, though, which is pretty convenient. I won't do this just yet, though, let's read through the board first:















When we accept them all, Utter reminds us to look in our log for the details. I won't show much of this, because the descriptions we just saw on the board are more detailed.



Proof of concept, though. (Worth noting, again, as we complete these, they'll be marked complete and added to the list at the bottom, where you see chapter 1. Like Samira's songs, these will permanently be in whatever order we complete them in; keep that in mind if you care about it.)

This is our first batch of sidequests, so most of them are pretty easy and can be done right now (though, notably, not all of them: the lore book quest will take us the entire game to complete). We'll get a start on these next time.

08: Sidequesting in the Ant Kingdom (Part 1)

17 - Ant Kingdom

When we left off last time, we'd gotten a bunch of sidequests off the quest board. It's time to get to work on them, though there's one other thing to do first.



We can finally go inside the theatre.

22 - Fine Arts



It took me a bit to realise what was going on here, but if you look at the gears on the side, and the tumbler to the right of us, it becomes clear this building is a repurposed music box.

Ain't this place fancy.
A bit too fancy. It's straight out of the Bee Kingdom. Yuck.
You know, Vi... for someone who cares so much for treasure, you dislike most high-class establishments.
It's just too pretentious! Use money to eat good food, or go on a trip!
I hate when bugs use money just to look important!
Ah, Vi. You're not too bad after all.
What's that "after all" supposed to mean?
Just take the compliment, Vi. Just take it.

I like this one, but I do think it's worth pointing out that Vi's feelings about this sort of thing are a bit inconsistent. What happened to "I want to put statues of myself everywhere", Vi?





Here's one of this game's trickier hidden items (or at least one that eluded me for quite a while!). Attacking the drum with Kabbu's horn makes it rotate, and if you get it going fast enough a Crystal Berry pops out. (It also plinks out a few notes of the game's leitmotif while spinning, a nice touch.)



What's he doing here anyway?
This place will fill up with fancy folk. Maybe he is selling expensive items.
We should speak to him, perhaps he has something of use.

Fuzzo's relocated in here, explaining why we didn't see him outside by the caravan. He normally travels around with them. Let's see what he's up to.

Heh. You look like smart bugs.
Some of us are.
Can we help you?
Heh heh. Sure you can. I've got an offer you just can't beat.
Gold? Some legendary berry?
Perhaps a powerful medal?
Heh heh. Take a look... at THIS!



Kabbu's reaction here is priceless, there's no way I wasn't going to GIF that.

...! Is... is THAT...!?



Only 10 of them were ever made!
Eh. It's alright, I guess.
...Bug Ranger?
P-please, esteemed merchant... name your price!
Oi, Kabbu!
Heh heh. For you, how about 40 berries?
Hngh! A bit steep.



......
Kabbu.
D-Don't worry, you two.
I shall save up and buy it myself.
Fine. It's your own money.
Heh heh. I will be waiting.

I'll explain what exactly this is in a minute. Needless to say, this is what I was saving my berries for earlier, and the reason I didn't buy another medal or open the bank account.



(No thanks) Heh heh. This offer won't last forever, mind you.

(But of course we're going to buy it.)

Heh heh. Nice doing business with you.

05 - Key Item!







Well? Are you happy now?
I am happy beyond words!
We don't see the appeal of this doll.
You've been missing out!



They're just actors, but they inspire young bugs all over the land! Even in the north!
The power of propaganda.
They're good, alright? And sometimes they do reruns at this theater!
Say, Leif. Next time they're in town, we can all go watch them!
Maybe you will take a liking to the Blue Ranger!
No way! Yellow Ranger is the best!
...Heh. Thank you. It sounds like a fun time. We'll take you up on that.



So, yeah. The Bug Ranger Plushie. Kabbu becomes a total dork over this thing, there's no way I wasn't going to buy it for him.

What is it for? You'll see soon enough. (For anyone playing along, it is absolutely not a necessity to buy this now and you might well want to prioritise something more practical, but for purposes of the LP I have no choice.)

We can also check out the proprietor of the theatre, who's waiting on stage.



That's not a real name, is it?
Nah, but no one knows who he really is!
No one has seen him without his mask!
Half of his face is visible...
That part is a mask too!
What?
Unbelievable! I must go rip the mask off myself!
No! You're staying right here with us!

I don't know why Kabbu gets so aggressive over this guy. That said, half a mask, in a theatre, I think this guy might be a reference to Phantom of the Opera?



Hello, what are yo-



Heh, yo-



As much as I want to keep this going, we should probably just go.

This is what you get if you talk to him, though. (Also, it was surprisingly difficult for me to catch screenshots of the lines he interrupts so I could transcribe them, his interruptions come in automatically. It also plays the "shocked" sound each time that happens.)

That happened, I guess.

17 - Ant Kingdom



With our new plushie in tow, let's finally get started on those sidequests. First up, the inn requested a review of their services. It's over here, the last building in the square we haven't explored.



This painting catches our attention before we talk to the innkeeper.

Ah, the inn founders.
Indeed. We owe these cozy beds to them.
They'd be happy to know that every new owner took care of the inn with equal passion.
Say, why do you think that is?
How they could work just as hard for something they didn't create?
...
If you ask me, I think it's not about being the founders.
They probably shared the same ideals, that's all.
You two are getting all sappy. Sounds like nap time!
Yawn... Maybe I am a bit tired...
Shall we call it a night?



You probably guessed where this was going. Yes, this is another discovery!







As per usual, after we have the discovery, inspecting it again yields only a short message.

Ah, that is the Innkeeper. The 7th owner of this inn!
This place has seen better days. Our support would do some good.

Short banter about the innkeeper. Let's actually talk to her.



Heya. We've come to write a review!
Oh, by the Queen! Really? I am so glad you've come!
Be glad after the review.
Our standard fare is 3 berries a night.
So for you three, that would be 9 berries - with a free Honey Drop on the house!
But since you're writing a review for the inn, you can stay here for free tonight.
For free? I won't complain, but...



O-oh, um...
Worry not, Innkeeper. We will accept your generous offer.
Please make sure we have the same experience as all your guests.
And we will keep the price of stay in mind for our review.
Phew. Alright, then. Your room is upstairs. I hope you'll have a lovely night!
We hope so, too.
Please come talk to me when you wake up, so I can get your review.

20 - Night at the Inn



We get this nice little fade-out animation and a variant on the game's leitmotif when we go to sleep.



Waking up, we've fully recovered our HP and TP, and as promised there's a Honey Drop for the taking on the bench there. While it's not quite free healing from a crystal, at least the inn is nice enough to feed us. We didn't even have to pay to stay this time! Guess we'd better go downstairs and deliver on the promised feedback.





Gulp...
I slept pretty well. The Honey Drop you left was great!
We haven't had a bed so cozy in years. Or any bed, really. It was good.



Alright! Service's still got it! I needed the confidence boost...
You're great! I Can't wait to come again!
Mhm.
Heheh. Come back anytime!



And that's it for this quest. Yes, really. We don't get a reward, either, unless you count a free stay at the inn and that Honey Drop. I guess it's fair enough, this was trivial to do; I think this is really here just to introduce us to the inn.

Well, that's done with. On to the next one.



Ali, this bespectacled fellow who lives in the teacup house, has a problem with overdue library books.

Oh, hello there! Are you explorers?
Indeed, good sir. We've taken your request.
Oh, thank you! I really, really need you to return this book to the palace library for me.
It's... quite past the return date!
Huh? You're not an Ant though, right? How'd you take it out?
Oh, I asked Gen and Eri to get the book for me. They seem to be busy, so they can't return it.
Here's the book. You're really helping me out here!



Bleh, I hate being an errand bee...
The reward will be quite worth it! So please make haste, for the sake of my record...
Oh, and deliver it to Libren, ok? Brooke's scary enough without turning in late...
Sure thing. Leave it to us.

(He doesn't even realise the library don't know he has the book in the first place. Surely they'd blame Gen and Eri if anyone? Pretty sure Ali's reputation is completely safe.)

18 - In the Court of the Ant Queen



Heading into the Ant Palace, I make use of this convenient save crystal, because I'm definitely trying both options here.



We have a book to return.
Oh? Thank you!
It is a bit overdue... but I will forgive you as explorers are always busy.
Thanks for your patronage!
Alright. Let's return to Ali and get our reward.

That was straightforward and not terribly interesting. What happens if we go to Brooke instead?



We have to give it to her through the Key Items menu, like we do with Lore Books.

Wait, that book is WAY overdue!
W-we apologize.
Apologies won't cut it! Although Gen and Eri were the ones that picked it up, right?



Well, book's delivered. Let's go back and get our reward.

Not too different, really, but that's a little more interesting at least. It's a nice touch that they let you give it to either of them for different dialogue.



While we're here...

What?! That book is a disgrace to this library! Get that out of here!

Okay, okay, I didn't think she'd want that. (Especially since we know someone else who does. Let's go see him, since we're already right here.)



Says the Wasp. We saw your request.
You're, um, searching for terrible books. Correct?
That's right.



...Yes. But there's some sort of... angry comfort in witnessing their poorly composed narratives.
We're not here to judge, so... Any leads on these books?
Not really. I reckon other cultured bugs with a collection have bad books lying around.
They usually let bugs take them for free.
Yikes, you can't even sell those books...



I've made this library my den. I'll be here if you find something.



Ah! This is one of the worst ones! Let's see...
Hmph. "Tragedy on the Hills".





Uh, are you sure you want this?
...Yes. It's going straight into my collection. Here's your reward.



Two more should sate my urges... Let me know if you find more.

Sure, he paid us, but the real reward of this quest is getting his commentary on the books we give him I love Reeves.

Sadly, he doesn't have a reaction if you try giving him Lore Books, or the Overdue book from earlier. I did try.



Before we leave, let's try something special. What happens if we try to give Brooke the Bug Ranger Plushie?



I-Indeed... are you a fan of the Bug Rangers?
Well... yes. I love reading the comics.
Looks like you found a new friend, Kabbu!
Hehe... it's always nice to find other people that like the Bug Rangers!

Yeah. This is what it's for. Any time we're prompted to use or give a key item, we can choose the plushie instead of whatever we're meant to and it will usually trigger an easter egg conversation. There are some fun ones. I'll be seeing most of these for the first time now too; I never thought to do this in my prior playthroughs.

Sadly, Reeves didn't have a reaction when I tried it on him. I was quite disappointed.

We also have enough Discoveries to get the next reward from Libren.

Hey there! Came to turn in some Discoveries? Let's see how you've done!
This time you have 11 Discoveries, last time you had found 7...
Looks like you have enough for the next reward tier! Here you go!



An actually meaningful reward this time! Nice. We're racking up a lot of these things. Though, of course, we still don't know what they're actually for, and it'll be a while yet before we can use them.

Anyway, let's go report back to Ali.



It was a walk in the park.
Now you get to deliver our reward!
Of course. This should be enough, I think!



Nice! Hard, cold berries!





This is like, super inefficient! We're charging double!
S-sorry! I gave you all the spare berries I had, though...
It's alright, Vi. We can return it after a briefing!
That's not the point!
Just this once, Ali. We'll definitely charge next time.
T-Thank you... I'm very grateful!



Obviously, the Lore Book is the real reward for this quest. Let's go turn that in.



The Crowning of Elizant II. After tears were shed of Elizant's too sudden retirement, it was time to crown the new Queen. Elizant II's speech radiated power over kindness, leaving many uneasy. Although everyone cheered, doubt and fear festered amongst the populace. They could only wait and pray that their new Queen would be just.

This isn't really new information to us. Back to sidequests we go, then.





Tod requested we find his ball. He doesn't have anything to say, just asks if we've found it. We haven't, but I can try the Bug Ranger Plushie!

W-whoa, is that a green Bug Ranger plushie?! Can I really have this?!



Hee hee hee!
Aw man, what a bummer!

I do think it's interesting how what set off these conversations changes (they're usually pretty silly, though). With Brooke, the implication was Kabbu showed her the doll, or she just spotted him carrying it. Here, Vi snatched it from him and tried to give it to Tod without his permission!

Sadly for Tod, I'm putting his quest off a bit. It's more convenient to do the others first.

06 - Outskirts



Chuck wanted a Hearty Breakfast, so let's go take him one. I made one earlier during my cooking spree for just this occasion. Notably, the gate to Snakemouth Way is open again, so we can get to him just fine.



Snakemouth Way is unchanged so far; I fought a few Seedlings as I went and got the last few points needed to reach Rank 4!



More MP. More.



Kabbu learns a new skill at Rank 4!



Heavy Strike costs 3 TP and deals +2 damage compared to his normal attack. Like his normal horn strike, it ignores 1 point of defence. This isn't spectacular, but it definitely has its uses, especially early in the game: we don't have a lot of sources of burst damage, and one big hit can be particularly handy against enemies with high defence.



Here's a demonstration. The action command is the same as before, just with a longer charge-up. If this reminds you of Power Smash from Paper Mario, you're not alone.



This is new. Looks like someone put up a gate blocking the way to Snakemouth Den.



If you have any complaints please direct them to the Ant Kingdom Safety Committee.

There's an Ant Kingdom Safety Committee?



At least that old bug that lives nearby says hi sometimes.

The guard's been moved out here too, it seems.

Hey, isn't this the Ant we met at the gate near the association?
Indeed. It seems she was reassigned here after we found the artifact.
She looks so bored. I guess nothing really happens here.



It really is blocked off, we can't get through with the abilities we have. This does mean that players who missed any of the medals or crystal berries in Snakemouth Den will have to wait a bit longer before being able to go back for them, but there will be ways back in there eventually, so they're not lost for good.



However, this path (which our characters refused to take last time we were here) is now available.



It's Chuck's house!

Hmm. So this is Chuck's Abode?
Uh huh. I think he calls it a hut though.
Is there really any difference?
For someone so well spoken to make such a basic mistake...
W-What?
It's just such a shame.



Eh, there's no time. We'll tell you later.



Leif is such a troll.



Yeah, whoever that is.
Vi, you know fully well that's Chuck!
His hut has been coming along well. We should say hi.
Before he takes a nap.
Or he croaks.
*Grumble*

This is kind of mean.



Looks like Chuck has something in common with Kabbu.

Chuck, we saw your posting on the quest board.



Let's give him the wrong thing.



Go visit Fry in the commercial plaza. I can't wait much longer!

This is your hint if you don't know how to make a Hearty Breakfast. (He doesn't actually keep whatever item we tried to give him.) I'm not sure how helpful this actually is, though - I have seen some people find it by e.g. assuming "hearty breakfast" is descriptive rather than an item name and giving him a Fried Egg or the like, but the fact you have to pick the wrong thing to see the hint means a lot of people never see it. Anyway, let's give him what he wants now.







Whew. Thanks, you all. Yer always helping me out.
I was so desperate I ate a raw Mushroom. Never really liked them...
No problem. The breakfast platter is one of our favourites.
A bit too savoury for me...
I've got a better reward for ya this time!

10 - Medal Found!



That might look like a plain rock, but it packs a punch!
Just like me when I don't have food...
Thank you, Chuck. It was nice to see you again.
Be safe, now! If you ever feel tired, I'd be glad to lend my place to you!



That's it for this quest!



Let's take note of this boulder for the future. It shakes slightly if Kabbu tries to hit it, but nothing we do can actually move or damage it, we'll need to come back later.

Our reward for Chuck's quest is actually twofold. In addition to the medal he gave us, Chuck's home now acts as a free inn whenever we want it. (It's a little out of the way compared to the inn in the plaza, but it's not that hard to get here if you need healing. My first playthrough, I didn't realise you could actually rest here, and kept spending berries at the inn.)







Mighty Pebble is interesting. This is our first skill-granting medal; it's treated like a global medal, but equipping this gives Kabbu a new skill. Pebble Toss costs 1 TP. It's a ranged attack that can target any enemy, and can knock them down if they're flying, but it always does 1 damage. Always, regardless of Kabbu's attack power, exhaustion, enemy's defence, etc. 1 damage. You might be able to do some tricks with this later in the game, but honestly it's pretty underwhelming.



I'll put this on for now so I can demonstrate it. I have the MP to spare so it's no object right now, but I usually don't use this medal much.

03 - Where Adventurers Gather



The next quest we have is for Eetl, but on the way to meet him, we run into Kina.

Dear me... Kina's always worrying about her brother. Maybe a bit too much?
Can't blame her. Maki keeps running off by himself.

Short banter.



We saw him in our meeting with the Queen...
Didn't he go off to the Golden Hills?
Ugh, no luck. I've already checked!
A-Already!?
Kina, your brother is one of the most respected explorers! He will be okay!
I know, I know...
But the nerve of him going without me! We're an unbeatable team! What if he needs me!?
Maybe he wanted some alone time?



Holy Goddesses!
Uhh... nothing. Nothing at all.
That's what I thought!
S-She's scaring me. Let's get out of here!

The banter updates after talking to her. Now there's a new line at the end:

Dear me... Kina's always worrying about her brother. Maybe a bit too much?
Can't blame her. Maki keeps running off by himself.
S-she gets a bit scary. I don't blame HIM!

And if we talk to Kina again:

Just leave me alone. I'll worry by myself.
*Sigh* Good job, Leif.
We didn't do anything...

All right then. Let's go to Eetl.



So it seems. We can't imagine him questing, though.
He's gotta relax more, too!
Vi, please don't cause him any trouble.
I won't! ...As long as he doesn't cause ME trouble.

New banter about Eetl. Also, that line about him managing the quest board isn't a lie, that's a functional quest board behind him just like the one Utter manages in the plaza. These are all linked and have the same quests on them, and when a new quest becomes available it will appear on all the boards simultaneously.

Let's talk to him.



Is... that bad? We'd just like to help...
No, um, I just figured you were busy with more important stuff.
Don't sweat it! If it pays we'll do it!
A-Alright. Thanks a lot. Your team is more reliable than I expected.
It's a pretty simple job, really. Take this package.



What's in this?
Don't open it, okay? Just deliver it!
My friend's a diver ant in the Bugaria Pier east from the Association. To reach it, just keep walking!



She'll be waiting with a little something. No worries.
Cool.
We'll get going, then. Good luck with the paperwork.

This one's going to be a bit more involved, thankfully.

06 - Outskirts



This bridge we couldn't cross earlier is the way we need to go.





There's a banter about this ant guard.

Is this the soldier that was guarding the Snakemouth Gate?
Hm... No, this seems to be someone else.
How can you tell? Most soldiers look alike.
It's the glimmer in her eye! The aura she radiates!
...There's numbers on the armor.

I like this one.

(Once again, due to the character limit I need to split the update here. Sigh.)