Let's Sperg Let's Play Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling Medal Randomizer - I'm already sick of cool jokes.

[Dr. Ricearoni]

Hello and welcome one and all-ocaust to the Bug Fables Medal Randomizer Let's Play.

​

If you don't know what Bug Fables is, it's a Paper Mario inspired indie game set in someone's backyard where bugs have started to become sapient and evolve into semi-modern societies. You play as a rookie team of explorers on the hunt for artifacts that will lead the Ant Queen to the titular Everlasting Sapling, said to grant eternal life and power to whosoever eats a leaf from it. I personally have a lot of fun with it and I'd love to share some of that with you guys. I'll be playing on Hardmode with the randomizer code enabled but if you'd prefer to make me suffer I'm open to activating a few cheat codes inspired by the classic n64 mods for the OG Paper Mario.

List of codes:
MOREFARM - Increases the xp needed to level up by 5 points every level.

RUIGEE - Levels must be bought, xp cannot be earned. Also every medal costs 1 point and levels only grant more medal points.

FRAMEONE - Only perfect blocks can be performed.

There's also one that makes hardmode harder but for the sake of the LP making progress we'll not be using it.

I'll be aiming to beat the game proper and all optional bosses (there are a LOT) and will be taking build suggestions as we go. For now lets just get some votes in for codes, if any.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

Ok here goes nothing. Part 1 is gonna be a lengthy one so bear with me because chapter 1 is more prologue than content.

































Ah yes here we are. Meet Kabbu, our first hero in our journey. He's a beetle of some kind who's travelled from a far off land to join the explorer's guild in search of the Everlasting Sapling.

And here comes Vi. Don't worry about her yet.



Kabbu showed up without a partner so he's hoping to partner up with Maki here, a royal knight of the queen. He's actually already got a teammate so Kabbu is barking up the wrong tree.






Speaking of causing a scene...


























"Some bee"
Wow. Racist. Sounds to me like the guild needs a diversity and inclusion team.










She changed her mind fast.















Aaaaand Vi just picked a fight with an elite knight of the queen. This is gonna sting.


I apologize for that pun, I will never make a bee joke ever again.

And FINALLY some gameplay. We've got ourselves a tutorial battle. Kabbu asks Vi if she'd like a refresher on how to fight. Vi tells Kabbu to shut the fuck up.



We've got three options here, though there's more that show up as the chapter progresses. Attack, Skill, and Item. Self explanatory really. Vi has tornado toss, a multihit attack that hits up to 4 times, and Kabbu has Taunt, which makes all enemies target him for a turn. It's kinda niche compared to the high damage output of Vi's skill so I won't be wasting a turn using it.

The game uses an action command system much like the paper mario games it's inspired by. As you can see, Vi uses a boomerang as a weapon, or as she calls it, the "Beemerang." It's actually a unique weapon that we'll get into the specifics of later. It's also incredibly sharp. Ouch.

Kabbu, on the other hand, is unarmed and uses his horn to fight. It makes sense for a beetle. His skills may be unimpressive but he has good utility, especially considering his basic attack and skills have a unique piercing mechanic. It functions differently from other forms of defense piercing attacks that I don't quite understand but it's almost always guaranteed to do at least 1 damage if his attack isn't reduced.

Maki counterattacks by whacking Vi on the head.

He then follows up his attack with a racial epithet for emotional damage. What a chad.
The fight ends after another turn of vigorous whacking on both sides.







And we're now officially guild-sanctioned explorers. neat. We get this little leaf with crystals slotted into it as proof of membership.



But before Maki can load us up with too much more exposition...



He gets interrupted by his sister and exploring partner, who's name escapes me at the moment. Kina maybe? Idunno we'll see. She's overprotective of him and I am almost certain she wants his dick. Icky. She freaks the fuck out when he isn't around.

Gross.
After an awkward silence, our duo introduces eachother and the chapter begins in earnest.





We can now walk around the guild and talk to people. I won't put every line of dialogue in here or this will go on even longer than it needs to but I'll get the important bits.
First off, let's go meet Zasp upstairs.




















He's our designated jerk with a heart of gold rival for this adventure. We'll be seeing more of him. Though his partner isn't around just yet.


Up here is Artis. He's an orchid mantis who runs the logistics. He gives us a shiny new Medal, one of the only few that can't be randomized, Hard Mode. It makes the game harder but gives rewards. Most notable of which is that after defeating any boss or miniboss, he'll give us a medal for free. So that's neat.

Boom. Medal equipped.

Meet Gen and Eri of C Team.
Gen Eri C Team. Clever.
I don't think they're actually called C Team. I just thought it would fit the joke better.
They're both horny for Maki. Talking to them reveals that Maki actually pulls this with EVERY new member as a hazing ritual. It was always his intention to allow us to join... he just had to rough us up first. Kabbu declares he'll demand a rematch to the death later.




And uhhhh, these guys. They don't have much story importance but they'll be a part of a few sidequests. We catch them outside beating a poor, defenseless crystal senseless.





Basically it's a saveblock. Yellow ones also heal you. There's also an even rarer red variant that only heals you and doesn't save.


Most of the roads, including the one to town, are blocked after some heavy rain. Most of the npcs are just standing around grumbling because of it.

This is the travelling merchant and her husband to her right. She's a hotheaded cricket(?) who sells some rare items and will follow us on our journey to sell us stuff. She isn't open for business just yet. Please note her adorable little packmule. She's got a pet snail with a tomato can as a container for her goods. Simply adorable.


We show the guard our permit and move onward.

Our first enemy, a Seedling. We'll slaughter them wholesale on the path to Snakemouth Den.

Oh yeah, everyone can tattle in this game. They even all have unique dialogue, even for fights they don't show up for if you check the tattle logs later. If people are interested I can show them off during intermissions.







It doesn't pose much threat. We kill it and move up to check a message someone's left for us.

How cryptic. Looks like there's stuff on the other side of the river, but we can't reach it yet.

Here's the flying variant. As you can see, if an enemy isn't touching the ground, Kabbu's attack gets grayed out.

We find a fruit fly hanging around on the path ahead.






Chuck is looking to set up a rest stop here. Of course he's getting a bit old for it. Might have to get his buddy Sneed to take over.

It's just a tutorial on lawn mowing.





Kabbu throwing shade.


He gives us some berries as a thank you. These berries are used as currency because they taste awful but keep a long time.

And cutting grass nets us our first item. Nifty.






And here we are. Snakemouth Den. Appropriate name considering the entrance looks like a snake's mouth.

Crystal berry get. These are the equivelant to Paper Mario's star pieces. Collect a bunch and trade them for rare medals. Unfortunately the rare medals are randomized.

New enemy just dropped. It has 2 defense, so Vi's beemerang doesn't do much to it.

Kabbu's horn on the other hand...

Pierces its defense and flips it upside down, making it vulnerable to Vi's attacks.

Not every enemy with defense can be flipped, but it's a godsend for the ones that can.

Vi's beemerang can also be used to retrieve items from a distance












We'll give it a smack with the beemerang.


Oops.



There we go.


And we accidentally hit the rope, cutting it and missing the switch entirely.



Which was totally the plan all along.







All according to Keikaku.


Sounds like some sorry schmucks lost a friend down here. Surely the shadow of a spiderweb looming over the sign isn't foreshadowing anything.


We smacked enough bugs and seedlings around to hit level 2.
I'm upgrading our TP, it lets us spam skills more



Speaking of, Vi learns a new skill. Secret Stash is a healing skill that restores a small amount of HP to the target and cures poison. It's kinda underwhelming for the cost but it comes in handy in a pinch sometimes.



Oh boy, a block puzzle, everyone's favorite. We move one to the switch on the left and climb up a small plateau to acquire the second.

Looks like it's lodged in this root. A good smack knocks it down onto the button below.

The door begins to rumble and then...

A mushroom falls from above as the door does nothing.





It's true. We've already got like 2 of these things.

Welcome to the world's most obvious trap, featuring the two most retarded bugs in the world.


The floor starts rumbling and falls out from under us.

Kabbu fucking dies. Vi fucking flies.








And as soon as we leave, the door fucking opens. Classic.





Rude.


New corpse just dropped.






Nevermind, he's just sleeping.


Vi starts trying to cut him out with the beemerang.








Ah fuck the spider came back for its lunch.







Vi don't you fucking dare


And she runs off, leaving Kabbu to defend the moth alone.

BOSS FIGHT!!!





Even Kabbu's horn can't piece the thing's defense. This isn't great.



And now Kabbu can't hit it at all. All he can do is sit around and await death.




And now Kabbu too is trapped before the jaws of a hungry spider.

END PART ONE -- TO BE CONTINUED

Sorry that so much of this is dialogue. You know how RPG prologues are. We'll get to exploring the dungeon proper in Part 2. Until next time.

 

[JamusActimus]

Nice I will watch this thread

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

And we're back! Still stuck in the web, facing down the jaws of death, abandoned by our companion.








Only to be saved at the last second by Vi, who's come back to help.







Yeah Kabbu, that was kind of a dick move on her part. I don't think now's the time or the place to be complaining though.







And it's a pretty sound plan too. Cut the web, free the moth, run like hell.



Sorry only goes so far when you leave someone to die.

And we're back for round 2. While Vi can totally hit the spider down with her beemerang, that is a very bad idea. As long as it's up there it isn't in Kabbu's way. Kabbu can only attack the first grounded enemy in front of him, so if the spider hops down then he can't attack anymore.



We start laying our attacks down on the web in an effort to free the moth.

The spider counterattacks by blasting us with poisonous bubble projectiles. They're slow moving and easy to block, but if you miss they inflict a nasty poison status on you.

We free the moth after a few turns of weathering the onslaught of bubbles


Thot slayer Kabbu on the hunt

Vi drags Leif over while Kabbu distracts the spider and then we grab him and run off.

The spider looks like it's always fucking screeching all the time.








Kabbu is too forgiving. She straight up left you to die. I mean, she did come back but STILL.

And she has all the gratefulness of Chris Chan.





Oh great. He's speaking Turkish.



Multilingual. Useful skill.



He's good. Honestly sleeping in a spiderweb must be pretty comfy, if a bit sticky. Minus the part where your organs get liquified I mean.



So Vi and Kabbu take a moment to catch Leif up to everything that's going on. The dialogue is just a bunch of tiny (...) bubbles so I don't have much to show.

Vi does take all the credit, of course.



Oh, I get it. Turning over a new Leif.

So he has a general idea of where to find what we're looking for. Great. We invite him along to lead the way.





Unfortunately, Leif is a non combatant so he's just gonna follow us around for this dungeon until we can find the way out.

That's probably why he ended up getting left for dead by his fellow scouts.

Another new enemy. This one is a former ant explorer who's been taken over by Cordyceps. You know. The funny mushrooms from The Last of Us.





These fuckers suck at first. 5 hp and 1 defense means unless we get the bonus first strike, they'll always survive at least one turn. And they hit like a truck too.

2 damage on a successful block. Ouch.

We find another crystal berry while exploring the cave.

And would you look at that, our very first medal. The overworld model is replaced with this in randomizer mode but normally it's fully visible.


Victory Buzz is great, especially for the early game. It gives us passive TP regen after every fight. Ergo, it makes our skills incredibly spammable. With Tornado Toss only costing 3 TP, that's a free tornado toss every fight.

Boom. We're gonna need to upgrade MP soon already with this costing a hefty 3 MP.

We find another switch and actually hit it this time. Don't mind these signs nearby me, they're just tutorials.





The way is lit. The path is clear. We require only the strength to follow it.



Why is it always mushroom?

Leif saves himself by freezing the damn thing solid.

The team is rightfully stunned.







So Leif suddenly has ice magic, and if he's to be believed, this is not normal for him.

And we'll get to meet at least one of them before we're done with this game.



So now Leif CAN fight by our side. And he's immensely more useful than Kabbu. But this isn't like Paper Mario, where you switch between 2 partners. All three of you fight as one cohesive team. This is unusual for exploration teams though. As you've seen, they tend to work in duos.





Kabbu doesn't like the floating mushrooms.

Leif's basic attack is pretty killer. He tosses his ice magic into the earth and...

It pops out under the enemy in a massive ice spike! Pretty neat. Also, as you can see, he's doing 3 damage in the back rank instead of 2. No, his attack isn't higher than the others, his ice magic just does bonus damage to fungus and plant based enemies.

Stack it with the attack bonus for being in the front and he can do some nasty damage to these mushrooms.

I don't blame her. We know nothing about Leif.

He does make a good point though.









TEEN bee gets SOAKED while EXPLORING with TWO OLDER MEN

Leif's starting skill is an AOE ice attack.

Not only does it do splash damage, it also has a decent chance to freeze enemies it hits. His basic attack can't freeze so this is more powerful in spades. And it's also incredibly spammable with Victory Buzz.




We freeze water droplets to make platforms and ascend higher into the cave. This place looks to be ruins of Turkish origins.





We waste some time arguing over which way to go.



Here's a good demonstration of the freeze in action. As you can see they're frozen solid and can't attack. However, attacking them also frees them. Attacks do 1 extra damage to frozen enemies however. So it's a trade off between stunning them or doing extra damage.

Another medal is hidden in the ruins of a shack. It's a decent medal. All it does is prevent you from entering encounters with enemies that won't give any XP. But we're too low level to really benefit from it.

We do a little platforming.

Magic seeds. Those will come in handy. They can be found rarely hiding in the grass in scripted areas, but the best place to get them is from Mrs. Cricket's travelling caravan.

We rank up again.

Medal points this time. We're running out.

Kabbu can shove Leif's ice blocks around. Useful.

We smack a crystal and cause some intense rumbling as the gate before us lowers.





Another for the collection. We're up to three now, so once we unlock the merchant who sells badges for these we should be able to get one straight away.

Leif can even freeze geysers solid to make variably tall platforms.

At the top we find a strange message on one of the ancient tablets. Turkish people are weird.

Even further up we find another crystal and open the door in the main room.

It leads us to this room full of giant mushrooms. Vi fell off in this shot and I didn't realize until I went back. RIP.

POGGERS EXCHANGE POGGERS EXCHANGE POGGERS EXCHANGE

POGGERS EXCHANGE POGGERS EXCHANGE POGGERS EXCHANGE​

Glad I upgraded MP. Power Exchange is busted on Vi and her multihits.





Every party needs a pooper that's why they invited you. Party pooper. Party pooper.





He is a sensitive boy don't make fun of his weight





MA HE'S SPEAKING TURKISH AGAIN





Apparently Leif has a built in magic-detector.





Ayyyy we got it

And of course it's boobytrapped. The room starts flooding hardcore as soon as we grab it.

And to make matters worse, guess who's blocking our exit?

Yes. THE spider.





ROUND THREE!!! HERE WE GO!!!

The boss music for the Spider. Not my favorite track by far but it's still pretty good. I like the prominent bass. Very stringy. Appropriate for a webslinging beast.

The prick starts off the battle by buffing himself. He now gets 2 attacks per turn. Luckily he's lost his insurmountable defense.





Kabbu seems to be taking this personally.

More bubbles. With Vi's decreased defense, even a perfect block takes out 2 hitpoints.

Only one turn in and we've already knocked a fourth of his HP off. That's mostly thanks to Vi's damage boosted Tornado Toss doing 7 damage on its own.

Once we get it down to half health, it decides to just fucking cheat and call in backup. An Inichas and a jellyshroom join the fray.

Oh boy. These attacks. You gotta mash A real fast to fill up the bar to block the full damage. They hit the entire party too. Little known fact is you can super block this if you press A again just as the damage takes effect. It's a very tight timing but you practically need to master it if you're gonna play on Hardest mode with FrameOne enabled.

Yikes. Vi's HP is getting low after that.

We take out its backup but lose VI in the process.

Luckily we've still got that magic seed on hand to revive her.

A honey drop and two Tornado Tosses later and the Spider is dead.

Pretty nice XP for it too.

He's kinda cute all sprawled out like that. We take a well-earned breather.



You ok Kabbu?

Thank goodness we aren't in danger anymore.

Oh. Right.

Fuck.

END CHAPTER 1 -- TO BE CONTINUED​

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

CHAPTER 2 INTERLUDE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------​

And we're back. Hoo doggy this took way longer than I expected. And we haven't even really begun chapter 2 yet.


Kabbu awakens after the team washes ashore nearby a cave quite a ways off from Snakemouth Den.




Vi's fine. Bit wet but what can you do.




Goddamit Vi.




Somehow I doubt it.




Leif often overestimates his abilities. So far we've only seen him freeze small droplets of water. The whole river might be a bit much.


At least Kabbu is concerned for Leif.




Well that makes things simple.

And we have regained control of the magical ancient mask.





Dam boy u lookin fine af... fr fr tho



We aren't far from the city, which we couldn't reach earlier thanks to all the fallen rocks blocking the path. Ants work fast though.

I bet. Getting trapped in a cave by a giant spider is not my idea of a good time.

Cringemaster Kabbu gets called the fuck out for being sappy.

We move on and climb up the hills to get back to the association, cutting grass along the way.

We're rewarded for our efforts with a rare spicy berry. Well, as rare as they can be considering the travelling merchant stocks them. Still, a free berry is a free berry. It gives +1 attack for a few turns which is huge and it can be used in a ton of volatile recipes.

Eetl, Gen, and Eri await us at the entrance.

Apparently Eetl was so worried he's just been standing around crying until we returned.







Most explorers apparently don't even make it inside before giving up. Not that seedlings are particularly scary or anything... I think the den itself just gives off a threatening aura.

We aren't cowards like the generic ant team though.

On the bright side, cool ice magic. You're one of 11 bud.

They don't believe it until we show them but when we do...





Get fucked





Fucking obliterated. Eetl on suicide watch.



I have no clue what he means by this, unless he means it looks somewhat like how they expected. We won't be finding any similar masks anytime soon.

Oh boy, we get to see the Queen.

Apparently Leif has already met the Queen though.

And then Leif starts acting kinda odd.





He might've been in there a while.

Oh yeah. So like I mentioned before, generally exploration teams are duos, it's unheard of for a trio of explorers to go out together. Why? Idunno. I think they maybe explain it somewhere but we'll get there when we get there.





So we get to be a team of three AND we get ourselves a cool new name. Neat. Though it feels like it's the bug equivelant of being named Team Holocaust. Which, to be fair, would be a pretty fucking rad name too.



We go to see Artis. I've already explained he gives medals for beating bosses on hard, right? Anyway, we go talk to him to get our reward





Ehhhhhhhhhh... It's essential for Ruigee but kinda situational in the game without it. But we'll take it.

And here we are, a panning shot of the town proper. This is the public residential area, so we won't see too many ants here. Most of the ants live in a private residential area that we aren't allowed in because we aren't ants. In other words: The Queen is based as fuck.





Leif's still acting strange.

We meet up with Maki on the way and he dismisses Eetl to lead us to the queen himself. Maki also gives unique tattles on the area if he's following you but I'm only gonna show one for now.







We make a stop on the bridge to show off that tattle, and admire the view of the palace.



Maki comments on the hard work of the ant denizens. They certainly do good work.







Just a pair of exchanges I found funny. These doors lead to the private residential areas and probably the queen's bedroom/fuck chamber (Every ant and bee we will meet in this game are female. Bugs still reproduce like bugs so...)



Does it make me a furry if I think she's kinda hot. I think it might be the corset dress thingy she's wearing though. Plus I'm a sucker for bitches with authority.



We can choose to be dicks or to just hand it over.

We choose to be dicks.

Vi don't give half a flying fuck.

We piss off one of her bodyguards.



But she forgives us because we're the first team in years to find an artifact.



Fucking ROASTED.

We hand it over.



Oh boy. I know where this is going. You don't dress a queen in revealing clothing and have her make comments like that without them being blatantly secretly evil.

But we're getting paid so who fuckin cares. Another crystal berry to the collection.

And some regular berries to spend as well.







A guard interrupts Leif's question to whisper to the Queen about something or other that Maki needs to go take care of.

While we were gone, they also believe they've found the location of the next artifact.

In short, we're going to the Golden Hills, a small farming settlement in a place where for some reason it's forever autumn. Pretty place, Don't quite understand why it's autumn there but it fits the harvest festival aesthetic. Speaking of harvest festivals, they're actually having one down there right now, so we've got a good excuse to go join the fun.

Wait, a map? Has she always given us a map? I have played this game through nearly 2 times now and never noticed any map.





Well damn. A map. You can see the 4 kingdoms on here as little tokens. The ant kingdom, the bee kingdom, and the wasp kingdom, along with a fourth kingdom that's shrouded in mystery and fog.

Leif didn't get to ask his question, but he's got something to say to us when we walk out.



Yeah, we're on Elizant the Second now, and have been for decades I believe.





Leif appears to be lost in time.



And understandably Leif doesn't trust the new queen. I guess he can see as well as I do.





And thus we get our first sideplot. It even gets its own optional dungeon later.



We find an old ant lady while exploring. Leif seems to recognize her.





She was the queen's caretaker back when Leif first left, it seems, and they were friends.

But alas, dementia. How sad.

Oh yeah, discoveries by the by. I won't show all the dialogue for them all but there's places of interest that can be interacted with for bits of lore. Plus we get a reward for every 5 we find. Our first two are in the Ant Queen's throneroom. Stained glass windows of the Elizant and the Bee Queen. There's two others, but they're covered up.

The mines are the closest we're gonna get to fast travel in this game. As we progress, the ants will dig tunnels to important places we've been that we can use to instantly move from here to there and back.



As you can see the crystal in the room above extends all the way down into the floor below, acting as a natural lamp.

Talking to this ant gives us a better view of the palace and another discovery.

Oh yeah. We check out the questboard that we passed by earlier. Let's see... The Innkeeper wants us to review the joint. Simple enough.

Chuck wants us to make him brekky. This would encourage us to test out making recipes... but I already know the recipe.

A young moth lost his ball playing in a tunnel full of Midges.

This nerd needs to return a library book. I can see we're really taking the tough missions here.

Eetl needs us to deliver a package to someone on the pier. If we were doing Ruigee, this quest would unlock leveling, but we're not so whatever.
I forgot to get a screenshot of Awful's Beauty, but basically a wasp in the library is looking for bad books. I know where 2/3 are off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure finding the second one won't be hard. The only problem is despite getting this quest now, we won't be able to complete it until very late in the game.

Leif's tummy got the rumblies.



This is not impressive.



Vi and Leif roast the ant for her hubris.

Meet Fry the Fly Fry Cook. We give him food, he improves it. Or he can combine two items into one item to either combine the effect or change it entirely.

We give him some leaves and get leaf salad. Our first item gets eaten right away so there's no point in getting fancy.



And here's the medal shop. They get new stock every chapter.

We can't see what they are until we actually buy them thanks to the randomizer. TP Plus is again, essential for ruigee but situational otherwise.

Resistance badges are kinda meh. You're better off using the many medals that turn negative statuses into buffs.

Reflection turns Do Nothing into a defend command. Not worth the MP in my opinion.



Brekky for Chuck acquired.

Honey drops restore our TP, but not a lot. Mixing two together, on the other hand...

is uh...

it's a really bad idea. This thing is ALIVE. And very angry. I believe eating it deals damage to you and poisons you.

We don't have enough berries to open a bank account though.



And our first bad book can be found on this roof after cutting some grass nearby revealing a bouncy mushroom

And since we're gonna be heading to the library anyway, we stop to get the book from this guy too.

We can climb this water fountain here to get a medal.

Status Relay is a good badge to have if you're strategically minded, I think. I am not. I just stack damage on Vi because it works.

We find a bug crying outside the theater and check on her.





Apparently a new popstar in town, Mothiva, has become so popular they won't let her play music at the theater because Mothiva is hogging the spotlight.





Vi seems to know the feeling.

She might be impulsive and greedy but she has a point.



Basically we can buy music from her and listen to the ingame soundtrack by talking to her. Neat.





Vi just wants us to forget her act of kindness. Guess she doesn't like being seen as the nice sort.

We head into the theater and find a guy selling limited edition Green Ranger plushies. So basically, in this world there's a trio of actors. A green beetle, a blue moth, and a yellow bee, who put on shows as the Three Rangers. Green Ranger, Blue Ranger, and Yellow Ranger.

How convenient that they look exactly like us. Kabbu LOVES their show though and wants to buy the plushy. And believe me, we'll need it later on. It's essential.

We can't afford it at the moment though. I blew all my berries on medals.

We stop to check out the statue. Kinda cruddy if you ask me.

No we did not. But this is Tod. We'll be back for you kid.

There's a young ant playing with his pet pillbug. Some small insects have become domesticated. Pillbugs, bedbugs, and Aphids I believe.

Welcome to the Library. Blue girl does the facts, red girl handles library stuff.

We return the book and ask about the fact hunt.

We've currently got 9 so we get 20 berries for our trouble.

Nifty.

Red girl is looking for Lore Books. Exactly what they sound like. We don't have any though. We DO get unique dialogue for trying to return bad books though.

Heh.

Here's our bad book lover. If Kiwifarms existed in this world, he'd hog up most of the literary threads. He wants to collect terrible books because he loves how terrible they are. He likes getting angry about how stupid they are.





Fucking destroyed.

Luckily he pays us per book so even though we can't finish the quest now, we still get a nice payday.

Behind a shelf we find our first lost book... Which must've just been dropped behind a shelf.

We return it and give it a read.







Antcestors hit me at like a million billion miles per hour. It's like getting suckerpunched by someone saying everypony.

We get a free night at the inn, which means free healing and a free honeydrop.

Vi and Leif loved it but Kabbu's bed hurt his back... he's too nice to give a bad review though, so she gets a glowing review from Team Snakemouth.

This guy pays us for returning the book and gives us another lore book and we move on back towards snakemouth to find Chuck.

I don't know what possessed me to do this.

Anyways, we rank up again beating up seedlings on the way. The Spider put us pretty high up on XP.


Can't go wrong with more MP.

We give him his brekfas

And in return we get a shit medal we'll never use. Cute pun though.

We find Kina (I really can't remember if that's actually her name or not) looking for Maki.



She's fast as fuck.



She's as clingy as she is quick.



And as quick to anger as she is clingy.



Eetl gives us the package to deliver to the pier.

On the way we stop to check out the travelling merchant. I really like her design.

I think the husband is a cicada. Imagine having to drag his ass out of bed to fuck. What a nightmare that must be. Also snail cameo.

So Ladybugs aren't allowed in the city at all, so these two have made their homes out here.
Why?
I actually have no clue why. The Queen is just racist as fuck I guess. It's honestly kinda funny.

We steal their food but honestly we might be doing them a favor.

Another new enemy. We can't first strike this one because it burrows under the ground.

It's a seedling, but it's a potato variant. Literally.

When we attack it, it digs under the ground to avoid us...

But Leif's ice spike can force underground enemies out.

Boom.

You know damn well they always hide the good stuff behind water falls.

​

A medal that makes the best skills in the game even better? Yes please. It gives all of Vi's multihits another bonus hit. DPS is DPS man I don't know what to tell you.


And it only costs 3 MP too. Our last level covers the cost.

We stop at a restaurant on the pier for a little pick me up.

And deliver the package to a chubby ant looking for a swim.

And he gives us a lategame medal that gives Leif access to status changing spells. This one lets leif drop the defense of ALL enemies. Kind of expensive but worth it for some bosses. This can't be resisted.

Metal Island is a luxury island out in the middle of the ocean. We cannot afford tickets. Luckily a sidequest drops the price later.

OH FUCK. The game's metal slimes. Golden Seedlings. If I didn't have the first strike bonus I'd tattle it, but since I do...

I can actually kill it fairly early in the game by sacrificing my dear boy Kabbu. But the window is tight and leaves us no time to spy. Taunting makes it guaranteed to attack instead of run away.

We perfect block its attack on Kabbu. It doesn't matter because this fucking thing does 14 damage a hit.

But with Kabbu's sacrifice we take it out and get a whopping 29 Exploration points for our trouble.

Vi goes down the following turn but seedlings are no match for Leif's AOE magic.

And more importantly, golden seedlings drop Tangy Berries, used in the best recipes in the game. The only other way to get them is to buy them at an exorbitant price on Metal Island. So we might as well stockpile them in our storage.

Combining that hard nut the seedling also dropped with the spicy berry gives us the spicy bomb, one of the few damaging items in the game.

And combining it with the abomihoney from earlier gives us... this. I don't know why I made this. It's a meme of an item. I'm pretty sure using it at this point in the game just instakills us.

We use our remaining berries to buy out the last of the stock. Last Attack gives +1 attack when the wearer has low HP. We're putting that on Vi obviously... when we have the MP.

Another HP plus. Snore.

On the way to the tunnel to find the ball though...

Oh no! Wasps!

They're attacking Professor Neolith, an archaeologist studying the artifacts.



Neolith and Kabbu know eachother.

So understandably Kabbu is pretty pissed.



Oh yeah, these guys show up to help too. Now we only have to fight one wasp.
And hoo boy.

10 hp and 2 defense. And since they're bipedal, they can't be flipped either. This is gonna be a tough fight...



...is what I would say if Vi's buffed tornado toss didn't do 3 damage and hit 5 times. We take out half his health turn 1. Yeah. It's pretty good.



We save Neolith, but Vi and Leif have no clue who he is.



Kabbu went through a lot to get here so we'll be meeting a few more of his friends along the way. He's already seen most of the places we're going so he makes a pretty good tour guide.

Inside the cave we find a new enemy... kind of. I think I fought one on the way to the pier and already spyed it but forgot to screenshot it. Don't worry, I'm adding a bestiary section at the bottom so you won't miss out.

Midges have a "fun" gimmick where if you attack one, every other midge in play gets a reaction attack on you. Luckily Vi can one shot them.

We rank up again. More MP.

We'll let Leif do the spying this time since he can't do much to these.

When you attack it, its defense buffs to 4.

Whoops. Kinda cut that one off. Oh well.

4 defense. Ouch. Luckily an attack from Kabbu resets its defense to 1, and does 1 damage regardless. I don't know how his piercing works exactly because he only pierces 1 defense... but almost always does at least 1 damage.

Ball get.

I had to change my sign that said F r en La s ahe . Ants welc e. to F r en La s ahe . Ants we ne welc e. And then I had to throw that sign out because it was inaccurate. Ants we welc e. They just aren't welc e. at the time.

Tod gives us a nifty badge for his ball.

And we buy Kabbu his doll.



Fuckin manchild.

Oh wow, I didn't know about this actually. My instincts just told me to start whacking the music box. It plays the everlasting sapling theme and if you spin it fast enough it dislodges a crystal berry.



We also have 10 discoveries now. Enough for another berry.

We also return the lore book for more lore.





And thus ends our interlude. Next time we'll be getting into the meat of Chapter 2 proper. Look forward to it.

Spoiler: BESTIARY

 

[Here For the News]

Being unfamiliar with this game but familiar with some entomology, I can think of a reason ladybugs would be banned from the city: They eat aphids, which ants in real life 'domesticate' for their secretions.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

Being unfamiliar with this game but familiar with some entomology, I can think of a reason ladybugs would be banned from the city: They eat aphids, which ants in real life 'domesticate' for their secretions.

It could very well be that, and you'll see later on in the coming chapter they've got an aphid ranch down in the settlement we're going to.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

CHAPTER 2: PART 1
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Now that we've got our shopping and sidequesting out of the way, it's time to move on to the Golden Hills to find ourselves the next artifact.. Heading back to the cave we found the ball in, if we freeze the water dripping from the pipe we can climb up this rock to the exitin the back.


Ah, the Golden Hills. Forever autumn for reasons I'm certain are never explained. The ground looks like some kinda cake and it's making me hungry for sweets.


If we cut the grass at the bottom there we can climb up the hill in the back and find ourselves another crystal berry.


Moving on we find the usual path is closed down. There's supposed to be a wooden platform we can ride across, but it's broken. The only way to cross now is to leap across venus flytraps. Fun.


Oh hey a new seedling to show off.


...Nevermind. It's another golden seedling.


This earns us yet another level. I promise I'm not gonna only level medal points. I've just got so many good medals from chapter 1 and the interlude and I wanna equip em all.


And Leif learns Snowgrave. I mean Frigid Coffin. It's a single target spell with a high chance of freezing, and it freezes for two turns instead of 1. Pretty... I really don't wanna say cool. Let's call it nifty.


We drop HP plus to equip Last Attack with our new MP. More damage, less problems. At the end of the next interlude I might post my medal list and let you guys pick what I bring into Chapter 3. Though it's subject to change if it fucking sucks so pick good. Not that I have a huge variety, anyhow.

Top path takes us to some diggable dirt. Problem is we can't dig. We'll come back later.


Stand around too long and these platforms just fucking eat you whole. Luckily Bug Fables doesn't do environmental damage, you just get sent back to the last patch of solid ground.


OK, now we got the new seedling. We'll let Vi take the spy this time.



Another flippable enemy. Kabbu can topple it and drop its sizeable defense to 0. After that it's easy pickings.


And we've been introduced to our gimmick for the chapter. The Golden Hill was built by bees (though ants live and work here as well, it's considered bee kingdom territory) and as such they had to build bridges and platforms operated by wind and cranks.




Vi, of course, can operate the cranks by spinning them with her Beemerang. How this works is one of the few things we actually get an explanation for, which is odd, especially because the explanation doesn't make much sense. I'll get into it more in part 2.


Beemerang hit crank, crank spin, platform go up, Simple as.

Of course, some cranks the beemerang just can't spin fast enough yet.


One such crank sits in the background here and takes us to an optional area we can't reach yet. I might beeline for it, if you'll forgive the pun, in the interlude though, just to see if I can do it.


These bridges have to be spun up at the same time. One goes down the other goes up, so we gotta time our jump and zoom across.


I accidentally hit the tattle button mid jump and Leif fucking falls to his death because of it.


Another new enemy, the Weevil.

Weevils have evolved into sorta wolf-like bugs. I think some flavor text even indicates that some are starting to domesticate them like dogs. Fascinating.


Plus it makes sense for them to be found here. Weevils are pests that eat grain, usually, so if they're farming here, weevils would be close by.


Huh. Wonder what that means.
There's another gap we can't pass yet and a cave on the other side. We can't even reach it if we try to drop down from the bridge above. Guess we'll come back later. For now we move onto the entrance to town.


The travelling merchants beat us here (somehow). This time they aren't selling burly berries, but they do have drowsy cake for sale. It restores a lot but puts you to sleep. We won't be buying it.


We find a very small, very round beetle trying to move a rock. Why? Because it's there. Inspiring.


Kabbu is very concerned about this because that rock's huge and the beetle is tiny.




He's up to no good it seems.


Kabbu is being a moral busybody and trying to tell this strapping young lad what he can and cannot do.


Oh well then nothing to worry about. What a strong boy.


Leif is now considering breaking every rock.


What a precious boy. I'm rooting for him.


And he gets back to it. Hopefully he takes a break for the festival at the very least.


We find a suspiciously rotund ant napping next to a very large rock.


She's just taking a power nap I guess. Weird way to phrase it though.




Looks like the miners are building those tunnels they told us about earlier.


Oh goodness. So this is Antberlynn Reid. She can be found in some settlements and camps occasionally as we adventure.


And it looks like they're almost done digging this tunnel. Sweet, we should be able to head back to town and buy some stuff then.




You're exhausted, but you haven't even started your one job? If she's to be believed, she needs a break just because she walked waddled all the way here.






Whatever you say weirdo.


Don't enable her Kabbu. Unlike a certain someone else on this forum, I don't have a feeder fetish.


Damn Vi. That's a bit harsh don't you think?



I spent way too long on this joke.


Anyway the gist of this interaction is we can pay to go back to the Ant Kingdom. We really don't need to though because the settlement is just ahead and has its own shop and chef.


We head down to the shop. As far as healing items go, they only sell aphid eggs and hard seeds. Hard seeds are throwing weapons, but if you cook them they become a weak healing dish that restores 2 hp to the entire party. Handy, but there's way better options. We'll buy a seed anyways though.


We also go back to the travelling merchant to buy some spicy berries. I'm up to no good.


This is Kut. Aside from one unique recipe, he is functionally identical to Fry.


So if we make ourselves another spicy bomb, and combine that bomb with the numbnail darts we poached off the endangered numbnails...


Boom! Sleep bomb. I've got two darts so I make 2 and stow one away in storage. It'll probably come in handy later. There's a surprising variety of bombs available to craft, though they're very situational items they can be handy in a pinch. Especially for the AOE damage they do. Still, a bit expensive to use on regular enemies.


Shopping out of the way we start exploring the town. I don't know what possessed me to go to the east side first. The only thing of note is the diary of the town's priestess in that open house.


So a bit of a lore dump. Venus is the goddess the bugs of the hills worship, We won't hear much about her from anywhere else because although she covers the world, her influence doesn't spread far from here.

The current Priestess had originally doubted Venus's existence of course.







But at the top of the hills is allegedly where Venus resides. Problem is no one's really allowed up there.

The Priestess, who's name is Aria, is the exception. And, of course, those who partake in the festival too, to make an offering to Venus.





This is where the diary ends. Not much to say about it except that the idea that Venus might be real.


Anyways we head back to the main plaza and find our fellow explorers talking to Aria. She won't allow them to enter the sacred hills for obvious reasons.




Luckily for us, Aria already kicked the wasps' asses and sent them packing, so we're actually in no rush.


So the only thing we can do... is party. Nice.


And when we're done, we march onward to victory.


There's a bar in town as well. A moth girl is onstage giving a show. She seems to be drawing quite the crowd and... hold on, is that Zasp behind that plant there?


Ayyyy we haven't seen Zasp since the beginning of chapter 1. He's being a total creep and spying on the moth girl and tells us to go away when we talk to him.


Behind the bar we find a new Lore Book. Yawn. I'd much rather get a new medal.


The inn is closed because those damn dirty ladybugs bought all the beds.


But if we go to the balcony we can get a better view of the statue of Venus, and another discovery for our fact hunt.


And here we are! The Aphid ranch I was talking about. I especially like the fluffy ones. They're based on real aphids too.


Aint that a cute little bug.


They're also harvesting the berries we use as cash. What with this being a harvest festival and all. Weird that money almost literally grows on trees here but I guess it has to come from somewhere.


An escaped Aphid is hanging out with the bee guarding the entrance to the Hive's power plant.


One thing I'm really liking about doing this lets play is that I really get to savor the details. Never once did it occur to me that that isn't a mountain in the background, that's a very, very large tree root. Crazy.


Anyways Vi says some racist shit again when we go to this berry juice vendor. She's referring to the mosquito's blood-filled abdomen, of course, because this bug has no tits.


And we buy some berry juice while we're here. Decent healing and a status cure for only 9 berries. Might as well.

In the next part we're gonna get the festival started and commence the partying. And hopefully get our hands on the next artifact. It's gonna be a real doozy, we've got not one but two mini bosses up before we even reach the boss of the chapter. See you then.