LogFAQs > #959610148

Started playing Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling. It's meant to be a throwback to the first two Paper Mario games, which actually had depth and creativity.

It's really good, and fairly difficult. While the Paper Mario games had your health go up in increments of 5, BF has it go up in 1, so you can't afford to take as many glancing blows. You'll want to learn the timing for blocks real quick.

The battle system has some neat complexities. The character in the lead gets a +1 attack bonus, while the one in the back gets a -1 penalty, so you have to think on who your best lead character is before you go into battle. You can also sacrifice a character's turn to let someone else attack multiple times, but that character will suffer damage penalties from exhaustion.

There's some nice quality of life stuff, too. You can press a button to have your characters banter about the area you're in or the NPC you're standing next to, much like Goombario and Goombella did, everyone has the ability to study an enemy and find out its HP and defense, and the chefs all start out being able to cook two ingredients right off the bat. Chefs are also present in every city and are near the item shops, so you can quickly grab ingredients for a decent dish. Money you put in the bank also acxumulates interest every 30 minutes, which I think is neat.

I wouldn't recommend the Switch version for one simple, but glaring flaw: Random button attacks.
One character's main attack has you press a random button after a countdown, just like Vivian's basic attack. But that worked because the GC/N64 controller buttons all had their own distinct shapes and colors, so hitting the right was incredibly easy. But the Switch has identical round, gray buttons, with the only difference being the letter on them, so doing that is harder. This very likely isn't an issue on other consoles, since they at least have distinct colors and icons.

With how much John liked the original two PMs, I'm sure he would have liked this. I have no idea if he did play it. I don't recall him ever mentioning it.

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Number of fellow Poets of the Fall fans: 29
Want: Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe, Bully 2, Atomic Heart, Callisto Protocol, Haunted Chocolatier