Paper Mario is franchise that still holds a lot of magic for people today since the remastered Switch release of The Thousand-Year Door came out. But what if I told you that there are two games inspired by Paper Mario that don't star the Nintendo characters that I bought on Steam? Let's jump right in.
Today, I'm talking about one of the franchises I haven't talked about in a while that became an inspiration for the two games, Paper Mario. So, Paper Mario has a dedicated fan base, especially to the RPG genre. The fan favorites are usually the original Paper Mario and the Thousand Year Door, with Super Paper Mario trailing behind due to the turn-based RPG mechanics introduced in the first two games.
And as we get to the 3DS era, Nintendo tried something new to the series to change up the genre to action-adventure. And it pretty much became divisive with Sticker Star. Then Color Splash for the WiiU came along to use cards that are purchased with coins. It became a flop due to having the action-adventure format Sticker Star had. Then the series was taken to the next level with the Origami King. While has the return of favored RPG elements and removed unwanted features, it became criticized nevertheless due to continuing the action-adventure format from both previous games.
When Nintendo confirms a new game, they try something new and take liberty of the story, characters and gameplay. However, none of the three games since Sticker Star were nowhere near as good as the first two games of the series according to the fans. They have all been met with backlash and disdain. The only conception is that the first two games were better than later games since Sticker Star.
But what I like to also talk about now, though, is not one, but two Paper Mario-esque games that I have bought on Steam and both of them have blew my mind. There are Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. These are the two games that are inspired by Paper Mario. I'm going to into detail about both of them. I'm gonna start with Bug Fables.
Bug Fables is an adventure RPG where you play as the trio consisting of Vi, Kabbu and Leif as they uncover the secrets of the Land of Bugaria and embark on an epic pilgrimage to the Everlasting Sapling, the treasure that can grant immortality.
The gameplay in Bug Fables is similar to Paper Mario that you must time your button presses and press the right button to reduce damage and make successful attacks. It uses teamwork points (TP) required to perform skills. Once you defeated an enemy, you earn EXP. Get enough of them and you'll go up a level and would be prompted choose either increasing max HP, max TP or max MP, which is from equipping medals that you can find outside of combat and equip them. They vary by points, so equip them carefully. But there is one key difference. Since the trio is you must play, you have the whole trio in combat instead of having two characters in battle.
The game's environment and combat is off the chain and blew me away. But one bullcrap problem I'm having is that I can't switch between fullscreen and windowed on the fly with the F11 key. But this is not the only problem. I'm playing it on a DualSense controller, but the game shows incorrect button glyphs. But overall, it's a decent Paper Mario-inspired game.
As soon as I finish Bug Fables, I'm gonna start playing the other one as the coin is flipped to Escape from Ever After. Escape from Ever After is also an adventure RPG where it has the main character, Flynt Buckler, who is a classic fairytale adventurer that meets his allies along with way. His arch-enemy is an evil dragon named Tinder. Flynt has came across something weird when he stormed Tinder's castle. It was converted into corporate offices.
The demo of this game was a limited time demo. I was able to download the demo so that I can get to try it out. The gameplay in Escape from Ever After is also similar to Paper Mario. You have two characters in combat and make right button presses and timings to block attacks and nail moves. There's a gauge that the party shares called Mocha Points (MP). Skills consume this resource. There is even a gauge that fills up when performing correct actions and consumes from synergy skills that measure depending on the current party. The gauge is the Synergy Gauge. It's something that the Paper Mario franchise never had.
At the end of each battle, you earn EXP. Earn 100 EXP and you'll be able to go up a level and choose either increasing max HP, max MP or max BP, which stands for Badge Points. You find badges outside of combat and they vary by points like the medals system in Bug Fables. The best part is, I can switch between windowed and fullscreen on Escape from Ever After..
I have downloaded the demo version before it went away and the game blew me away. The combat is godlike and the environment and music are well done. Now that's a unique style that gets the Lost Odyssey seal of approval. In fact, the game as a whole is goshdarn charming and decent like Bug Fables is.
I was able to buy Escape from Ever After at a discounted price, but I won't play it until I finish Bug Fables, after I decided to play and beat Bug Fables before I play Escape from Ever After. It's not like saying I hate deciding which Paper Mario-inspired game to play first could anger Poseidon, right?
Here's the thing. Paper Mario's fanbase is to the first two games that use RPG elements and we have both titles inspired by the franchise. If you look at the Metacritic scores for both of them, Bug Fables has scored an 86 out of 100 and Escape from Ever After has scored an 82 out of 100, with the average score of an 83 out of 100, indicating that both games are being generally favorable and met with great reception by critics. They both pay homage to the first two games of the franchise and they became games for Paper Mario fans, including me.
Both of them are inspired by the first two games of the Paper Mario franchise that they are both indies that became well-liked because they bank on the fact of smaller teams avoiding practices that bigger companies do and having the tendency to do things bigger companies wouldn't do.
That being said, I decided to make a Venn diagram to compare the differences between Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After and state what things both games have.
Right off the bat, I'm gonna be taking the initial Venn diagram between both Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling and Escape from Ever After. Because this is a Venn diagram, the middle part has common denominators between both Paper Mario-inspired games. I colored the left circle green for Bug Fables and the right circle indigo for Escape from Ever After, which I found interesting. First off, we need to go over the common denominators or similarities between both games and that's the point of making a crossover game between two games. Here are the common denominators between them.
Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After are both Paper Mario-inspired games. They involve nailing attacks with the right button presses, both stories go by chapters, have separate save files, recovering resources after levelling up and prompts for choosing a max stat after going up a level. There's even out of combat actions and gibberish in dialogs depending on the character. There's the badge system that involves equipping badges to give the party the edge and change the style.
Now let's go on to the next phase; stating the differences between two games and what they are.
Bug Fables uses berries as currency, the whole trio is in combat, save points that fully recover HP and TP, has quests posted on the board and a turn relay system.
Escape from Ever After uses two characters in combat, uses the Synergy System that measures strength based on the current party and a gauge that fills up from making right button presses, vending machines that fully restore HP and MP and coins as currency.
And here's the full Venn diagram containing both games' similarities and differences exclusive to one game. This is the final diagram to have everything.
As of right now, I decided to suspend playing Bug Fables until I get a new gaming headset for quality. It has a mic that cancels the background noise so that you would only hear me without hearing any background noises, including the fan noises and my mother calling me, especially when I'm recording. Now, if a third Paper Mario-inspired game is in production, will it be themed around superhero comics, Greek Mythology or whatever theme? I don't know and I don't care. We like to see a third Paper Mario-inspired game. Escape from Ever After and Bug Fables are available now on PC and console, so go check it out.
I'm on the verge of playing through Bug Fables and recording my gameplay videos and sharing them on my separate gaming channel where you'll find my gameplay videos and clips at. I'm starting my own Let's Play series and on a journey to become a Let's Player like other YouTubers before me.
Both games' gameplay is identical to the first two Paper Mario games, meaning if and when Nintendo is planning to make a brand new Paper Mario game, they must make a modern Paper Mario title and base it off of the first two games that received critical acclaim with to take the original foundation and amplify and multiply it, not break and change it like they did with the disdained trio of games in the action-adventure genre since Sticker Star. That's how Bug Fables and Escape from Ever After became well-liked and well-received from fans that both of them use the gameplay identical to the first two Paper Mario games.
The indie game department comes with having two Paper Mario-inspired games, so do you know what is coming in the indie game department? An indie 2XKO with Saturday AM characters called Saturday AM: Battle Manga. I have a post that talks about it, so here's the link to it.
https://rpggameroom.blogspot.com/2026/01/saturday-am-battle-manga-indie-2xko-in.html
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