It has been quite some time since I have talked about Bug Fables and I want to revisit it. But more of a hypothetical sequel, so today, I'm going to monologue what could Bug Fables 2 look like and what new features can be added to the sequel and things that need improvement. There's a lot to breakdown here.
First things first, from a technical aspect, I think it would be a natural and ideal form of progression to make the next Bug Fables in the same engine that Escape from Ever After. With the power of the same engine used in Escape from Ever After and because of the modern consoles that provide better technology, I think it can make the game overall look amazing. But this is where we hit a bit of a roadblock, so here's the thing.
Bug Fables was just darn near perfect. The battles are amazing. You learn new skills when progressing through the story and reaching certain levels. It has the Team Snakemouth trio in battle rather than having two characters in battle. It has NPCs that join the battle, like Maki. Everything is on point and we can see everything for the sequel. But there are some areas that need improvement and couple of new things to be added for a hypothetical Bug Fables 2 that I'll talk about now.
First off, the expanded party. In Bug Fables 1, you only have the members of Team Snakemouth as the playable characters while NPCs like Maki can join you in some parts of the main story and can have Chompy as an optional companion and it can be accompanied by defeating the Mother Chomper to get the seed, get the Tardigrade Shield badge at the desert and delivering the seed to the elder bee at the Bee Kingdom. But we can beef up the party in Bug Fables 2. So, a fleshed out party in Bug Fables 2 could work so that you can play as not only the members of Team Snakemouth consisting of Vi, Kabbu and Leif, but also others like Zasp, Mothiva, Maki, Kina, Acolyte Aria and even Yin, who is experienced after defeating the Wasp King. They each have their own arsenal of abilities to use against enemies, the ones you see when fighting against them and they gain new abilities when reaching certain levels. This provides players the flexibility to choose the three characters to put in battle.
Here's the next thing for Bug Fables 2; Triple Strikes. The Super Mario RPG remake introduced powerful Triple Strikes and they very depending on the party. They come with a gauge that fills up when nailing the timing. I think Triple Strikes can work in Bug Fables 2 that it can come with a gauge and depend on the characters in battle. It fills up when nailing the timing. Nailing consecutive timings can increase the gauge faster. But blew the timing and the combo breaks and you would have to start all over again. The chain carries over between battles as long as you time your button presses correctly. For example, if you have Team Snakemouth in battle, they can execute a giant iceball move that is acquired from completing Leif's Request.
This brought me to my next point here. You would know that Bug Fables is inspired by the first two Paper Mario games that became the most popular and launched to critical acclaim. So, I thought that we can keep the Paper Mario-esque environment and sprites, but have new inspirations from the Super Mario RPG remake and Mega Man X: Command Mission or Lord of the Rings: The Third Age in terms of mindset, gameplay and party size. This means when one or multiple characters level up, they increase their max stats like HP, TP, attack, defense and luck, which offers critical strike chances, each character would have their own TP gauge.
Turn-based JRPGs became a blast to play. Some offer the order of when each character have a turn. We know that Bug Fables is a turn-based JRPG and we can keep the JRPG mechanics in Bug Fables 2 and add a turn window to display the turn order of characters and enemies and whose turn is it, like other turn-based JRPGs that have the turn order window. The turn order window in Bug Fables 2 would be beneficial enough to give battles some kick instead of having the party attack first before the enemies do.
Now, if you have been expecting the one issue in Bug Fables, which is incorrect button glyphs, that can obviously be fixed. The game not showing buttons of the Dualsense controller in game is due to the fact that Bug Fables actually came out before the PS5 does. Thankfully, Bug Fables 2 can fix the problem, by supporting Dualsense button glyphs.
Before I end this post, I want to say that Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling became near perfect. I was able to finally beat the game. The final boss given me a headache that the Everlasting King heals himself up two times. After three rounds, I have finally did it. And almost every aspect became suitable to my tastes. I recorded my gameplay videos and put them in my Bug Fables Let's Play series playlist.
Let me tell you this. There was a point in time when I was playing Earthlock, right? When I was playing Earthlock, I was struggling a bit on the final battle against Ichabo Locke. It became a connection to struggling a bit on the final battle against the Everlasting King. Though I have finally beaten Bug Fables, there is a silver-lining to all of this. If I had acquired Chompy and acquired the useful Tardigrade Shield badge in the first place, then maybe I wouldn't struggle with defeating the Everlasting King at all. But now that I have beaten it, it's off to playing Escape from Ever After with the intention of starting my Escape from Ever After Let's Play series.
The thing is, if we want the sequel for the Bug Fables franchise to be meaningful, we need it to expand and polish what made Bug Fables 1 so amazing and perfect in the first place. But I think these unique innovativ ideas I have stated can overall greatly improve the Bug Fables experience in Bug Fables 2. If the sequel comes to fruition, I can make a Let's Play series for it.
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