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Blue Link
Apr 22, 2014
MP only, mostly because

Black Robe posted:

why do an LP if not to show off as much as possible at the expense of safety and common sense?

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Last Transmission
Aug 10, 2011

I vote MP only.

Lynneth
Sep 13, 2011
I vote Hybrid, specifically 2-1-max HP/TP/MP

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


I vote for Hybrid, but that's just because I love HP too much.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

Explopyro posted:

Yeah, this is fair. I do think Bug Fables handled balance a little better than Paper Mario, but there are still issues, and after a while the question can become not "do I break things" but "which flavour of breaking things shall I do today"; in fairness, that's often still quite fun. (I admit I'm not completely sure what specific issue you're thinking of, though!)


This is awesome. I am honoured to be the recipient of your excellent spritework :)

I guess its safe to spoiler tag since you hinted at it in the update proper.

multi hit attacks scale so disproportionately well with damage boosts that they obsolete everything else

E: though I will give the game that it does give you the aforementioned variety of ways to do so and the fixed party means I dont feel like I'm giving up a party member because of it.

FoolyCharged fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Feb 11, 2021

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

FoolyCharged posted:

I guess its safe to spoiler tag since you hinted at it in the update proper.

multi hit attacks scale so disproportionately well with damage boosts that they obsolete everything else

E: though I will give the game that it does give you the aforementioned variety of ways to do so and the fixed party means I dont feel like I'm giving up a party member because of it.


That's absolutely a thing, yes. It didn't bother me that much because every character has at least some way to take advantage of it, and there are a lot of different ways to boost, etc, so it just felt like a mechanic to me (and, if nothing else, it's a lot less broken than stuff like Power Bounce/Multibonk because things are still bounded). But this is definitely an area where tastes vary, I think.

It's probably a play style the devs liked and/or wanted to encourage, I think. The game saves your record for damage output in a single turn, and there's a place where you can view that.

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.
So I've played to the end of chapter 3 on hard and have at least some opinions on the stats.

This game and Paper Mario are structured around healing to full on level up. You have three resources to spend to keep you going between level ups, your HP, your TP and then your Berries, or currency. Currency is spent through the use of healing items.

Currency is the last thing you ideally want to use because it can be used for other upgrades and things in the game whereas you can't make your HP or TP do anything of the sort. Additionally, the maximum value of these is only valuable in their ability to get you to the next level up. That is to say, once you're at 0 TP a healing item is going to heal the same amount of TP regardless of your max.

So for the HP to TP calculus, this creates a simple question. Will spending 3 TP prevent more than 3 damage incoming to me?

For reasons that become apparent later, the answer is yes nearly 100% of the time. Which means that you'll almost always gain more EHP by taking TP over HP.

So then we get the MP part of the calculus, where we compare MP to TP.

This is where things get a little messy. MP will usually improve your damage more than your TP will across time, but it relies on your TP to function a lot of the time. So taking a little bit of TP to get your good MP combos going. Especially early on, if you go hard MP you'll get to a situation where there just aren't enough badges to equip unless you grind cash. On top of that, you won't have the FP to sustain yourself through a full level.

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

Natural 20 posted:

So I've played to the end of chapter 3 on hard and have at least some opinions on the stats.

This game and Paper Mario are structured around healing to full on level up. You have three resources to spend to keep you going between level ups, your HP, your TP and then your Berries, or currency. Currency is spent through the use of healing items.

Currency is the last thing you ideally want to use because it can be used for other upgrades and things in the game whereas you can't make your HP or TP do anything of the sort. Additionally, the maximum value of these is only valuable in their ability to get you to the next level up. That is to say, once you're at 0 TP a healing item is going to heal the same amount of TP regardless of your max.

So for the HP to TP calculus, this creates a simple question. Will spending 3 TP prevent more than 3 damage incoming to me?

For reasons that become apparent later, the answer is yes nearly 100% of the time. Which means that you'll almost always gain more EHP by taking TP over HP.

So then we get the MP part of the calculus, where we compare MP to TP.

This is where things get a little messy. MP will usually improve your damage more than your TP will across time, but it relies on your TP to function a lot of the time. So taking a little bit of TP to get your good MP combos going. Especially early on, if you go hard MP you'll get to a situation where there just aren't enough badges to equip unless you grind cash. On top of that, you won't have the FP to sustain yourself through a full level.

I agree on most points, but money very quickly becomes a non issue forever depending on how you play.

Dirk the Average
Feb 7, 2012

"This may have been a mistake."
MP Only

Break the game as best you can!

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


Btw, I forgot to post this earlier, but - I'll just assume 'Vi' is short for 'Violet', which is pronounced 'Beeolet'.

Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

Quackles posted:

Btw, I forgot to post this earlier, but - I'll just assume 'Vi' is short for 'Violet', which is pronounced 'Beeolet'.

Voilą! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me Vi.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

I'm seeing a decent lead for MP only over Hybrid right now (currently 9 to 6 between here and LPBeach), 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?

Natural 20 posted:

So I've played to the end of chapter 3 on hard and have at least some opinions on the stats.

Glad to see you're playing along! You'll probably finish the game well before I'm even caught up to where you currently are, at the rate this is going.

I'm not going to comment on the rest of your analysis except to say that yes, you're definitely right about a lot of it for the early/midgame (and if you do MP only there's definitely a brief period where MP gain outstrips the medals you have, but that's absolutely not a problem in the long term) but a lot of later mechanics change things up quite a bit.

Quackles posted:

Btw, I forgot to post this earlier, but - I'll just assume 'Vi' is short for 'Violet', which is pronounced 'Beeolet'.

Answering behind spoiler tags even though this is fairly minor: that is very close! We will later learn her name is indeed Violet, it's just pronounced the French way.

Carbon dioxide posted:

Voilą! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me Vi.

Perfect.

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Feb 12, 2021

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
Oh hey, I bought Bug Fables on the Switch about a month ago when it was on sale and it was one of the best purchases I've ever made! I've beaten the game, though I haven't done quite all the postgame stuff. In particular the two extra battles against two other exploration teams I haven't messed much with. One I haven't done at all; the other one in the "secret spot" I attempted since it's required to finish a quest, and they stomped me pretty hard. The move that one enemy has where she just blasts you with repeated cannon shots that cause a status effect that blocks skills is nasty. I'm at max rank and have every medal except the Cave of Trials one, so I've just been putting it off until I can get some of the top tier healing items.

I did restart a game the other day using the Hard Mode medal (I didn't use it in my first playthrough) and so far the one thing I can say is that I have much more money. Getting medals for free from Hard Mode achievements means I can save up more since I don't have to buy them from the caravan.

Epicmissingno
Jul 1, 2017

Thank gooness we all get along so well!
I feel like hard mode is a little overtuned in the early game, at least when it comes to the normal encounters. Bosses are fine, you need to strategise nicely, but I'm at chapter 2 and things just hit so hard, often come in groups of three, and tend to have enough health that it takes a turn or more to take each enemy out, by which time you've already taken massive damage from all their attacks. It's probably a case of not having the badge variety to cheese like crazy yet, but I still feel like it's a bit much.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

Twelve by Pies posted:

In particular the two extra battles against two other exploration teams I haven't messed much with. One I haven't done at all; the other one in the "secret spot" I attempted since it's required to finish a quest, and they stomped me pretty hard.

Funny thing about those particular superbosses: they're the only encounters in the game that don't change between "normal" and Hard Mode. The gloves are completely off at that point. (Okay, there is a tougher version on HARDEST, but that's another matter). So especially if you played through the game without Hard Mode on, those guys are going to be a huge wake-up call (also, the one you tried is generally considered to be the harder of the two).

Those fights are great, I really enjoyed them.

Epicmissingno posted:

I feel like hard mode is a little overtuned in the early game, at least when it comes to the normal encounters. Bosses are fine, you need to strategise nicely, but I'm at chapter 2 and things just hit so hard, often come in groups of three, and tend to have enough health that it takes a turn or more to take each enemy out, by which time you've already taken massive damage from all their attacks. It's probably a case of not having the badge variety to cheese like crazy yet, but I still feel like it's a bit much.

I remember thinking along these lines my first time through too, and had to get into a mentality where I was okay skipping some battles from time to time. Also, medal availability is definitely part of this; once you get Triumph Buzz and Victory Buzz, the attrition from random encounters basically stops being a problem.

Next update is nearly done, not sure if I'll have it up tonight or tomorrow morning. It depends whether I fall asleep or not.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

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?

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Feb 26, 2021

LupusAter
Sep 5, 2011

And in this update, the entire reason why I believe this game is an improvement over the Paper Mario formula: having three characters who can act in whatever order and also twice if needed increases the spectrum of possibilities a lot without being too overwhelming. It also means that, barring some corner cases, you always have your entire arsenal ready, so no more wasting a turn switching.

Alien Arcana
Feb 14, 2012

You're related to soup, Admiral.
Okay I've gotten far enough in the game that I feel reasonably safe following the LP now :v:


LupusAter posted:

And in this update, the entire reason why I believe this game is an improvement over the Paper Mario formula: having three characters who can act in whatever order and also twice if needed increases the spectrum of possibilities a lot without being too overwhelming. It also means that, barring some corner cases, you always have your entire arsenal ready, so no more wasting a turn switching.

Bug Fables seems to make a point of taking the "utility" functions that Paper Mario tied to specific partners and badges, and making them available at all times. It's really nice not to have to keep the goomba partner out at all times, or waste half my BP on Quick Change.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
The only thing I don't know if you can do (if you can I haven't figured it out) is change your actual party order. There's at least one badge that only works for the character in the back position and I don't think there's a way to have for example Kabbu in front and Leif in the back, which is slightly annoying if you can't actually change that around.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

LupusAter posted:

And in this update, the entire reason why I believe this game is an improvement over the Paper Mario formula: having three characters who can act in whatever order and also twice if needed increases the spectrum of possibilities a lot without being too overwhelming. It also means that, barring some corner cases, you always have your entire arsenal ready, so no more wasting a turn switching.

I completely agree with this. It never ends up feeling overly complex, but there are a lot of interesting decisions at all times. I also like that, as a result of this, the devs can have a good idea what capabilities you're guaranteed to have in any given fight, and tune the encounters accordingly.

Alien Arcana posted:

Okay I've gotten far enough in the game that I feel reasonably safe following the LP now :v:

Bug Fables seems to make a point of taking the "utility" functions that Paper Mario tied to specific partners and badges, and making them available at all times. It's really nice not to have to keep the goomba partner out at all times, or waste half my BP on Quick Change.

Hah. At the rate I'm going, you shouldn't have any problems at all!

They definitely learned a lot of quality-of-life lessons from Paper Mario, and it just ends up making this a smoother and more enjoyable experience.

Twelve by Pies posted:

The only thing I don't know if you can do (if you can I haven't figured it out) is change your actual party order. There's at least one badge that only works for the character in the back position and I don't think there's a way to have for example Kabbu in front and Leif in the back, which is slightly annoying if you can't actually change that around.

It depends what version you're playing. You couldn't do this before v1.1, it used to be that the only choice you had was who'd be in front and there was a fixed order behind.

I think you're on 1.1, though (since you mentioned fighting Team Slacker), so you should check out the Strategies menu: there should be an option called "Swap Positions" which lets you choose any two bugs who have turns remaining and switch them. It does exactly what you want, the only downside is that the game won't remember this between battles, so if you have a strategy that relies on it you'll need to remember to change positions at the start of each fight.

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


So geysers thaw out after a while if you freeze them, which makes sense, and frozen enemies in combat thaw out if you hit them. This implies that the other things you freeze don't thaw out, is that right? It doesn't really matter for ice cubes but I have this image of Leif freezing some poor bug so the party can use it as a ladder or dump it on a switch and then they just walk off and leave it there :v:

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.

Black Robe posted:

So geysers thaw out after a while if you freeze them, which makes sense, and frozen enemies in combat thaw out if you hit them. This implies that the other things you freeze don't thaw out, is that right? It doesn't really matter for ice cubes but I have this image of Leif freezing some poor bug so the party can use it as a ladder or dump it on a switch and then they just walk off and leave it there :v:

Things do eventually thaw out on their own.

Often much to my annoyance.

Sketchie
Nov 14, 2012

Natural 20 posted:

Things do eventually thaw out on their own.

Often much to my annoyance.
I believe it's only if there's a creature encased in the ice block. They will break free after a time.

Ice blocks made from water droplets, however? They last indefinitely. Though I think you can only have 2 at the same time before the oldest one melts away.

Been a while since I last played Bug Fables.

vilkacis
Feb 16, 2011

quote:

: When in doubt, :goleft:


Only 10 inventory spaces total, huh? I guess that's one way to combat megaelixir syndrome.

This place is pretty big and involved for a tutorial dungeon.


...Those side view headshot icons are giving me hella Persona vibes.

Tylana
May 5, 2011

Pillbug
This LP and a steam sale reminded me to buy and play this game. It's pretty fun, though the quirks of the system take a little attitude changing (another case of LPs helping the hump of game start).

Did come across a button mashing prompt that felt insanely hard, even as a non-young but still experienced game. (Went and changed it to sequential presses in the options a little better).

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story

Explopyro posted:

I think you're on 1.1, though

I'm on whatever version the Switch one is, but if that fight is only in 1.1 then it's safe to say yeah I probably am. I'll have to check it out later but it's good to know I can swap the back two if need be. I hadn't had any strategies that relied on it (I didn't use Back Support at all in my first playthough) but Hard might necessitate some more involved tactics.

Tylana posted:

Did come across a button mashing prompt that felt insanely hard, even as a non-young but still experienced game. (Went and changed it to sequential presses in the options a little better).

Yeah the window for button mashing feels really tight, like I have to go like a madman to just barely make it. I could change to sequential but eh. I don't know if that would affect that one skill of Vi's, which is actually incredibly easy to do on Switch since flicking the stick back and forth is really simple to do.

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


Explopyro posted:

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.

OK, this is interesting. In the original Paper Mario 64, the block window was 3 frames at 30 FPS (that'd be 6 frames at 60) - which is about what the Super Block window is here! If you equipped the Dodge Master badge, the window would expand to 8 frames at 30 FPS (16 at 60 FPS), which is about what the game's block window is by default...

Also, Paper Mario had an anti-mashing cooldown of 15 frames at 30 FPS (30 at 60), too. It's interesting to compare the numbers.

Araxxor
Oct 20, 2012

My disdain for you all knows no bounds.
I'd say it's more akin to Superguarding in TTYD. In TTYD, the game runs at 60 FPS, and the Guard timing is 8 frames before damage is taken, and the last 3 frames of that is when you can pull off a Superguard.

Wasn't expecting the timing for blocking in Bug Fables to be that generous though I knew that Super blocking was about as tight as Superguarding.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

Black Robe posted:

This implies that the other things you freeze don't thaw out, is that right? It doesn't really matter for ice cubes but I have this image of Leif freezing some poor bug so the party can use it as a ladder or dump it on a switch and then they just walk off and leave it there :v:

Hah! Amusing thought, but no. Frozen enemies thaw out with time.

Sketchie posted:

Ice blocks made from water droplets, however? They last indefinitely. Though I think you can only have 2 at the same time before the oldest one melts away.

I'm not aware of a 2-block limit; the only limit I know of is that you can't have more than one ice block for any given source of drips. If you move the ice block and then return to the droplet and freeze it again, the first block immediately melts. (There are even puzzles that rely on the player knowing and abusing this; it makes absolutely no sense outside video-game-logic, but it's still fun.)

vilkacis posted:

Only 10 inventory spaces total, huh? I guess that's one way to combat megaelixir syndrome.

This place is pretty big and involved for a tutorial dungeon.

10 inventory spaces is definitely a holdover from Paper Mario, but yes, it does a pretty good job of that. That limit does get a bit less restrictive in a couple of ways later, though, so megalixir syndrome isn't completely gone. That said, I really like the balance of where this game's consumables end up.

Snakemouth Den is pretty big, but I think the way I'm going about this LP is exaggerating that somewhat (I may be trying too hard to be thorough). You can finish the entire thing in less than an hour of gameplay, easily (in fact I think my LP file is still under an hour, and that's with me slowing myself down to ensure I get good screenshots).

Tylana posted:

This LP and a steam sale reminded me to buy and play this game. It's pretty fun, though the quirks of the system take a little attitude changing (another case of LPs helping the hump of game start).

Did come across a button mashing prompt that felt insanely hard, even as a non-young but still experienced game. (Went and changed it to sequential presses in the options a little better).

Glad to have you playing along!

I definitely think the sequential presses tend to be a bit easier, although there's less room for error (miss one press and you fail). I prefer to keep it on mashing for variety, since sequential action commands are already in the game elsewhere (as we saw with fleeing battles), but if someone asked me to recommend an option based solely on the likelihood of succeeding I'd tell them to go with sequential.

Twelve by Pies posted:

Yeah the window for button mashing feels really tight, like I have to go like a madman to just barely make it. I could change to sequential but eh. I don't know if that would affect that one skill of Vi's, which is actually incredibly easy to do on Switch since flicking the stick back and forth is really simple to do.

It does affect that skill, yes. That one is definitely easier on mashing (though it's not bad on sequential either, it's just one button press per hit).

Quackles posted:

OK, this is interesting. In the original Paper Mario 64, the block window was 3 frames at 30 FPS (that'd be 6 frames at 60) - which is about what the Super Block window is here! If you equipped the Dodge Master badge, the window would expand to 8 frames at 30 FPS (16 at 60 FPS), which is about what the game's block window is by default...

Also, Paper Mario had an anti-mashing cooldown of 15 frames at 30 FPS (30 at 60), too. It's interesting to compare the numbers.

Araxxor posted:

I'd say it's more akin to Superguarding in TTYD. In TTYD, the game runs at 60 FPS, and the Guard timing is 8 frames before damage is taken, and the last 3 frames of that is when you can pull off a Superguard.

Wasn't expecting the timing for blocking in Bug Fables to be that generous though I knew that Super blocking was about as tight as Superguarding.

Thank you both for bringing the numerical comparisons! I didn't know the exact numbers for PM64 or TTYD but this tracks. It definitely feels a lot easier to hit regular blocks in this game than those, and Super Blocking in Bug Fables feels a bit easier than Superguarding in TTYD, but not much. (And I know you could mess with the numbers a bit in TTYD with Simplifier and Unsimplifier badges, I don't recall the exact numbers but you could shift it up to 2 frames in either direction.)

There is one potentially interesting complication, which I unfortunately can't answer: Bug Fables actually has a 30 FPS setting in the game options, but I don't have any information on the timing with that on (the wiki only had numbers for 60 FPS). I don't know if anyone's actually tried using it!

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

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!

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Feb 26, 2021

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE
It really says "unbeelievable", how cute.

That seems like a tough fight, but you got through it pretty well. Getting forced to extend resources to heal obviously lowers your damage per turn, needing to heal even more. I guess it's fortunate that the game is not stingy with heal item drops, and your limited inventory makes hoarding less tempting. I'm very curious how this continues.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
I actually fought a boss last night on Hard that I had to go for a full offense burn all TP strategy from turn one, though I'll talk more about it when you get to that boss. It was a huge brick wall for me for about two days, I had been trying to conserve TP and playing with my badge setup and just kept getting my rear end kicked, and I googled to see what strats people suggested and full offense was number one. As well as lucky freezes from Leif, but even with Status Booster I wasn't able to freeze the boss at all past the second try.

I never really payed any attention to song names, so I'm kind of amused that "Spuder" is in the track name.

Quackles
Aug 11, 2018

Pixels of Light.


I can appreciate 'Unbeelievable'. :allears:

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

I forgot to put these in the post (I'll edit them in soon, no time right now), but here are some nice remixes of the Spuder boss theme!

Rock remix: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2nHKNFHwgo
Piano remix with sheet music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAR69HmuMYE

Torrannor posted:

It really says "unbeelievable", how cute.

That seems like a tough fight, but you got through it pretty well. Getting forced to extend resources to heal obviously lowers your damage per turn, needing to heal even more. I guess it's fortunate that the game is not stingy with heal item drops, and your limited inventory makes hoarding less tempting. I'm very curious how this continues.

This fight is nontrivial in that it's possible to lose, but it's honestly not that hard as long as you're paying attention, and are able to hit normal blocks. And as long as you keep Vi alive; if she goes down (and you exhaust your one Magic Seed) it can become a real problem, because she's the only one who can knock it down without spending TP. (I like the way the mechanics sometimes make different characters more valuable at different times.)

Looking at my characters' health by the end of it, it didn't actually matter who got the HP Plus medal (Kabbu never got to 2 HP or below), and the healing for Leif only mattered if we ignore the occasional Super Block I got. And if I hadn't finished things on that final turn, healing one or two bugs would have been more than enough (I could have used Secret Stash in lieu of Tornado Toss), to guarantee everyone would survive a double poison breath (two focussed attacks wouldn't be as much of a concern), and two bugs alive on the next turn would probably have been enough to end it.

I think this fight's a really good final exam for everything the game's been teaching us in Snakemouth Den. I thought it was interesting you perceived it as tough, when I'd been worrying about making it look too easy (because I got a bit fancy with the positioning tactics etc).

Twelve by Pies posted:

I actually fought a boss last night on Hard that I had to go for a full offense burn all TP strategy from turn one, though I'll talk more about it when you get to that boss. It was a huge brick wall for me for about two days, I had been trying to conserve TP and playing with my badge setup and just kept getting my rear end kicked, and I googled to see what strats people suggested and full offense was number one. As well as lucky freezes from Leif, but even with Status Booster I wasn't able to freeze the boss at all past the second try.

I never really payed any attention to song names, so I'm kind of amused that "Spuder" is in the track name.

Oh, yeah, there are definitely bosses like that. Let me guess, was it Monsieur Scarlet? That's the first fight I can think of that's a huge roadblock for a lot of people (and, let's be fair, it has good reason to be). I can think of a few other ones it might've been, too, but that's the one that first comes to mind where blitz tactics are easily the best. (My other guess would probably be Devourer.)

Hah, yes, a lot of the song titles have jokes in them. I still don't entirely get "Spuder", honestly, except that it was apparently a name they originally planned to use for this boss, but later decided sounded too silly. (I think I agree with this.) Nonetheless, it's still pretty funny that we all end up calling the boss Spuder anyway.

Quackles posted:

I can appreciate 'Unbeelievable'. :allears:

Isn't it great?

Minor spoilers: There's even a medal that makes that appear for every attack! Although it has no meaningful effect.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story

Explopyro posted:

Oh, yeah, there are definitely bosses like that. Let me guess, was it Monsieur Scarlet? That's the first fight I can think of that's a huge roadblock for a lot of people (and, let's be fair, it has good reason to be). I can think of a few other ones it might've been, too, but that's the one that first comes to mind where blitz tactics are easily the best. (My other guess would probably be Devourer.)

Scarlet took me three tries but overall wasn't too bad, the winning run just had some lucky RNG where he didn't use his aoe attack. Devourer is still a roadblock for me even now, I probably won't come back to it until after a couple more rank ups. It was actually Heavy Drone B-33 which is much nastier on Hard since it gains a second aoe attack that hurts bad even if you block.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

That boss can be tough, definitely (especially because the lockdown means you might have limited choices where items are concerned). I had a lot of trouble against it on my first playthrough (that was the fight where I rediscovered Turn Relay, I'd forgotten about the mechanic for a lot of the game up to that point). Although, weirdly, I remember finding it underwhelming when I replayed on higher difficulties. It'll be interesting to see what I think this time around.

Natural 20
Sep 17, 2007

Wearer of Compasses. Slayer of Gods. Champion of the Colosseum. Heart of the Void.
Saviour of Hallownest.
I lost this on hard on my first attempt. If you're not used to blocking yet then it's very easy to take a lot of damage and lose the race to the adds coming in.

Once I knew what was going on in the fight though it was relatively easy to figure out.

vilkacis
Feb 16, 2011

Unbeelievable is good, yes. Also

quote:


good to see Kabbu getting to be a fun weirdo for a change.

Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

A question for everyone, now that we're finished with the tutorial/Chapter 1, do you have any feedback on the style of the LP and the way I'm going about this? I know the pace is kind of slow, that's something I'm working on, but aside from that, I'd appreciate knowing if there's something you think I could be doing better.

Also, I just listened to this interview
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sUaVWQ9PgpB6Wy82rydAC
in which Jose Gracia ("Genow"), the lead dev and writer on this game, mentioned the game's final word count is over 150k. I certainly have my work cut out for me, don't I?

Natural 20 posted:

I lost this on hard on my first attempt. If you're not used to blocking yet then it's very easy to take a lot of damage and lose the race to the adds coming in.

Once I knew what was going on in the fight though it was relatively easy to figure out.

This makes a lot of sense. I definitely think the game is balanced around the assumption the player will hit more normal blocks than they miss, if not most of them.

I'm assuming from this that you haven't played a Paper Mario game before and the blocking mechanic is new to you? That would definitely make this learning curve a bit steeper.

vilkacis posted:

good to see Kabbu getting to be a fun weirdo for a change.

Kabbu is a total goofball and we will be seeing more of this in the future :)

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vilkacis
Feb 16, 2011

If i'm going to nitpick, i'd ditch the colons after portraits (they don't really need 'em the way a written name does). Also jpgs would make for lighter and faster loading images but they aren't that heavy as pngs and may have enough big flat colour spaces that the compression would be noticeable. Over all you're doing just fine.


Also goddamn 150k is a lot of words.

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