Think being in a land inhabited by bugs is all fine and dandy? You'll realize how small a Bugarian feels when you read these entries.
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- The concept of lesser bugs; bugs that never evolved the lifespans or sapience of the main cast and thusly remain monsters bound by instinct. Just what form of natural selection resulted in these lesser bugs remaining the way they were and in some ways becoming worse just to combat the rise of bug sapience?
- Caterpillars are perhaps the most horrifying and tragic example of lesser bugs, because they're just young bugs that failed to mature and thus became feral as a result. Just imagine what if human babies turned into wild monkeys if they stopped growing at some point in their lives. They could've lived a full life ahead of them, but were ripped away in favor of animalistic insanity before they could even say their first sentence. And considering how common those enemies are, this appears to be a rather frequent occurency. It must suck to grow up with siblings as a butterfly/moth in Bugaria...
- The Beast. Not only is this (rather large) centipede imposing to look at, it's enough to frighten Kabbu, on account of it eating his friends when he first went through its hunting grounds. Worse still, however, is the fact that it doesn't seem to be baring its fangs to look intimidating; it looks like its grinning, like it enjoys what it does. It brings to mind King Ghidorah or Fatalis in the way it acts; it may look like a mere beast, but it acts chillingly intelligent, and its expression is not one of animalistic fury, but rather vicious, cruel glee.
- The Giant's Lair. Holy smokes. The entire area has a dark and oppressive atmosphere, and all of the Dead Lander enemies are hideous Bosses in Mook Clothing that wouldn't be out of place in Hollow Knight!note
- And the worst of it is the Dead Lander Omega. A terrifying, enormous beast with a single glowing eye, and bony arms that scout the area for prey, as in, you. And unfortunately, this thing isn't confined to the Lair: if you look at the nearby tall grass through the Eliascope, you can see its shadow skulking around. God only knows why it hasn't tried to attack Bugaria yet.
- Not to mention that Giant's Lair is just an ordinary house that must have been owned by some person, but it's completely abandoned, with the refrigerator left open. What could have happened to this person's house that made them just abandon it? Assuming of course that the Dead Landers showed up after they left, because if the human was still there when they (particularly the Dead Lander Omega) appeared, what happened probably wasn't pretty.
- The music
is just as nightmarish as the lair itself. The desolate piano and hellish droning perfectly compliment its haunting atmosphere, and yet there's still a sense of quiet tragedy to it that seems to reflect on the Lair's status as a normal house that was suddenly abandoned and left to rot. What's worse is what happens when you're spotted by Omega, which plays this theme instead, appropriately titled ??? to show the true horrors of the Dead Landers. - Something else that's noticeable are the spears thrown throughout the first area of the Giant's Lair. Right before fighting Ultimax, the Wasp King is shown with a few Wasp Troopers as they destroy the entrance and advance inside. By the time you encounter him, said troopers are nowhere to be seen. The Wasp King had to fight through some of these creatures, and it's strongly implied that his wasps were outright killed fighting the Dead Landers.
- Notably, the Giant's Lair also puts into perspective of just how small the party truly is. Throughout the game, you encounter human objects that have been repurposed into housing and transportation for the insects of the land. Cardboard boxes, soda cans, various household items being used as makeshift bridges and the like. Because of how these have been repurposed, it can be easy to forget their size relative to us. And then you enter the Giant's Lair, where these objects are scattered about randomly in the disrepaired state the house is in. Combined with the zoomed out camera angles and the Dead Lander Omega, it finally reminds the player that despite all the amazing things the party can do, they are ultimately still just insects. Insects that could easily be stomped out by even a moderately sized animal. The only reason they don't end up crushed is that the Dead Lander Omega seems more content to just drop other, smaller Dead Landers on them for their own amusement.
- The lab inside Snakemouth. Sweet Venus. The whole place is the site of incredibly inhumane experiments with cordyceps — yes, THAT cordyceps — by the roaches to try and circumvent the need for the Everlasting Sapling for immortality, and it went horribly, horribly wrong. Zommoth, the area boss, got the worst of it, its entire lower body becoming a snakelike tail and its whole face being consumed by a cordyceps stalk. There's barely anything left; just a shell of a moth reduced to a vicious beast that wouldn't look out of place in a Resident Evil game. No wonder the roaches went missing...
- Want an extra dose? Leif (or rather the cordyceps creature that resurrected him) was regarded as a failure. What in the everlasting FUCK were they trying to do that a life form that effectively resurrected a fallen adventurer was seen as a failed experiment? And what would have happened had they succeeded??
- Then reading Zommoth's Bestiary entry reveals the Roaches created it for an immortal guardian, but they failed to predict being unable to control. All but directly confirming the Zommoth is responsible for the state of the lab.
- One of the rooms contains notes of one of the scientists mentioning they need to investigate a subject acting odd in the containment room. Across the water is a holding cell containing a Zombeetle who drops a lab card...and garbled notes saying they can't feel their legs, seemingly implying that the Zombeetle killed the scientist, until you realize that the notes use the Royal "We". Now who may this... being without legs be?
- While traveling through the Forsaken Lands, Team Snakemouth can potentially come across a strange, little village. All the buildings are in ruins, it's inhabitants carry weirdly stiff smiles on their faces and, when you try to communicate with them, will only garble some indecipherable Black Speech. Team Snakemouth immediately feels uncomfortable there and even the Venus Bud stationed in the place's "Inn" admits the village is giving her the creeps. And with good reason. Upon trying to speak to the village's "king", said king reveals himself to be a cluster of sentient Mothflies having merely disguised themselves as a bug. Upon defeating him, Team Snakemouth finds the place completely cleared out, with only the masks of the "villagers" left behind. Just what the hell was that about??
- Making matters worse, a conspicuously empty apartment in the Termite Kingdom has a diary entry saying the bug living there was going to investigate the strange mothflies, and they would be back before dinner. That sheds some light on why there might be a bounty on the False Monarch's heads...
- Speaking of the Forsaken Lands, one will see ant-like creatures calmly walking around the overworld. Given that this is the Forsaken Lands where everyone has been making a big deal out of how dangerous it is, one might assume, at worst, that these guys are bandits like the ones you faced off in the desert. Getting close to them, however, reveals that these are actually Mimic Spiders who charge at you in their true form, drooling like maniacs. Vi and Kabbu are just as horrified by the surprise as you are.Vi: Hiya-AAAAAAHH!!! Huff...Huff... Heck this. You're going DOWN! As if you could put us to sleep after that scare!
- Wasp King, the Big Bad of the game, is a vicious sociopath who rules his kingdom with an iron fist, keeping citizens in poverty and jailing bugs for even the smallest offenses, and he seeks to find the Everlasting Sapling to gain its powers to take over Bugaria and rule it as its immortal tyrant. He is also immensely powerful, wielding an axe and possessing the flame magic that could easily incinerate a defenseless bug, and he came dangerously close to doing this with Team Snakemouth during their first encounter. If not for Queen Vanessa's Flame Brooch protecting Team Snakemouth from his flames in the latest encounter, he would've been practically undefeatable. Additionally, right before facing him, you're greeted with an area with a bunch of corpses of Roach Constructs and Scorpions. The silence in place of the music doesn't make anything better either.
- The first thing we see the Wasp King do? Bluntly tell Team Snakemouth not to bother telling him their names, as he has no intention of remembering them once he burns them to ash. and he nearly does.
- It's also revealed that the reason wasps are so loyal to him is because they were actually brainwashed into servitude, and are completely unable to disobey his orders, even willing to die if their cruel king says so. And when Team Snakemouth defeats General Ultimax at the end of Chapter 6, he still refuses to give up despite being utterly fearful for his dear life, even shouting that they have to crush his body if they want to get through. At this moment it was clear that it was Wasp King's hypnosis talking through Ultimax, overriding even his own sense of self-preservation. Once the wasps are freed, they end up being very remorseful for what they have done under Wasp King's control.
- When the Wasp King finally finds and unlocks the Sapling, he discovers that it was wilted and on the verge of death due to the lack of exposure to sunlight. Angered, he immediately devours its last leaf, cruelly destroying it and morphing into the Everlasting King. After being defeated by Team Snakemouth, he still refuses to admit defeat, and just loses it, trying to form the hugest Fireball possible, only to lose control of his powers and turning into an inanimate tree. In the Playable Epilogue, however, the team ponders with the Roach Village Elder that, had the Sapling, or the Everlasting King, been exposed to the sun, he would've never lost control of his powers and would be truly immortal and all-powerful.
- His backstory is definitely not a happy one. Ever since he was a baby, he was abandoned by his parents in the Dead Lands, and was forced to grow up and survive against the vicious Dead Landers completely alone (which is depicted in the comic as well). Eventually, he managed to survive, and came across Bugaria, finding himself in the Wasp Kingdom. But instead of finding love and friendship, he became nothing more but friendless, neglected and disrespected trash collector. Ultimately, he abandoned the kingdom, and nobody cared… until he found the Ancient Crown that allowed him to brainwash almost every wasp in the kingdom, his newfound power twisting him into control-obsessed and power-hungry monster he is today.
- The individual strength of the wasps is frightening. You encounter a pair of generic wasps early on and it takes five experienced adventurers to take down two of them. When the Wasp Kingdom invades, the astute player will realize that the mostly peaceful nation of Bugaria faces an enemy whose weakest soldiers easily outclass almost every bug encountered so far.
