Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom

Battle for Bikini Bottom is one of the most shockingly competent video games of the 6th console generation, with most proclaiming it a gem in a sea of licensed shovelware. I'm not here to completely disagree, because I think it's got a lot going for it, but I think people overlook many problems with this game precisely because of that "shock."

Let's get the obvious thing out of the way - it's a game about SpongeBob, the character probably most emblematic of the American millenial generation. The show is great, appealed to a wide audience, and was immediately recognizable due to its unique setting and memorable cast of characters. I think most fans of any given non-games character would agree that the ideal video game for them would be one that reflects what they're all about. Spider-Man is obviously going to be swinging around and kicking ass. Riddick should be sneaking around and infiltrating high-tech facilities. SpongeBob... what exactly does he do? He works, hangs out with his buddies, has the occasional manic episode, and sometimes gets into some predicament he's got to sort out, usually diplomatically. That doesn't easily translate to a video game, making basically any type of game an imperfect fit, but the choice of 3D platformer as the genre is a decent one for the Bob because of the inherent focus on the world around you. While it still allows the player to explore Bikini Bottom as SpongeBob, he isn't exactly known for nailing tricky jumps or for fighting robots, the two major gameplay areas here. Right off of the bat, there's a small lack of synergy that makes it feel more like the genre prescription was arbitrary, or for the sake of something non-artistic like sales. Oh well.

So what does it accomplish in its reasonable mission? I think much more than most people would have expected. The collect-a-thon nature of the title allows for a large number of scenarios that occur in or are inspired by events in the show. This is compounded by the ability to switch characters to Patrick or Sandy for certain level segments, allowing for greater challenge variety without breaking character "realism" by making them do something they likely wouldn't have if written by Hillenburg. The humor is exceptionally close to the show's, with about the same hit rate on verbal jokes - and a majority of the original voice cast reprise their roles. The soundtrack is very reminiscent of the show, making effective use of the same slide guitar, woodblock, ukelele, tambourine combination the show was famous for, with the occasional electronic and rock-n-roll track when appropriate. The stages are all based on memorable locations from the show and faithfully represented, making them fun to traverse. If you get stuck on a given challenge, the game bookmarks the spot in the start menu, allowing you to move on to something else and fast travel back to it at any time. The bosses are extremely intuitively designed and test your full arsenal of moves that you've earned up until that point. Finally, the difficulty is not nearly as low as other for-kids games of the era, meaning the game holds the same all-ages appeal that its franchise does. That's quite the list for a budget title.

Unfortunately, it's not all gold and glitter, even by 6th gen standards. The art direction, while distinct in its representation of the show, really needed some cel-shading to make the 3D models look less dull and misshapen. The audio mixing was consistently horrible, with a flood of loud noises when you enter an arbitrary radius of a waterfall or cannon. While most characters are voiced by their original actors, those that aren't are immediately noticeable, Mr. Krabs and Mermaid Man being distracting drops in quality. The level design in the later stages becomes very repetitive with few notable landmarks and re-pasted assets and textures (Kelp Forest, the Mermalair, and Rock Bottom especially). A few levels rely very heavily on Patrick's fruit-throwing ability, which is unwieldy and feels unreliable on repeated attempts. Most of the stages are completed in a straight line, putting a damper on any significant feeling of exploration or environmental mastery. 10 of the spatulas in the game require very blatant money grinding to pay off Mr. Krabs, something I very much doubt any sane person would ever want to do. The very final boss with Robo-Plankton is a bit of a letdown after a great fight with Robo-SpongeBob, and deflates an otherwise good ending sequence. That's a decent-sized list as well.

I understand that a lot of the appeal with this title (and other 3D action-adventure and platformer games) is the ability to become the character, and just kind of passively experience the environment behind the mask. Super Mario Sunshine and Odyssey capitalize on this completely, with dozens of little toys in every level for FLUDD and Cappy to just mess around with, respectively. While I certainly understand kids who want to pretend to be SpongeBob and hang out in his house or "walk to work" or act out some other imagined narrative, mechanically you're not actually doing anything. SpongeBob has no way of interacting with anything without talking in canned text boxes or smacking it. Because of the mechanical dissonance, I have to say this sort of sandbox immersion is personally lost on me for this title. I don't feel rewarded for being SpongeBob, I feel rewarded for jumping around on platforms and finding rewards, so that's what I do. The franchise has basically nothing to do with that.

I think, overall, BfBB needed a little more time in the oven to iron out some fixable flaws and integrate its systems better with its franchise. However, this is probably an unreasonable request given its release as a budget title, and was likely never possible to begin with. For what it is, and the resources it was given to spur its growth, Heavy Iron did just about as well as they possibly could have - but that in and of itself doesn't make it a classic.