Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom

A solid platformer released at the hard end of the genres decline at the time, this game sort of combines the more open areas of Mario 64, with a more focused game like Crash Bandicoot or Ratchet and Clank. Everything is simple, but the levels and segments have novelty, the plot escalates the threat and stakes, its funny, ect.

What makes this one stand out to me is how good the feel of the game is, and how well normally tedious elements like collectibles are handled. In terms of control smoothness, and how good the audio and visual feedback is, its a joy. Collectibles are often just off the path, and are sometimes more of a puzzle challenge hidden in the open, than an earnest secret. I have good memories of this one.

All from an established IP. Strange times.

Sponge Boy Me Bob/10

This is the game that got me into gaming. It certainly helps that I was a huge fan of the television program, but I don't think I could have gotten a better introduction to 3D interactive worlds than this. When I got my very first console, the Nintendo Gamecube, I didn't have many first-party games. I may not have grown up with Super Mario Sunshine [スーパーマリオサンシャイン] or The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker [ゼルダの伝説 風のタクト], but Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom and other quality licensed games of the era were more than sufficient for 7 year old me. Games like Cars, Taz: Wanted and this game's sequel, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie were all standout licensed games that I might have never heard of if my parents got me Super Smash Bros. Melee [大乱闘スマッシュブラザーズDX] instead.

BFBB is a fantastic licensed game and a great game overall. The presentation is very charming should be familiar to fans of the first three seasons of the show - the soul of the original series shines through in every line of dialogue, the crazy level concepts, and the wacky music. Most of the show's cast is here (Save for Eugene Krabs and Mermaid-Man, quite unfortunate but they're serviceable) and they deliver great performances. Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy all have hilarious voice lines that are etched into my brain (HAM-MER, I GET IT!), and they often make references to the show's continuity - real good fanservice.
The locations are inspired from the show, with some of the most iconic locations being present - Jellyfish Fields, Spongebob's neighborhood, the Krusty Krab, Sandy's Tree Dome, even the one-off Rock Bottom is here and it's one of the best levels. The level designers did a great job at capturing the show's atmosphere while crafting fun 3D environments chock-full of collectibles, robots and side-objectives. They managed to squeeze easy to miss references in every corner of the world, my favourite of these being the vending machine in Rock Bottom that plays out the same iconic gag from the episode.
The music, just like the show, is iconic and varied. There's obviously a large Hawaiian music influence throughout (Jellyfish Fields, Bikini Bottom), but the soundtrack goes into Surf Rock (Goo Lagoon), Breakbeat/Acid House (Spongebob's Dream), Trip Hop (Industrial Park, Chum Bucket Lab), even Dark Ambient (Rock Bottom) territory on a whim. The standout tracks for me:
Jellyfish Fields, Rock Bottom, Mermalair (Straight up just the 1966 Batman theme), Spongebob's Dream.

The game's story is nothing special but it plays out like a classic episode in the fantastic cutscenes, Plankton creates an army of robots to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula but it goes haywire. You must collect 75 Golden Spatulas from various locations and defeat 3 giant robot Doppelgangers, among other boss fights to defeat him. The robotic influence over Bikini Bottom is clearly seen, the levels have been trashed by them and they're here to stay.
Speaking of the robots, this game's enemy variety is truly something else - with almost every level introducing a new type of robot in the mix. Their designs are iconic and they're most importantly fun to destroy and get destroyed by. The aforementioned HAM-MER - an aggressive wheeling bot wielding a giant slab of meat - is great fun and can be defeated in many ways by the whole cast, so is G-LOVE - a spinning wheel with hands that you can slam from the top or wrangle with Sandy's lasso, Monsoon floats up high wearing a parasol on his head and generates storm clouds, TAR-TAR fires Tartar sauce from a gun in three round bursts. They are really great foes and the game would greatly suffer without such an iconic cast of baddies (This game's sequel definitely suffered from this problem).

The three playable characters are unique and all have their strengths and weaknesses. They control great and have a variety of fun moves and properties that make them perfectly suited for certain situations. Spongebob is the jack of all trades and serves as the main character, with Patrick and Sandy being accessible via specifically placed Bus stops inside of levels. Unfortunately, not all characters are available everywhere, nor can you play as Patrick and Sandy in the hub world - would have been a great addition to the Remake... but Spongebob is still great fun to play regardless.
Spongebob's moveset comprises of a spinning attack, a ground pound, an overhead bash, and eventually a bowling attack and a cruise missile - all of which being Bubble wand techniques taught by the fan-favourite Bubble Buddy. Patrick can stun enemies with his ground slam and attack with his belly, and he can also make use of throwable fruit to press buttons or freeze water to access secrets. Sandy has a lasso which can be used to hover for a short while and latch onto distant objects and enemies. You can switch between Spongebob-Patrick or Spongebob-Sandy in most levels and it makes for some great gameplay variety, where the secondary characters fill in what Spongebob lacks in strength and jump distance.
Except you can beat the game with Spongebob only if you know what you're doing, thanks to discoveries made in this game's active Speedrunning scene. Cruise boosting is debatably an unintended exploit that is great fun to play around with, achieved by inputting frame-perfect inputs twice in a row for the Bubble Bowl and Cruise Bubble - resulting in a large boost to Spongebob's speed on ground and in the air. Obscure, arguably unintentional mechanics like Cruise Boosting and Wavedashing are a design decision I adore and more games should have game-breaking techniques that reward input skill like this (Maybe not in competitive games but hey that's another story).

In fine, Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a really fun 3D platformer with lots of personality. The game bleeds the same blood as the original 3 Seasons of the show, the humor is of the same tone and the characters aren't completely flanderized and childish like in later seasons. The environments are diverse, the enemies are fun and there is a large variety of challenges and optional tasks to achieve for completionists. Many staples of 3D collect-a-thons are presents here, with the Golden Spatulas being Shines/Stars, Socks being Blue Coins and Shiny objects being Coins. If you liked Super Mario 64 [スーパーマリオ64], Psychonauts, or Banjo-Kazooie, this is a very easy sell - even if you don't like the show there's a lot to love here in how tight the whole experience is.

I'm obviously biased, this game is very special to me and I've loved it since I first laid eyes on it as a wee lad, and when I subsequently got it on my first console, the Nintendo Gamecube. 4.5/5 this game rules

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.

*This is not my original review of this game. Back in early 2018, I reviewed Battle for Bikini Bottom as my first published review for shits and giggles, except that I didn't actually review the game. I only talked about what a stupid fucking manchild I was for still liking this licensed kids' game into adulthood. I've always hated my first review not only for the shallow, self-effacing content, but because it was a total disservice to one of my favorite games. I hope this revised review will help quell that nagging feeling I've had for three years now and give Battle for Bikini Bottom its rightful praise. I love this game, and I always have, even when it was totally uncool to do so.

Back in 2003, the 3D platformer was still a prevalent genre in gaming, but it was running its course at this time and was running out of fresh ideas. I was seven years of age at the time and was not aware of the genre’s stagnation, so I was liable to buy into anything. Because I was of the impressionable young demographic who was not tired of jumping on platforms as kooky characters, I was ripe for the industry to take advantage of. In this case, it was Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, another licensed game with the yellow sponge who was taking the world by storm. Would I have ever been interested in this game if it didn't have Spongebob's face all over it? Most likely, no. Like any other kid, I went hook, line, and sinker for any recognizable face on any video game. I played plenty of awful licensed games when I was a kid and Spongebob was even involved with some of those. In the case of Battle for Bikini Bottom, I am so glad that I was a kid in the early 2000s so I could play this game. If I wasn't I would have probably stuck my nose up at this game like the frothing snob I am. Anytime past my single-digit age, I feel as if I would've known better than to buy into this licensed dreck because I was aware of the deserved stigma behind licensed games. I became aware that licensed games were typically rushed to a set deadline regardless of the final project being done. I caught onto the fact that the developers usually didn't care to grasp the source material. This is not the case for Battle for Bikini Bottom at all. They suckered me in, but I was anything but duped. In fact, this game is the optimal Spongebob experience in video game format. It oozes the charm and humor of the show from all of its pores.

The story is pretty simple: Plankton makes an army of robots to take over Bikini Bottom but accidentally sets the switch to "don't obey" which is a classic, silly cartoon conundrum. The same night, Spongebob and Patrick make a wish to have real robots to play with. When he awakens, Spongebob jumps out of bed with that unbridled Spongebob enthusiasm to interact with his cybernetic machinations. However, he is shocked and appalled when he finds that his house has been ransacked and vandalized with graffiti, and sheepishly asks Gary if he made this mess. Spongebob must be a heavy sleeper to have stayed in an unconscious state during the raucous, which explains why he needs a house-shaking fog horn as an alarm clock. Once the robots start running amok, Spongebob feels responsible for all of the chaos, with the anxiety of the Bikini Bottom News Crew covering the pandemic and promising severe consequences for whoever unleashed the robot scourge. Plankton, who stands outside Spongebob’s pineapple abode knowing full well that Spongebob is gullible, gaslights him into thinking that his careless wishing caused this overnight pandemonium, so Spongebob adventures across Bikini Bottom busting up every bucket of bolts in the way. This game's premise wouldn't have been as fun if Spongebob wasn't so dense.

Even though nostalgia still blinds my objective perception like a manipulative spouse, I cannot deny that Battle for Bikini Bottom wears its 3D platformer influences on its sleeves as conspicuously as Squidward wearing no pants. The game apes the non-linear collectathon format that Banjo-Kazooie popularized so much that I’m surprised that Spongebob doesn’t carry around a backpack with Gary in it. While one could still criticize Battle for Bikini Bottom for being heavily derivative, I think some clemency could be considered for the fact that it's a licensed game. The novelty of baking off a preexisting property outside of an original video game IP comes with its recognizability to its brand, so one should never expect a licensed game to be revolutionary. Besides, what 3D platformer of the early 2000s isn’t at least somewhat guilty of ripping off Banjo-Kazooie in some fashion? The main collectible that allows Spongebob to unlock every area of his hometown is golden spatulas, valuable pieces of fry cookery seen once or twice in the show’s first season. There are eight golden spatulas per area, including the hub, and four acquired through the boss battles. Some are earned through overarching tasks like retrieving jellyfish sting ointment for a freshly burned Squidward and rescuing Mrs. Puff’s students from the neverending abyss of the Kelp Forest. Other spatulas are off the beaten path of the more linear sections that divide the levels as opposed to Banjo’s sprawling open playgrounds. Visiting a new section of the town requires Spongebob to collect a specific number of golden spatulas, and they’re all a reasonable number as par for the collectathon course. Golden Spatulas can also be purchased from Mr. Krabs with the rainbow bit shiny object currency, and Spongebob can also trade ten of Patrick's socks back to him for one as the game’s secondary collectible. Why Patrick has a staggeringly large collection of socks when he doesn’t even have feet and what he uses them for, I don’t even want to know.

Along the way in stopping the robot menace, Battle for Bikini Bottom thought it would be imperative to let the player control Spongebob, Patrick, AND Sandy. As one would expect from the character lineup of a sponge, starfish, and a squirrel in a pressurized space suit, each of them has their own movesets and unique abilities. Spongebob, being the titular character and all, gets the most playtime out of the three characters. He is the only character that gains new attack moves as the game progresses making him the most versatile in terms of a moveset. His base bubble wand is not only a swift melee attack, but it's an all-in-one tool used for all of his other moves. Spongebob can strike from below with a bubble Viking helmet bash, or crush enemies with bubble gorilla feet from above. The unlockable bubble moves include bowling a bubble into enemies and launching a guided cruise missile with a five-second limit. No, he does not have to yell “Bring it around town!” to execute all of these bubble stunts. Patrick is the least versatile in every aspect of gameplay. Besides what is either a belly flop or a semi-dry hump (they’re underwater after all) attack, he can body slam to stun some larger robots with a shockwave radius. Patrick’s special schtick is picking up the "throw fruit" watermelon to either attack robots from a distance or press buttons from afar. There are also white "freezy fruit" Patrick throws into the goo to freeze, allowing him to walk on it for a short period of time mostly to retrieve one of the game's many collectibles. Patrick's throwing technique is eventually rendered obsolete as soon as Spongebob acquires the cruise bubble, so most of the utility the game gets out of Patrick are puzzle sections (which is ironic because Patrick is supposed to be the dumb character in the show). They could have made Patrick a strength-heavy character by having his attacks do more damage, but that would probably make the game a little more uneven. I would argue that they did this with Sandy anyway. Sandy is and has always been my favorite character to play as because she has the most range in terms of attack and movement. She has a karate chop, a mid-air kick, a lasso, and a gliding move, and can attach herself to mid-air Texas insignias to swing off in high places to cross even tighter gaps. More often than not, I used Sandy in levels where she was available over Spongebob because her gliding move made it so much easier to traverse every level where she was available. Strongest critter in Bikini Bottom, indeed. Not even bonafide, original 3D platformer games have juggled a string of multiple playable characters this fluidly, and the fact that playing as all three adds a wish fulfillment bonus for every fan of the show is an excellent bonus.

Bikini Bottom has expanded its districts throughout the show’s tenure even in the prime early years, and Battle for Bikini Bottom showcases thirteen of them. The “base” of Bikini Bottom serves as the game’s hub world and along its straight, narrow road, it features notable sub-areas like Spongebob's house, Sandy's treedome, and the Krusty Krab. The Bikini Bottom hub world feels cozy and familiar, but every landmark is squeezed too close together along the road, which I suppose might be due to the limitations of the game. While these spots are certainly the most distinguished ones found in the show, the game treats them all as minor steps to visit as a referential lark. What Battle for Bikini Bottom excels at is extrapolating on Bikini Bottom’s familiar settings that are visited periodically, are background setpieces, or are the focal point of one episode.

There are nine different main levels accessed from toll booths in the hub world and are organized by easy, medium, and hard difficulty curves. Every single level in this game is completely unique to one another in terms of level design and objectives. The green, grassy valley of Jellyfish Fields is a perfect first level because of the climb you undergo to get Squidward that soothing ointment remedy. While the first level in the game is naturally easy, the way it progresses to the peak of King Jellyfish’s shower domain feels epically grand nevertheless. Downtown Bikini Bottom follows up the same type of level progression where climbing up on the rooftops with Sandy leads into a robot horde battle inside of a lighthouse. Goo Lagoon has an infectious, fun energy with plenty of beach time along with a carnival pier in the same district. Rock Bottom exudes that surreal, noirish darkness that made its sole appearance in the show so memorable. The Batcave Mermalair of the geriatric underwater superhero duo of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy is surprisingly heavily based on solving puzzles. Sand Mountain is a level that revels in the slide mechanic with three perilously thrilling slopes to sand down Spongebob’s tongue with friction, and Spongebob's Dream is an unpredictable mish-mash of different objectives based on whose dream Spongebob is infiltrating. The only level in the game that is worth criticizing is Kelp Forest. I’m glad the stone tiki section and the winding kelp slides add a much-needed spike in difficulty, but performing these tasks in what seems like total darkness is not a necessary handicap. I could turn the brightness up on my television, but I refuse to do so on principle. It makes the hauntingly ectoplasm-drenched Flying Dutchman’s Graveyard look as vibrant as Goo Lagoon by comparison. What happens when areas around Spongebob’s neighborhood and the Krusty Krab are fleshed out in the video game format is that their brief occurrences on the show make their transitory sightings more interesting. When watching the early seasons of Spongebob, I will wonder where that giant jellyfish rock statue is, or the record-breaking sand castle in Goo Lagoon. Rock Bottom’s abstract art museum is genuinely something I want the show to delve into, even though I know it's a pipe dream.

Facing the legions of robot army goons in these assorted Bikini Bottom locations never becomes inconvenient or annoying, even though they are a contagion that needs to be wiped out to regain peace and harmony. Fighting any of these robots is never really challenging as each of them falls apart with one or two hits. Their substance as an enemy distinction lies in their diversity. The robots seemed to have formulated a chain of command based on height and mass in their mere hours of existence. Pint-sized robots such as the taser-carrying Fodders and the halitosis-having Chomp-Bots will go down with little opposition, but they are usually packed in numbers. Mid-sized Ham-Mers that smash people with a bad pun attached to their arm and the Tar-Tar robots that squirt the horrifying condiment (from a sea creature’s perspective) from a hose will usually also accompany the smaller grunts. The aerial Chuck throws missiles with the grace and accuracy of Tom Brady, and failing to tippy-toe around the Sleepytime Robots will result in an alarming penalty. Eventually, once the larger robots like Slick in the oil bubble shield and the spinning triplet Tubelets are introduced in the late game, the wide range of robots all banding together with their unique attributes can actually get quite hectic. Reclaiming the Krusty Krab from them takes a bit of strategy to succeed. The impression we’re supposed to get from Plankton’s rogue creations is that they are a mischievous bunch, but I swear that Chuck and Slick straight-up murder people in their introduction cutscenes. What surprises me more is that the robots don’t cause a disconnect with Spongebob’s underwater world. On top of everything else, knocking these tin cans around feels magnificent thanks to the sharp sound and impact. Chaining combos in combat and setting off Thunder Tiki traps to blow them sky-high is so satisfying.

After collecting a number of golden spatulas by a number divisible by five, Spongebob opens the shell gate and teleports to an arena where he fights a harrowingly uncanny robot creation of one of the three playable characters scaled to match the size of a small building. First, Spongebob and Patrick rumble around with a Robot Sandy in a Poseidome wrestling ring at the request of the sea king depicted on the show. I adore the adrenaline and motion of this fight as oftentimes, I'd just dodge its karate chops at me until it hit me just for my own sick amusement. Robot Patrick used to make me feel uneasy when I was a kid. I'm not sure if it's due to the creepy level music or the foggy, toxic dinginess of the Industrial Park. It’s likely due to Robot Patrick's design. He looks less like a robot and more like if Patrick was a back-alley rapist. He’s got a menacing grin of cruelty that makes your skin crawl. Karate-geared Robot Spongebob and the final level in its mechanical brain are no-nonsense as it heavily requires every move you've learned throughout the game and doesn't give you any checkpoints or health. It's a pretty intense finale for the game. Outside the curiosity of seeing the main characters depicted as towering mechanical machines made for destruction, the multi-phased boss fights they serve as are perfect for splitting up the game’s progression. There are also three minibosses found at the end of a few levels, including King Jellyfish taking a shower and the treacherous pirate ghost Flying Dutchman after swindling a deal with our heroes. Mermaid Man villain Prawn, an original creation of the developers, is as dynamic as Man Ray or the Dirty Bubble as a snooty, Eurotrash plankton who weaponizes sound from a phonograph head.

Other fantastic aspects of this game are in the form of little intricacies through the game. Spongebob's shoes squeak every time he moves just like in the show. The announcer fish from the show commentates on every boss fight, Patrick peers into the Treedome just like in the first episode of the show, and the bus stop gag from Rock Bottom even makes an appearance. Bubble Buddy, Spongebob’s makeshift imaginary friend who pissed off everyone in town, is one of the core NPC characters in the game that assigns Spongebob various tasks to collect more Golden Spatulas. Still, the strength of the game’s connection to the show runs deeper than mere references. If the show’s writers weren’t involved in the game’s development, I’d be incredulously surprised. The game’s writing is practically as sharp and charming as it was during the show’s early seasons when the game was being developed. Spongebob and Plankton banter with their contrasting dynamic, and seeing Sandy and Patrick talk to the maniacal shrimp is something amusing unseen in the show. Surly Squidward makes comments to Spongebob as caustically as usual, and it’s hilarious seeing him dream of torturing Mr. Krabs with his dream symphony while his boss returns the favor by sticking him at work in his own astral fantasy. Unfortunately, one glaring flaw that sullies the strong connection to the source material is that Clancy Brown doesn’t voice Mr. Krabs, but an imposter who can’t help but sound like an offkey impersonation (who also voices Mermaid Man as poorly).

Either the developers engorged themselves in the source material by prying their eyes open like Alex Delarge, or THQ hired some of the biggest Spongebob fans to develop this game. Either way, this game avoids all the pitfalls that beset the licensed game, and it all seems so simple. The game shares many similarities to Banjo Kazooie and other platformers that came before it, but a licensed game doesn't have to be original to be entertaining. It begs the question: how hard is it to understand the source material before you adapt it to another medium? I've played plenty of games like Battle for Bikini Bottom, but none of those games remind me why Spongebob was my favorite cartoon like this one does. Spongebob was never this cerebral, ground-breaking TV show, but it succeeded because it was timelessly written and was extremely charming. It's wonderful that the charm of Spongebob translated so well into this game. All the while, it doesn’t just absorb and expunge the source material: it returns the favor by using the video game format to expand on the source material, something that most licensed games are too lazy to do. The mission of the developers was to make the game recognizable to its source material, but it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things because the game is so exceptional. I’d even go out on a limb and say it ranks up there with one of the best 3D platformers of all time because all of the platformer aspects it liberally borrows are executed solidly. I feel no shame loving this game even as an adult.

One of the basic rule of buying games is to never trust licensed games. Any video game made as an attempt to cash in TV shows or movies often falls in the category of shovelware, which is a sad fact for the majority of licensed games. Luckily, a few licensed games do exist to prove that the notion is wrong. SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is one of the few licensed titles that manage to be one of the most entertaining gaming experiences of the early 2000s.

Plankton, the antagonist of the SpongeBob Squarepants series, attempts to build a robot-duplicating machine called the Duplicatotron 3000 to take over Bikini Bottom and the coveted Krabby Patty secret formula from his rival Mr. Krabs. However, as usual, his plan goes awry in a spectacular fashion. The D3000 malfunctions and causes the robots to run amok, destroying everything in their path. SpongeBob wakes up to find the entire city and his house thrashed by the rogue machines, and attempts to undo Plankton's mess in an adventure that takes him to various locales in the series.

Conceptually, there is nothing new about Battle for Bikini Bottom. It's a licensed game made in the vein of platformer classics like Super Mario 64 [スーパーマリオ64]and Banjo-Kazooie. But instead of trying to cash in the 3D platformer craze, Battle for Bikini Bottom took the formula, adapted it to the zany world of SpongeBob and conveyed a simple but absolutely addicting gameplay system. This is where the title really shines: excellence in simplicity.

You get to play the choice between three characters, SpongeBob Squarepants, Patrick Star and Sandy Cheeks. You will need to switch between characters to pass through certain areas, which may be blocked by obstacles requiring the unique abilities of the three characters to overcome. SpongeBob is the jack of all trades, capable of performing ranged attacks, slamming and balanced melee combat. Patrick is the powerhouse, able to stun enemies and throw objects (and operate the special Patrick Teeter-Totter to propel himself to certain areas) but suffers from poor mobility and limited attack range. Sandy is capable of gliding and lassoing enemies from a distance, giving her aerial mobility. Combat is very simple: most enemies die in one hit, but some robots may require special abilities to effectively destroy.

The main objective of the game is to collect Golden Spatulas, Shiny Objects and Socks. Golden Spatulas are required to unlock new areas, Shiny Objects can be used to pay Mr. Krabs for quick Golden Spatulas and also open new areas within levels, while Socks can be returned to Patrick in the main hub (Bikini Bottom) and exchanged for Golden Spatulas. After collecting enough Spatulas, the player can advance to the boss stage of one area before moving to the next. Collecting all Spatulas and enough Shiny Objects will unlock special features in the end of the game. In many ways SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom can be summed up as a collect-a-thon with some combat thrown in. Hardly original after the breakthroughs in the previous console generation. Luckily, Heavy Iron did a great job designing a game world faithful to the source material that defies the disturbingly low standards of a licensed game. The writing in the game is good enough to rival some of the best SpongeBob Squarepants episodes from the earlier seasons. The only gripe is that some characters (such as Mr. Krabs and Mermaid Man) aren't voiced by their original VAs.

In conclusion, the beauty of this game is the perfect execution of its concept in incorporating a burgeoning animated series to classic platformer mechanics, resulting in one of the most fun and no-nonsense gaming experiences. SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom rightfully earned its place as the beloved platformer favorite of the sixth video game generation in an era full of low-quality cash grabs.