Happy Tuesday everybody! Today I will be reviewing a special game.
The game: Battle For Bikini Bottom is an action-adventure sandbox platformer based on the Nickelodeon cartoon show. The game released in 2003 for the PS2, Xbox, Gameboy Advance, Game Cube, and PC and it was created by Heavy Iron Studios, a developer under THQ. The PC version however is different and it was developed by AWE Games. The GBA version is also different and it was developed by Vicarious Visions. I will talk about the console version since that is the most liked and most popular version of the game.
The Story: 
The main antagonist of this game is you guessed it, Plankton. He’s up to no good again only this time he has created an army of robots to help him steal the Krabby Patty Formula. Plankton however messed up designing the robot’s minds, as they do whatever they want instead of listening to Plankton. They are all over Bikini Bottom causing destruction and now it’s up to Spongebob, Patrick, and Sandy to save the day.
This game is like playing through an episode of the show but much longer, kinda like a TV special or something and it’s fun to play through. You will journey across all of Bikini Bottom and get to go to some iconic locations from the show such as Rock Bottom, Goo Lagoon, and my personal favorite, the Mermalair. There are even a few original level designs in this game that are pretty well done such as the Flying Dutchman’s Graveyard and Spongebob’s Dream. Each level’s length is pretty long and will take some time to complete everything in them for anyone who wants to 100% the game. The humor in this game is basically the same from the show. Since it was during Spongebob’s golden era, expect to hear some iconic references like “Hey look! It’s a Giraffe!” from Patrick. I’m sad to say you won’t hear “My leg!” in this game.
The street where Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward live serves as a hub-level. You can unlock different parts of this hub-level like the street to Sandy’s dome and Shady Shoals Rest Home and eventually the street to the Chum Bucket and Krusty Krab. You can go inside all of these buildings.
As for characters you encounter, most of them from the show appear in this game. Mermaid Man, Barnacle Boy, Mrs. Puff, Larry the Lobster, Mr. Krabs, Squidward, Gary, King Neptune, The Flying Dutchman, and even Bubble Buddy are in this game. The only downside is that Mermaid Man and Mr. Krabs both have different voice actors in this game but the voice actors for the rest of the characters are all the same ones from the show. They will help Spongebob, Patrick, and Sandy on their journey to save Bikini Bottom in any way they can. I was surprised that they didn’t have Plankton’s computer wife Karen in this game since she’s kind of a robot herself in a way and kind of a big character in the show.
Gameplay: 
- In this game you will mainly be platforming. Not that many games that are similar to BFBB do a great job at doing this but this game does it exceptionally great. The camera won’t be an issue as it will adjust to whatever you are doing. However for some reason, you can’t seem to control the camera in boss battles because the camera will always have you be focused on the boss you are fighting.
- You will either play as Spongebob, Patrick, or Sandy depending on the level. You are not allowed to have all 3 characters in the same level unfortunately. Each play differently so it doesn’t feel like you’re playing the same character just with a different skin. For example, Spongebob and Sandy can’t pick up objects/robots to throw but Patrick can. Spongebob and Patrick can’t glide across long distances but Sandy can. The way you switch characters is to find a bus stop and you quickly switch between them. You will always find a bus stop to switch characters so you won’t get stuck on some parts.
- The enemies in the game are robots. There is a big variety on robots to fight. There is about 15 different robot types I believe. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, there is robot that has a shield around him that’s strong but once you break it his armor is super weak. I like how every time you first encounter a new robot type, there’s a short cutscene of that robot terrorizing civilians and basically showing off its weapons. Its hilarious. The cool thing is that once you destroy a robot, its file will appear in the Police Station’s database. You can go there and read the descriptions on the robots. The robot that is the scariest is the Sleeping Robot. If you make too much noise near him, he furiously wakes up and starts blasting you with his laser. The most annoying robot is the "Chuck" robot. He flies and throws missiles at you from long distances and will screw you up when you are platforming.
- The health in this game is Underwear… yes, Underwear. It may sound silly but this is the Health in this game. You start out with 3 pairs of Underwear but you can upgrade it to 6 pairs if you find the all of the hidden Gold Underwear pairs in the Bikini Bottom hub-level. Sometimes your character will say something funny when they pick up Underwear, like Sandy will say “Ew… can’t believe I’m wearing Spongebob’s underwear.” Its great.
- You need to collect 3 things in this game: Shiny Objects, Socks, and Golden Spatulas. Shiny Objects is the currency of the game and you will have to collect them in order to buy things or feed them to a clam to unlock some parts of a level. Socks are hidden throughout each level and for every 10 you bring back to Patrick, he will give you a Golden Spatula. Golden Spatulas are what you need in order to unlock other levels in the game. In order to access the Chum Bucket Lab(which is the final level), you need to get 75 Golden Spatulas I believe. Getting Golden Spatulas varies from doing all sorts of different objectives. You don’t have to get every single Golden Spatula in the game so if you get stuck trying to get one, you can always come back to try to get it again later. If for some reason you can’t get a Golden Spatula, you can always buy them from Mr. Krabs but since he loves money, he will ask for a lot.
Here is a picture of everything on the screen at once. Pressing R2 or R will bring up all of these for a few seconds for you to see. The item on the bottom-left will differ from level to level because those are quest items.
- Spongebob is the main character so he gets the benefit of gaining new attacks as the game progresses. My favorite attack of his is the Cruise Bubble. It’s a bubble that acts as a guided missile and you can control it for about 6 seconds before it blows up. One downside of the game is that Sandy and Patrick don’t get additional attacks as the game goes on like Spongebob does. Another downside is that you can’t upgrade the attacks to make them do more damage.
- Believe it or not this game has Fast Travel. Pull up the Pause menu at any time in any location and you can fast travel to any level you have unlocked so far. You can be in the middle of a big battle and you can still fast travel out of there to another place, even right in the middle of a boss battle too.
- Spongebob, Patrick, and Sandy can’t swim so you have to avoid any type of water you can.
Graphics: 
The graphics in this game are cartoony, as they should be. This is one of the most colorful games I think I have ever played. The devs did a great job at making this game look familiar to the show while adding their own touch to it as well. As for the skybox, you see the flowers in the sky just like you do in the show. What I really like about this game is the amount of detail they put into the backgrounds. You can see Sand Mountain in the distance from basically anywhere and you can see the tall buildings of Downtown Bikini Bottom also. One of my favorite places to go is the Sea Needle. You can literally see every playable area from up there; even though they are low-res it’s still cool to see them there.
Soundtrack: Believe it or not, this game actually has a pretty good OST for a licensed game. And yes, the famous Spongebob Theme Song is there and it plays in the main menu. There are some gems worth listening to in here. Listening to some of these songs gives me vibes from other games, especially the Chum Bucket Lab song. You listen to these songs and you say “There’s no way this type of music is playing right now.” In a licensed game, you would expect the soundtrack to be generic and easily forgettable but that’s not the case with this game. They actually went out and made a legitimate OST for this game.
This one would have to be my favorite from the whole game
Another good one
Fits perfectly fighting the giant Sandy Robot in the Poseidome
Extra Content: 
As for extra content, there’s really not a whole lot to unlock. There’s an Extras menu but it just shows trailers for other licensed THQ games that were around at the time like Tak and the Power of Juju. There’s a movie theater in the game that plays a slideshow of concept art for the game, but getting into the movie theater costs 40,000 Shiny Objects. Kind of a waste if you ask me.
Final Verdict: This is a damn good game and seriously one of the most underrated games of all time. For a licensed game based on a tv show/movie, it’s probably one the best ones out there along with Spider-Man 2. Anybody will like this game when they play it. You don’t need to be a fan of the show to enjoy this amazing game. I hope that one day this game will get a HD remaster or something so people who missed out on it can finally play it and enjoy it.
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom easily gets a 9.5/10 for successfully delivering in every category.
I would have given it a perfect 10/10 if it had some sort of co-op play.
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