If you could call spongebob's video games a series: this is the pinnacle. and what? mario? why? delve in and see........
First off, if you're a spongebob fan like me (retro, the new spongebobs suck), then you're already interested in this game. spongebob doesn't exactly "battle" and the cover shows him saluting with a military helmet on. well, it's not war the way you think it would be.
one of plankton's many plots has gone astray, and robots by the building have been let out of the chum bucket, spread all over bikini bottom. plankton enlists the help of spongebob, who willingly agrees to stop the menace. you're brought to see the many worlds that spongebob has traversed, including but not limited to:
Jellyfish fields
goo lagoon
Rock bottom
Downtown
Mermaid man's lair
Kelp forest
there's way more than that, but it's nostalgic to say the least.
many of these areas will be trashed: downtown will look like berlin in WW2, and robots will be filing across jellyfish fileds, goo lagoon, rock bottom, and they've even gotten into places like sandy's treehouse and the krusty krab!
Before we go any further, the overworld is also well designed. people expecting a vast overworld... well, you're getting there. places mesh well, but not amazingly. like for example, downtown and the movie theater (yes, that's here too) are on the opposite sides of the overworld. sandy's treedome is also right next to the police station, which is across from the retirement home. but if you don't really care about that, then that's fine. all other buildings mesh well. the krusty krab and chum bucket are directly across from each other, and the 3 houses are right next to each other as well.
your goal is to collect as many golden spatulas as you can. on the way, you'll also use underpants for health, socks for patrick to give you more spatulas, and golden underpants for a permanent health boost.
so, why is this game so great? well, how many of you guys have played mario? spongebob squarepants does something that very few other companies can do. it's resemble a very great mario game, and not be a clone of it too much. TABLE PLEASE :3
SS: BFBB as compared to SMS
Golden spatuals = Shine sprites
Socks = Blue coins
Shinies (money in the spongebob game) = coins
also, spongebob doesn't completely take every SMS element. you have to collect a certain number of spatulas to advance to new worlds. this is seen in SMS, but more relates to super mario 64.
If you love mario, and spongebob: welcome. there's plenty for you to experience here. THQ has had a hard time making a good spongebob game during the time it was made (2004), but they've finally made something great.
as said before, this gets my 9/10.