About 3-4 more months in developement, and Revenge of the Flying Dutchman could have been something truly unique.
PROS:
- Long runtime for it's genre.
- Excellent voice-acting.
- Offers plenty of SpongeBob 1999-2004 nostalgia.
- Tries to set itself a side from other SpongeBob games.
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CONS:
- Aggrivating camera problems.
- Lackluster graphics.
- PS2 version has an inconvenient loading glitch.
- Frequent and long loading times.
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Gameplay: 7 - As I am sure most SpongeBob fans are aware of, there have been around twenty different games released under the SpongeBob Squarepants license within the past decade, but unfortunately practically all of them aren't even worth renting. But evidently Developer's Big sky software attempted at producing a decent license game, something that only rarely is ever released, but I am also aware that Developer's Big sky software rushed production on the game and the result was a license game that sets itself a part from the croud but also suffers from a number of potentially annoying technical problems that ultimately prevent the final product from becoming as great as it could of been. That final product, is "SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman."
Revenge of the Flying Dutchman obtains all the basic elements of 3-D platformer, but all these basic elements happen to have been borrowed from the classic "Super Mario 64" for the Nintendo 64. But RotFD also happens to of added a couple of new features that have never been featured in its respective genre before, which obviously gives the game individuality. Most of the time, you will control SpongeBob wondering around seven different worlds looking for letter tiles that are hidden throughout the each and every world, there is a total of nine letter tiles in each level, all of the nine letter tiles when attached together spell out S-P-O-N-G-E-B-O-B. Then you will enter SpongeBob's brain and begin unscrambling the location to one of the Dutchman's treasures. (I won't explain why he needs to find the treasures of the Dutchman in order to avoid any potential spoilers) Once the location has been revealed, you will begin controlling SpongeBob as you hunt for the treasure. To help you find the nine letter tiles in each anmd every world, there is a To-do list on the pause menu. The past few gameplay elements are mentioned earlier are most of the things that give the game individuality.
SpongeBob will also be able to choose between four different outfits throughout the game, you will gain each of the costumes progressively throughout the game. Each of the costumes has their own special and unique capabilities. I will now explain their capabilities below. Mermaid man costume: When in this memorable outfit, you are given the ability to shoot water balls out your hands and at enemies and objects that are out of your grasp. But unfortunately the use of a ranged weapon is simply nothing that we haven't already seen before. Reef blower: With this costume, (that isn't technically a costume) you are able to blow small circularly-shaped objects around the area, which also has been done a number of times before. Jellyfishing gear: This is the one that actually does something that hasn't been before (as far as I kniow) with the jellyfishing gear, you are able to catch jellyfish within your grasp and store them in your trusty backpack.
Now that I am done explaining the positives of Revenge of the Flying Dutchman's gameplay mechanics, I will move onto the negatives. Due to Developer's Nog sky software rushing the product onto the stores of shelves, the game has some rather irritating camera problems, as you are unable to move the camera region upwards or downwards and just left-to-right, and it executes these actions rather sluggishly. If this problem wasn't enough, the camera gets suck whenever it comes across an object, and it is instantly fixed in that position until you move a notable distance away from that object.
The game alsp suffers from frequent and long loading times, as a matter of fact, there are some loading screens in places where there really shouldn't be an at all, this limits the amount of free-roaming you are able to do. A good example of a loading screen where there shouldn't be any at all, is when you are entering and exiting the Krusty Krab.
Sound: 6 - The amount of music tracks RotFD has is noticeable below average, as it appears to only have something like eight-to-ten music tracks throughout the entire game, and each and every one will prove to be a bit irritating after a couple of hours or so. The only real thing that conpensates for the potentially annoying music tracks, is the outstanding voice-acting, it follows the characterizations of the classic cartoon characters from the TV series flawlessly and all the actors and actresses come back from the show and reprise their roles as the characters.
Graphics: 5 - The quality of the graphics definitely shows that the developers rushed production on the game, as the models are mediocre at best and the environments are so sparse that once you have collected all the gold doubloons and caught all the jellyfish, the levels almost look like a desert wasteland. But in doing so it transition of the world of SpongeBob Squarepants from 2-D to 3-D almost perfectly, sure it may have hit one or two obstacles during the transition that weighed down its ultimate appeal. But fortunately it's nothing the die-hards will find relatively difficult to forgive.
Value: 8 - SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman offers a total of seven different worlds to explore, you may not think this is very much, but that is probably because you aren't aware of how large these worlds are. I've estimated that the average amount of time it would take a child under the age of ten to finish the game and defeat the Flying Dutchman would be around 20-30 hours. But the older and more experienced SpongeBob fans should easily be able to beat the game in just slightly more or less than ten hours. This is decidably longer then most licensed games would normally go on for.
Overall: 6.5/10
Now for the ultimate question to finally be answered, which version is better? The Playstation 2 version or the Gamecube version? Well to be honest, there isn't really all that much of a difference, both versions have the same graphical qualities and gameplay mechanics but in the end there is just one thing that makes the PS2 version inferior to the GC port. The Playstation 2 version of the game has an inconvenient loading glitch that causes the game to randomly freeze during loading sections; so if you have both a Playstation two and a Gamecube, I would highly recommend getting the Gamecube version instead.
If it had spent about 3-4 more months in developement, and Revenge of the Flying Dutchman could have been something truly unique. The game is big in its scope and actually brings something new to the platforming genre, but is weighed down immensely by a number of aggrivating bugs. But in the end, the positives of RotFD outweigh negatives just slightly and offers a fairly satisfying gameplay experience for the fans willing to looking past its poor presentation. Revenge of the Flying Dutchman is a definite buy for its younger audience, but its older and more experienced fans should be content with a rental.
Thank you for reading my honest review of: SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of Flying Dutchman.