Also known as Nicktoons Unite!, the story slaps four unlikely characters together in order to save the world from their respective villains. One day, Spongebob happens to wake up and find that Plankton has taken up arms and is assumed dictatorship of Bikini Bottom. With seemingly nowhere to go, Spongebob is saved by Jimmy Neutron. Meeting back at Jimmy’s lab, it becomes apparent that Dr Calamitous has stolen a device that allows him to open portals to other worlds. Using this power, he’s gathered three of the villains from other worlds to form “The Syndicate”. So, the “heroes” from each of the worlds needs to get together and go through each other’s home worlds and stop “The Syndicate” from their dastardly plan.
Raise your hands if you know what's going on.
The four happen to be Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron, Danny Phantom and Timmy (from The Fairly Odd Parents). Spongebob is the stand-out simply because he’s the most colourful of the bunch, while Danny and Timmy feel a little tacked on. Jimmy is intensely annoying and unlikeable, though people who are familiar with any of the shows are likely to be pleased. A lot of attention has been paid to making each of the worlds feel like they are in each respective show, and the fact that you can feel like you’re walking through worlds and levels that have been played out on TV is by far the highlight of the game.
The game itself plays out similarly to X-Men Legends, though simplified to the extreme. So in effect, you can play solo by controlling four players from an isometric 3D perspective, or plug in up to three more controllers and go nuts with friends. While there only are the four characters in the game, you can select between them by pressing their corresponding position on the d-pad.
The characters are a bit like the ones out of Sudeki – two “melee” and two “ranged”. Both Spongebob and Danny rely on their fists while Timmy and Jimmy have multipurpose gun-like objects that fire things. Each character starts off with one type of attack, but learn a couple more by stepping on pods in the ground. These same pods are also used to teach abilities that will help you get past puzzles that you encounter through out the game. They’re interesting because they take into account the unique nature of each character. For example, Spongebob can learn to absorb water and then spit it out to put out fires or make plants grow.
In terms of combat, the only really plausible character is Danny. However, given the balance or non-existence of it, each character's attacks are pretty much equivalent. There's no experience collecting in the game; this is replaced instead with a system of collecting tokens that are lying around. These tokens are redeemed for upgrades but they feel completely useless because you won’t notice them doing anything different. There isn’t much to the combat either. X is the primary attack button and it can be linked with the Circle (Jump) button to execute a slam. Square is used for action - it is sometimes context sensitive - while Triangle seems to have been forgotten about. R1 is used for a shield and R2 and L2 cycle through the selected individuals abilities.
They were never likely to get along.
So, there’s really only one button to attack, leaving enemy encounters as a monotonous exercise. They appear out of thin air and random intervals and it’s up to your characters to beat down on them until there are no more. Not only are there a handful of repetitive enemies and some that are world-specific, none of them are really necessary to defeat as there are plenty of tokens littered around the world and besides, survival is hardly a paramount priority. The only thing that helps inject a little bit of strategy is that some of the bigger enemies have shields. There are a few boss fights and these can be easily tackled once the player has figured out their pattern of attack and found the recharging energy sources.
What holds the game back from being good, is that it has been simplified way too much. It also has to be taken into account that there are too many small issues that hamper play in ways that they really shouldn’t. The term “RPG lite” is thrown around a lot these days but in this game, it’s way too lite. The only objective that you really have is to follow the path and destroy designated objects along the way. As mentioned, there is no experience gain and upgrades feel useless. The puzzles along the way are dead simple and require little effort.
This late in the current generation, it’s almost perplexing to find such an amount of minor design flaws within the game. While the core mechanics and controls are acceptable, there are too many little things that get in the way. Little things like a terrible, floaty jump that barely ever allows you to hit the mark – especially when needed. The camera is fixed and for some odd reason, it seems to always get stuck behind something that interferes when you’re doing something important. Anything that involves precision ends up being a trial-and-error exercise. The collision detection feels non-existent at times, because often you won’t know whether you’ve hit an enemy or not. These and other issues result in an experience that even kids may find disappointing.
The game’s greatest challenge is keeping the player interested, even though it will only last the best part of six to eight hours. It’s extremely linear and easy, to the point where you enter a room and the camera will pan and show you what needs to be done. There are also several points that explicitly tell you exactly what needs to be done. Given that AI-controlled characters are somewhat dull, the experience is somewhat livened up when there's more than one person, because then it starts to feel like you’re doing things as a team. However, at the end of the day, there simply isn’t enough variety in the gameplay or personality in this colourful cast to set this game apart.
There's a green thing in the way.
Graphically, the game hardly pushes the technical limits of any current-gen console. However, the worlds of each of the characters are recreated quite nicely, with each managing to retain their look and feel, though a bit more personality would’ve been appreciated. Despite being the most annoying, Jimmy Neutron is easily the best looking character in 3D while the rest look good despite coming off a 2D palette. However, most of the enemies look very generic. Unfortunately, the graphics aren’t particularly advanced or tremendously detailed, meaning that things like textures look like they are coloured on a piece of paper. This would be all good and well if the game was at least technically proficient. There's a lot of clipping, the load times are unacceptably long, the framerate stutters and the game is very sluggish when it comes to saving and loading.
Sound-wise, the game is a mish-mash of basic sounds that doesn’t really come off at all. The music consists of some tunes that are thematically related but at seemingly random intervals, and are lost under some random ones that are totally irrelevant. The sound effects meanwhile are very basic and at times feel like they belong on a 16-bit system. Then there are other occasions where they are nowhere to be heard. The voices are retained by all the original voice actors, but the choice of dialogue is not always the best.
Despite the fact that Spongebob Squarepants and Friends Unite! is effectively a game aimed at kids, the only ones who will get anything out of it will be those who are big fans of the represented shows. Otherwise, the gameplay is way too simplified and boring and the presentation doesn’t have enough personality to carry itself. Admittedly, it is a bit more bearable with more than one player but it’s still hampered by the fact that there are a lot more games that service multiple players in a much more enjoyable manner.
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