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General / Re: 52 Games Challenge 2025!!!
« on: October 22, 2025, 11:07:20 am »
12 - SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman (Game Boy Advance)
https://vgcollect.com/item/229025
Hardware: Game Boy Advance (Screen Mod)
Play time: 7~8 Hours
I spent the first half of my autumn/birthday-vacation occasionally playing SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman for Game Boy Advance. It is the last of the six Spongebob GBA games I own, that I haven't finished yet, and while being frustrated with climbing the Tower of Temptation in Grandia (PS1) or failing at beating my last highscore in Tetris (GB), I thought I give this one a try.
SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman was published in europe march 28th. 2003, whilst being released in North America a few months earlier in 2002, by THQ, who claim responsible for publishing most SpongeBob franchised titles on this system (or even all titles, correct me, if I'm wrong).
Development is credited to Vicarious Visions, who would also develop the GBA-version of Battle for Bikini Bottom which would be released later in 2003. Having played both titles now, I recognized that they share many similarities in graphics and gameplay, actually showing no signs of visual or technical improvement at all, and instead seem more like two episodes of the same game, kind of … in this particular case with both games being short but solid platformers, I see no negative aspect in that, especially with seemingly tons of SpongeBob-games available for GBA. This franchise in general is selling well (even today), so why change a running system?
As expected, the player takes control of careless SpongeBob who, after unintentionally disturbing the sleep of the notorious flying Dutchman, is ordered to collect the deceased pirate's dublones and treasures out of the different stages of the game. Divided into several chapters, the game lets you visit almost all well known locations of Bikini Bottom and beyond, such as the Jellyfish Fields, Kelp Forrest, Mussle Beach, the Krusty Krab, Rock Bottom and - of course - the green ghost ship of the flying Dutchman ... only location really missing in this title being the famous locker of Davey Jones itself.
Besides being able to jump and jump-glide across cavities, the main gameplay-mechanic is shooting different kinds of bubbles to either enclose enemies, making them temporary platforms, blast them away, or use the bubbles themselves to bounce or even levitate to higher ground (beware Anakin). The goal of every stages is to find three keys that open a chest containing the level's treasure. Between the player and those keys are plenty electrifying Jellyfish, sponge-munching clams, bouncing worms and treacherous fishermen's hooks to deal with and many spikey holes to come across ... but exploring pays off with a hidden special challenge (Jellyfish Rodeo!) that can be found somewhere in each location. Collecting all dublones within a chapter rewards you with yet another bonus-challenge offering additional extra-lives to the winner. Every single main chapter of the game also contains a special-stage were SpongeBob can obtain helpful tools such as Patrick Star's jellyfish-net or Sandy Cheeks' KahRahTay-gloves.
Visually, SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman works with up-to-date graphics considering this system's standards - the licensed franchise offers a great canvas to the GBA's given colour palette. The different locations show an intense amount of detail, making every level recognizable in it's own manner. Visual highlight of the game in my oppinion are the Jellyfish-Rodeo bonus stages, that show SpongeBob riding a jellyfish in the cartoon show's specific front-view style and the little detail of starting every level by being put in by a huge arm like in the shows opening sequence. Besides that, there was no actual wow-effect on me playing this. Graphics OK, no masterpiece here.
Also musically neither of expectations are disappointed nor overwhelmed in any way. The single music pieces always fit the specific stage and donors atmosphere to the experience. I'm kinda sad though, because a games music is the part really important to me personally and I love reviewing on it, but this specific title didn't really contain exceptionally memorable songs ... except the well-known intro-jingle of course. Most pieces sound very happy/funny and sadly very generic. I mentioned my personal favourite it my newest post in the Favourite-Retro-Game-Music-thread here on VGC-forum. After rewatching the game's credits I learned that the game's music is credited to Shin'en Multimedia, a German game development company founded in 1999 in Munich, which operates as an official third-party-developer for Nintendo. Shin'en is known for having provided soundtracks for over 200 games so far and is credited with developing the GHX, GAX, DSX, and NAX (based on GAX) audio-middleware for handheld consoles. For whatever technical stuff that means oO ...
All those elements add up into a highly enjoyable and partially challenging platformer perfect for a quick playthrough.
I for myself enjoyed it and recommend it to every fan of the SpongeBob Squarepants franchise especially.
Another game finished - on to the next one
https://vgcollect.com/item/229025
Hardware: Game Boy Advance (Screen Mod)
Play time: 7~8 Hours
I spent the first half of my autumn/birthday-vacation occasionally playing SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman for Game Boy Advance. It is the last of the six Spongebob GBA games I own, that I haven't finished yet, and while being frustrated with climbing the Tower of Temptation in Grandia (PS1) or failing at beating my last highscore in Tetris (GB), I thought I give this one a try.
SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman was published in europe march 28th. 2003, whilst being released in North America a few months earlier in 2002, by THQ, who claim responsible for publishing most SpongeBob franchised titles on this system (or even all titles, correct me, if I'm wrong).
Development is credited to Vicarious Visions, who would also develop the GBA-version of Battle for Bikini Bottom which would be released later in 2003. Having played both titles now, I recognized that they share many similarities in graphics and gameplay, actually showing no signs of visual or technical improvement at all, and instead seem more like two episodes of the same game, kind of … in this particular case with both games being short but solid platformers, I see no negative aspect in that, especially with seemingly tons of SpongeBob-games available for GBA. This franchise in general is selling well (even today), so why change a running system?
As expected, the player takes control of careless SpongeBob who, after unintentionally disturbing the sleep of the notorious flying Dutchman, is ordered to collect the deceased pirate's dublones and treasures out of the different stages of the game. Divided into several chapters, the game lets you visit almost all well known locations of Bikini Bottom and beyond, such as the Jellyfish Fields, Kelp Forrest, Mussle Beach, the Krusty Krab, Rock Bottom and - of course - the green ghost ship of the flying Dutchman ... only location really missing in this title being the famous locker of Davey Jones itself.
Besides being able to jump and jump-glide across cavities, the main gameplay-mechanic is shooting different kinds of bubbles to either enclose enemies, making them temporary platforms, blast them away, or use the bubbles themselves to bounce or even levitate to higher ground (beware Anakin). The goal of every stages is to find three keys that open a chest containing the level's treasure. Between the player and those keys are plenty electrifying Jellyfish, sponge-munching clams, bouncing worms and treacherous fishermen's hooks to deal with and many spikey holes to come across ... but exploring pays off with a hidden special challenge (Jellyfish Rodeo!) that can be found somewhere in each location. Collecting all dublones within a chapter rewards you with yet another bonus-challenge offering additional extra-lives to the winner. Every single main chapter of the game also contains a special-stage were SpongeBob can obtain helpful tools such as Patrick Star's jellyfish-net or Sandy Cheeks' KahRahTay-gloves.
Visually, SpongeBob Squarepants: Revenge of the flying Dutchman works with up-to-date graphics considering this system's standards - the licensed franchise offers a great canvas to the GBA's given colour palette. The different locations show an intense amount of detail, making every level recognizable in it's own manner. Visual highlight of the game in my oppinion are the Jellyfish-Rodeo bonus stages, that show SpongeBob riding a jellyfish in the cartoon show's specific front-view style and the little detail of starting every level by being put in by a huge arm like in the shows opening sequence. Besides that, there was no actual wow-effect on me playing this. Graphics OK, no masterpiece here.
Also musically neither of expectations are disappointed nor overwhelmed in any way. The single music pieces always fit the specific stage and donors atmosphere to the experience. I'm kinda sad though, because a games music is the part really important to me personally and I love reviewing on it, but this specific title didn't really contain exceptionally memorable songs ... except the well-known intro-jingle of course. Most pieces sound very happy/funny and sadly very generic. I mentioned my personal favourite it my newest post in the Favourite-Retro-Game-Music-thread here on VGC-forum. After rewatching the game's credits I learned that the game's music is credited to Shin'en Multimedia, a German game development company founded in 1999 in Munich, which operates as an official third-party-developer for Nintendo. Shin'en is known for having provided soundtracks for over 200 games so far and is credited with developing the GHX, GAX, DSX, and NAX (based on GAX) audio-middleware for handheld consoles. For whatever technical stuff that means oO ...
All those elements add up into a highly enjoyable and partially challenging platformer perfect for a quick playthrough.
I for myself enjoyed it and recommend it to every fan of the SpongeBob Squarepants franchise especially.
Another game finished - on to the next one
I just listened through it's soundtrack on YouTube.
