SpongeBob SquarePants: Legend of the Lost Spatula

SpongeBob SquarePants: Legend of the Lost Spatula
Well, how are you gonna make Krabby Patties without a spatula!?
Protagonist(s): Spongebob Genre(s): Platformer Action Platform(s): Game Boy Color Release: NA: March 15, 2001 EU: May 4, 2001 Developer(s): Vicarious Visions Engine Software Publisher(s): THQ Country: United States Netherlands Series: SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob SquarePants: Legend of the Lost Spatula is a 2001 action platforming video game for the Game Boy Color, developed by Vicarious Visions in association with Engine Software and published by THQ. The game is based on the animated series by Nickelodeon and is the first video game based exclusively on the SpongeBob SquarePants license.

Lost Qualities

1. Poor controls. SpongeBob has poor mobility in the air and has a slight delay when jumping. Likewise, switching items is a time-consuming process that involves going through several menus.
2. Ignoring the artificial difficulty, the game is quite short.
3. The levels aren't built for the GBC's small screen size. This makes navigating them confusing, especially with the aforementioned control issues.
4. The enemies also have an extremely small respawn radius and can reappear right after SpongeBob defeats them.
5. Odd object behavior, such as enemies walking in midair.
6. The passwords are ridiculously long.
7. The game might experience a slowdown in some places.
8. Lack of variety.
9. The way to obtain one of the items (Spongebob's glasses) is rather outlandish and cruel. Squidward tells Spongebob he's out of jelly and the player is tasked with finding some in Jellyfish Fields. Instead of doing something like catching a certain number of jellyfish or defeating the big jellyfish at the end of the level, you're supposed to find a live jellyfish hive in the area and bring that to Squidward. Not only does the game not specify this is what players need to look for, but players also wouldn't be looking for it anyway because why would players needlessly torture a character the game specifically asked them to help?
   • It certainly doesn't help that needlessly torturing Squidward is something later seasons of the actual show were notorious for.
10. Sub-par graphics.

Good Qualities

1. Decent soundtrack.
2. The cutscene slides look decent.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews. On aggregating review website GameRankings, the game received 60.60%.

Trivia

Vicarious Visions would go on to develop the Game Boy Advance versions of SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman and SpongeBob_SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom.

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