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 The Game SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle For Bikini Bottom is a 2003 3D platformer released for the Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox consoles. (There are PC and GBA versions of the game, but they are completely different games that just share the title.) Naturally, it is based on the SpongeBob SquarePants animated series, the cornerstone of Nickelodeon's animated programming that is still endlessly marathon'd on the channel to this day. This game was released between the end of the third season and the release of the movie, an era of the show that contains most of its iconic moments that obnoxious people born in the 90's such as myself quote and reference endlessly to this day. This is a platformer in the collect-a-thon genre that despite suffering the dual burden of being a licensed budget title, is well known for it's surprising level of polish, tight gameplay with well realized platforming mechanics, excellent level design and environments, wonderful soundtrack, and its faithfulness to the source material that does a great job of putting you into the world of SpongeBob. On top of that, it's a surprisingly forward thinking platformer, with more modern elements that contemporary platformers of its time did not have, such as a fast travel system and eschewing a system revolving around extra lives for a purely checkpoint based death system. While the game does have its share of scuff you'd expect, such as poor audio mixing and some extremely wonky physics at times (to say nothing of the absolutely wild bugs that can occur), this game is a joy to play if you have any love for the SpongeBob franchise and I'd go to bat for it as a great 3D platformer on its own merits divorced from its license. The Let's Play This let's play is using the Xbox release of the game, which is the most polished version of the game. In addition to having the best graphics and draw distance of the different ports of the game, it also corrects some of the way overload sound effects that plagued the GameCube and PS2 versions, as well as having better load times and less buggy physics. (Though it still retains all of the major glitches anyone who is familiar with the Speedrun scene for this game would know about) As is expected, we'll be getting 100%, collecting all Golden Spatulas and grinding out the money to unlock the movie theater. This isn't a terribly difficult game save for a handful of the gold spatulas, so it should be a nice chill ride all throughout. The Videos Part 1, Release the Robots Part 2, Jellyfish Jam Part 3, Downtown Rodeo Part 4, SpongeGuard on Duty Part 5, Rock'em Sock'em Robot Part 6, Advanced Darkness Part 7, Lonely Rolling Star Part 8, Slide Away Part 9, Big, Scary and Pink Part 10, Survival of the Idiots Part 11, The Dutchman's Treasure Part 12, Sleepy Time Part 13 (Finale), Karate Choppers CullenDaGaDee fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jan 29, 2024 |
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Jan 1, 2024 20:59
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| # ? May 2, 2024 00:38 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lScwsHLBP4 Part 1 and the beginning of the game is the elementary kind of opening you'd expect for a game that was designed mostly with a playerbase of 7 year olds in mind. Still, the tutorial area does a good job of covering most major mechanics of the game, giving you a good chance to spread your water wings, and we get to begin making progress on every single major collectible in the game from the very first area. Each video will be dedicated to a specific level of the game, with the boss levels and the next portion of the Bikini Bottom central hub they unlock being treated as levels for this purpose.
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Jan 1, 2024 21:03
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qxVJQu6AxY Part 2 is out! Jellyfish Field is the traditional tutorial level you'd expect from a collect-a-thon game, featuring a hodge-podge of obstacles meant more to show you the various aspects of the game rather than having the level revolve around a single gimmick. There are 2 socks that cannot be collected on your first play of the level, this being one of the only stages in the game where you can't collect everything on the first go. Fortunately, only this level and the next one, Downtown Bikini Bottom, require returning with future abilities to get everything. Otherwise all stages in the game can be cleared in one shot.
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Jan 4, 2024 13:07
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I'm a little surprised you're using the classic version as opposed to the Rehydrated editon.
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Jan 5, 2024 07:27
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This is the version I’m nostagic for, so it’s the version I wanted to use for a let’s play. Truth be told, I haven’t actually played Rehydrated. Maybe some day, but it just doesn’t click for me on a visual level.
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Jan 5, 2024 12:12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm5cqe_1M1w Part 3 is out! This time we're heading to Downtown Bikini Bottom, where the game introduces slightly more intricate platforming challenges, as well as the Sponge Ball power up and Sandy as a playable character. We also get access to our first good Shiny Object farming method in the Tikis Go Boom task, which we can refresh endlessly for all those juicy stone tiki explosions and combos. This is the last level in the game that requires an ability we don't yet have to get all collectibles, with a Sock and Spatula being inaccessible without the Cruise Bubble power gotten in the third hub section of Bikini Bottom. A truly bizarre glitch happens to me at the end of the video where Patrick takes my socks but doesn't give me a Spatula, and then when I talk to him again, he takes the rest of the socks I have and then gives me a Spatula. I have no idea how this could affect the rest of the game, so I'm just going to redo the level on my own time and we'll pretend like this didn't happen. Like I said in the OP, this game has have the occasional bits of scuff you'd expect from a budget title.
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Jan 6, 2024 15:20
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Just a random thing to mention, I did re-do Downtown Bikini Bottom, but I opted to turn in my socks as soon as I got 10 to see if the glitch happened again. It did, but Patrick allowed me to just talk to him with no socks and re-run the scene to get the Spatula with no Socks lost. Going forward, since I don't know if this glitch will happen again or not, we'll just take quick trips back to Patrick the moment we get 10 socks. I'm not quite sure what causes this glitch, but my best guess is it might be related to the fact I'm loading up a file and then saving to a different slot so I can have back ups. (Which is a good thing considering this!) Possibly the game kind of freaks out when you do this and Patrick is the unlucky victim, but that's just a guess. It's the only thing I'm doing different compared to when I normally play this game, so it's my leading guess for the time being.
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Jan 6, 2024 18:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13A47GehaB0 Part 4 is out! Goo Lagoon is an interesting level, slightly shorter than what we've seen thus far but extremely varied in its locales and objectives. I've always found the micro games in the Pier section to be a nice touch. We've hit the point in the game where everything in a level can be gotten on the first go, so no more need to file any unobtainable collectibles into the memory hole until you can actually get them. The Patrick glitch didn't happen this time, but we will be erring on the side of caution going forward. Hope you liked playing as Patrick, it's going to be a bit before he gets a substantial portion of a level to himself again.
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Jan 9, 2024 13:03
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I admit, I never played any of the spongebob games (nor did I watch the show), but your enthusiasm for this game and its displayed quality are keeping me watching.
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Jan 9, 2024 19:18
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Glad to hear! SpongeBob as a license has definitely produced some of the stinkers you’d expect from tie in games (the most immediate game preceding this one, Revenge of The Flying Dutchman, is famously trash), but there’s some real diamonds in the rough too. This is definitely the best the series has to offer for video games, but itss pseudo sequel in The Movie game and the party game Lights, Cameras, Pants are also pretty well loved. I’ve heard the most recent game, The Cosmic Shake, was also pretty decent.
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Jan 9, 2024 19:39
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It's simple, it's a derivative of a game. But I love your LP, it has heart.
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Jan 10, 2024 08:16
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So fun fact: Goo Lagoon and Goo as a hazard in general is based on an actual phenomenon known as a brine pool. Brine forms underwater pools of a darker color and higher density because its salinity is three to eight times greater times greater than the surrounding ocean. And because of the brine's high density and lack of mixing currents in the deep ocean, brine pools often become anoxic and deadly to respiring organisms hence why the show and by extension the game treat goo as functionally being water in any other setting.
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Jan 10, 2024 08:28
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Stephen Hillenburg did have a background in marine biology, so for all the nonsense that plays fast and loose with the idea of an underwater world in the show, you’ll occasionally find a nugget of reality in SpongeBob’s deep sea world.
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Jan 10, 2024 12:19
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlC_xedSfXM Part 5 is out! A shorter and more to the point video, we have our first major boss fight against a robo-replica of the main cast. Sadly, boss fights are a bit of a drag in this game, being fairly slow and repetitive. The only one I think is actually reasonably engaging is the final fight. Oh well, not every aspect of a game is going to be a hit. Afterwards, we gain access to the second section of the Bikini Bottom hub area, with 3 new levels awaiting us and a handful of goodies scattered throughout. The newly gained Bubble Bowl ability will also be seeing plenty of use going forward.
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Jan 11, 2024 13:13
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3XC1dRNj0Y Part 6 is out! This is the stage of the game where the socks become a bit more deviously hidden and not every Spatula is on the beaten path. Rock Bottom itself is probably one of my favorite levels in the game, having a little bit of everything the game has to offer to keep things moving at a good pace. Coming up in the next videos, we'll be seeing a couple of the game's more infamous challenges that are usually skipped by first time players, so get excited for that.
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Jan 13, 2024 15:17
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Ah, Rock Bottom. Home of memetic line from Mrs. Puff. Poor Mrs. Puff.
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Jan 13, 2024 19:17
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We don't talk about what happened to Mr. Puff.
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Jan 13, 2024 19:20
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDZivv5fs5g Part 7 is out! The Mermalair is a fairly fast paced and easy level and I can see why they made this one free to get into. That said, it does also contain one of the most infamous Spatulas in the game with its rolling ball puzzle room. Once you get the hang of the tilting board portion of it, it's not too bad, but it takes awhile to get the ball there and it's a pretty lengthy process to redo the puzzle every time it falls. I can't imagine too many people were able to do this on the first try, since this game doesn't exactly have stellar physics, as we've seen in a number of parts.
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Jan 16, 2024 13:09
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So fun fact: In order to have the computer talk, I believe a Barnacle Boy model was placed inside the computer model so removing the latter will result in Barnacle Boy talking to you in the computer’s voice.
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Jan 16, 2024 19:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrraHLLHLy4 Part 8 is out! Sand Mountain is a bit of a breather in terms of Spatula objectives, with none of the time trials really being all that difficult save for the extremely tight Flounder Hill time limit. Getting socks is a bit trickier in this level, as its easy to blow past most of them on the slides, and then of course there's the notorious Flounder Hill Sand Men sock, which is the toughest challenge in the level for 1/10th a golden Spatula. It's not too bad once you know where each of the Sand Men actually are, but it is time consuming especially if you fall of the slope and they reset.
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Jan 18, 2024 13:12
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You are a machine. Also, poor, put upon, Squidward. Poor, poor, put upon comic reliefs. Whole game is 'Grind those drat shiny objects, son', but this level absolutely doubles on that, with five money gates? Worth one Krabs Spatula in total.
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Jan 18, 2024 16:50
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For what it’s worth, if you never buy anything from Mr. Krabs you’ll pretty much always have enough shiny objects for the various cash gates, at least if you’re fully clearing levels. Mr. Krabs seems to exist as a way to force grinding into the game, and that’s probably the weakest aspect of it. Better than the launch version of Rehydrated though, that version heavily inflated the cost of the Krabs spatulas and it required farming over 100k shiny objects to get them all. They eventually patched it to the original prices when enough people complained about how awful it was.
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Jan 18, 2024 16:59
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NHO posted:Whole game is 'Grind those drat shiny objects, son', but this level absolutely doubles on that, with five money gates? Worth one Krabs Spatula in total. Yeah there’s a reason why it's not uncommon to flat out skip this level altogether since it's not difficult to have forty Spatulas by this point so long as you don’t skip more than fifteen across the play through. Regarding your theory in video, most missions in general can only be completed with the intended character hence why only that character gets the actual mission dialogue while the other character gets generic character dialogue. Chimera-gui fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 19:05
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Fair point. It just sticks out like a sore thumb in this instance since most missions that activate off of character dialogue usually have some usage of the character’s specific abilities or you’re not realistically going to reach the mission as anyone else. The time trials don’t really have any good reason why you can’t use Sandy for them, you just aren’t able to.
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Jan 18, 2024 19:38
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No video today unfortunately. I recorded a 30 minute raw video only to find out the SSD I had OBS outputting to was suffering a disk writing error tonight. OBS evidently had no problem attempting to save to a drive that wasn't accepting data, so I ended up spending that time for nothing. A bit too bummed out to redo the recording tonight, but I'll resolve to make it at some point this weekend.
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Jan 20, 2024 02:05
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CullenDaGaDee posted:No video today unfortunately. I recorded a 30 minute raw video only to find out the SSD I had OBS outputting to was suffering a disk writing error tonight. OBS evidently had no problem attempting to save to a drive that wasn't accepting data, so I ended up spending that time for nothing. A bit too bummed out to redo the recording tonight, but I'll resolve to make it at some point this weekend. Who doesn't love a little bit of LP Curse? Good luck and hopefully, you aren't too bummed by setback.
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Jan 20, 2024 06:00
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It’s all good, this is why I back up the save before starting every video. Going at it with a fresh mind is the best way to go rather than attempting the recording again same day, let’s me approach it with a new mindset for the commentary.
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Jan 20, 2024 14:12
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpXB-ZVN5Ag Part 9 is out! After a slight setback due to a recording failure, we are ready to take on the next major boss of the game and access the final portion of the hub area. Robo-Patrick is a trickier boss than Robo-Sandy, though still a pretty slow and boring one. Once he's out of the way, we're able to close out the remaining collectibles of Bikini Bottom and use our new Cruise Bubble move to collect the items from Jellyfish Fields and Downtown Bikini Bottom that we couldn't get earlier. The Cruise Bubble is a famed game breaker in speedruns of this game, I'd highly recommend checking out videos about it. Next time we'll be taking on what most people consider to be the worst level in the game, and it's certainly the only one that I dislike.
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Jan 21, 2024 04:49
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It’s strange that Dream is the last level in the list given it’s also the free level. Granted this doesn’t really matter since even skipping Sand Mountain outright still means you are afforded five or less Spatulas to reach Kelp Forest.
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Jan 21, 2024 20:31
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It's especially strange doing it first and seeing a bunch of new enemies, and then seeing the introductory cutscenes for those enemies in the levels you do afterwards. Shame it's going to be a bit before we get to it, it's one of my favorite levels in the game for how creative they get with it.
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Jan 21, 2024 20:40
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mCuwk1zDPo Part 10 is out! Kelp Forest is widely considered to be the worst level in the game, and I am not about to contest that assessment. Aside from really ugly and muddy visuals (That my HDMI converter definitely does not like), a lot of the objectives are just slow and boring to complete, especially the Kelp Caves character switching puzzle. Funnily enough, the most notorious mission which is the Kelp Vine Slide Time Trial was of no real issue to me. I flubbed the shortcut for it once and then completed it on the second try with no issues. I actually had more problems getting the Sock because suddenly I just forgot how to stay on the slide and started falling a bunch of times. My commentary is exceptionally scatter brained in this video, I think my dread for this level bled into my usual enthusiasm. A wack level gets a wack video I suppose, so it all works out in the end. The next two levels are among my favorites in the game, so I'll definitely be more eager to show those off when I get to them.
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Jan 23, 2024 04:12
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I have mixed feelings on Kelp Forest. See I actually consider it is prettiest level in the third hub section and more so in Rehydrated, not so much Kelp Cave admittedly, however I will acknowledge that it is stupidly easy to get lost and the backtracking in Kelp Cave is annoying until you open the shortcut.
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Jan 23, 2024 07:09
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Partially it's the hardware I'm using that makes it so unappealing to look at. I'm sure on a CRT with using just the AV cables or an S-video connection it looks fine, but using an HDMI upscaler on a cheapo HD TV I got from Best Buy really smears the visuals a lot. It's less noticeable in the recording thankfully, but it's an eye strain to me while playing. As far as gameplay, I think the opening section is inoffensive enough and I actually kind of enjoy the Vine Slide, as annoying as it can be, but man the middle of this level is rough. Patrick doesn't do precision platforming well due to his complete lack of aerial mobility outside of double jumps, and the Kelp Cave section just bores me to tears.
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Jan 23, 2024 13:07
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Yeah Patrick being the more combat/puzzle oriented rather than aerial mobility like Sandy doesn’t help, it’s like they built the level for Sandy but realized they no levels for Patrick in this set so just swapped out the character specific elements (stone tiki switches instead of Texas hooks) without changing the actual area layout to accommodate Patrick.
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Jan 23, 2024 18:49
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtWKc-o1RqM Part 11 is out! After the irritating and mildly nauseating Kelp Forest, the Flying Dutchman's Graveyard is a nice change of pace. This is a fairly short and sweet level with some fun platforming objectives and the world's most rudimentary puzzle elements. It also has our last bungee hook, so pour one out for that mechanic. This level is certainly a much more fun and rewarding experience than the conceptually related SpongeBob video game Revenge of the Flying Dutchman. If you want an example of how this game could've been done wrong, check out that game. Fitting that it was the direct predecessor to Battle for Bikini Bottom in terms of SpongeBob's game releases (though it is important to note it was developed by completely different people), and this game as a whole feels like a massive apology for the quality of that game.
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Jan 25, 2024 03:37
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U718YQE1Pmg Part 12 is out! We enter the world within the mind this time, for one of the coolest and most varied levels in the game. Doing this level back to back with the Dutchman's Graveyard really highlights what a slog Kelp Forest was. The raw video for that level was over 47 minutes, while Graveyard and Dream didn't even go over 30. The raw video for this was around 27 minutes, and I was kind of impressed how quickly I cleared this since it's definitely one of the tougher levels in the game. (As you'd expect from the end of the game) Next time around will be the final boss and the small amount of bonus content this game has.
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Jan 27, 2024 03:21
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What’s makes the removal of the intended Patrick’s dream worse is that had it been kept, Sandy and Patrick would’ve had an even five levels where they were playable rather than the 5 to 4 split we got in favor of Sandy. It sucks because as mentioned before Kelp Forest, specifically the second area, really does seem like was built for Sandy's aerial mobility rather than Patrick’s strength but it was the only level that could be converted into a Patrick level with minimal modification assuming that Kelp Caves was designed after said conversion to make it feel more natural as a Patrick level.
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Jan 28, 2024 20:09
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Yeah, it did rob us of a pretty cool idea. I'm not too broken up about it though since I've never really cared for Patrick's gameplay and I've always found Sandy to be much more fun. I think the bigger tragedy is for the final boss, where there are no phases for anybody but SpongeBob, with the only thing being left in the game files is an unused Patrick phase of the fight.
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Jan 28, 2024 20:24
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv2JHop7xrQ The final video is out! The final boss and the handful of extras this game has lie herein. I did remarkably well considering the final boss of this game is relatively difficult. I only had a couple goofs on Phase 1, and for the second playthrough in a row I got a deathless damageless clear of the second phase, which is always really nice. Beyond that, I actually really like the concept art gallery in this game. A lot of interesting ideas were left on the cutting room floor, and one has to wonder if this game was given an extra few months and they could work in 120 Spatulas, Mario style. Regardless, this is where the LP ends. Thanks so much to all who watched! I think this game is a real treasure, and I was super stoked to share it with anyone who was interested. I said this in the video, but I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I enjoyed making it, and I hope to see you in whatever I do next! Or you could watch my Fear & Hunger videos, which are tonally much different from this game but I am no less enthusiastic for. Have a great one y'all!
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Jan 29, 2024 04:37
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Thank you! That was great LP: Short, without digressions, well-narrated, made with love, complete, free of the curse.
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Jan 29, 2024 16:25
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