SpongeBob HeroPants

"NOT a hero! Never a good game!"

***SpongeBob HeroPants*** is a video game based on *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water*, developed by Behaviour Santiago and published by Activision for the Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Vita, and Xbox 360. It was released on February 3, 2015 in North America and March 26, 2015 in Europe.

## Why It's Not Heroic

1. To get the cat out of the bag, it is a reskin of *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*, which was also bad. On a related note, the robot enemies and some of the music were **recycled** from *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*, which is just lazy.
	* This makes sense since both games were developed by the same company.
2. Poor graphics that are even worse than *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*, with constant framerate drops and lag. In fact, even the cutscenes lag.
	* Not to mention, the dreadful graphics make the game feel like a sixth-generation game, making it look barely any better than the *SpongeBob* games released on the systems from said generation.
	* Even the 3DS and Vita version lag, on systems which were both released in 2011!
3. No facial animations for any of the characters. The characters don't even move their lips at all. In fact, aside from the intro and ending, the in-game cutscenes like to hide their faces for that reason. Even the earliest of *SpongeBob* games have facial animations.
4. The camera can't be controlled manually, causing some difficulties when platforming.
	* Speaking of which, the platforming is dull.
5. The camera only follows the first player, meaning the other players can walk out of the frame easily and lose health after respawning.
6. Glitchy collision detection.
7. The combat is generic and boring, even more so than *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*.
8. Just like *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*, the difficulty is too easy, since the game just keeps throwing extra lives at you.
9. The characters never stop talking.
10. Bad character animations, especially on SpongeBob himself.
11. Only fifteen levels (twelve in the 3DS and Vita ports).
	* Speaking of the 3DS port, the music is extremely short, and after it finishes it takes a few seconds to loop and play again.
12. With the easy difficulty, you can get bored with this game *easily* after 30 minutes.
13. The game is so easy and boring that it gives both *Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric* and *Balan Wonderworld* a run for their money.
14. Every character plays almost the same, making switching between them pointless.
15. It has a very poor grasp of the source material. The plot has almost nothing to do with the movie, and to add insult to injury, Burger Beard doesn't appear, despite being the main antagonist of the movie (canonically, this game could take place after the movie, but there is no excuse as to why the story can't follow the movie's plot)! The game's plot itself is extremely paper-thin.
16. The upgrades are useless since they only last for a determined time. Even the upgrades in *Plankton's Robotic Revenge* last forever.
17. There is only one boss fight in the entire game, and the other boss fight is just a chase. To add more insult to injury, there is no final boss battle. Even *Plankton's Robotic Revenge* had more boss battles, and while they were bland, there was a good number of them and at least they felt like bosses.
18. Horrible ending.
	* Speaking of endings, if you play alone, you will inevitably get the bad ending, meaning this game was meant to be played with co-op. However, this game never actually tells you that. To make matters worse, the Xbox 360 version is the only version that supports multiplayer. There should have been PS3, PS4, Wii U, Windows, and Xbox One versions, all of which would have multiplayer as well.
	* To make matters even worse, once you do get all the pages, the ending practically plays out the exact same way, the only difference being some dialogue changes and Bubbles breakdancing.
19. Just like *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*, it rips off *Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One*.
20. The Xbox 360 version was overpriced, costing **$40** when the price should've been no more than $20.
21. The game can be beaten in three to five hours.
22. Little to absolutely no story whatsoever, following Point 17.
23. It's possible for Player 1 to fall into the void, and due to the camera issue, break the current level. This seems to happen if the player manages to go down over a pit.

## Redeeming Qualities

1. The voice acting is passable.
2. Just like *Plankton's Robotic Revenge*, the CGI is decent.
3. Good one-liners (although repetitive).
4. The final level could be a reference to an unused level in *SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom*.

## Reception

The game was met with generally negative reception from critics and players, and is considered the worst *SpongeBob* game to date. *Atomix* gave it a 20/100.

## Trivia

* This was the last SpongeBob game to be published by Activision and the last to be released within Stephen Hillenburg's lifetime.