Review by: Brandon "Barnacle Boy" Cackowski-Schnell

Spongebob Squarepants may seem like an odd choice for the microgame genre, but the manic sense of humor of the show, combined with the impaired attention span of most of the characters makes the combination of short, frequently changing games and underwater sight gags a pretty enjoyable experience. It’s just a shame that it’s over so quickly. There’s plenty to admire here, and it’s easily the best handheld Spongebob game yet, but the short length and limited use of 3D makes it an extremely hard sell for 40 bucks.

The game eschews trying to fit together all of the microgames, sorry, nanogames into a traditional story, opting instead to offer up the game’s activities as part of Patchy the Pirate’s art gallery. Patchy is portrayed by the same actor who plays him in the show (he’s also the voice of Spongebob) complete with his luxurious ranch abode, making the game seem less like a game and more like an episode of Spongebob. Successfully completing 20 rounds in one painting opens up an additional painting, each with its own aesthetic and nanogame theme.

It’s these themes that really make the game come alive. There’s a hand-drawn theme that has customers pouring into the Krusty Krab whenever you successfully complete a round, complete with a happy, dollar sign dreaming Mr. Krabs and an empty line when you fail. Other paintings include a movie theme featuring Squidward being chased by a movie monster, a retro-themed painting, a superhero themed painting, and my favorite, an 8-bit painting with an 8-bit Spongebob navigating a Mario-themed level and taking a hit from a jellyfish any time you fail.

The differing art styles present in each of the paintings, and in the nanogames themselves are really outstanding and help make even the most annoying nanogame enoyable. Each painting consists of 20 rounds of games that last from three to five seconds, with the games speeding up as you make progress. You’re allowed to fail a handful of times before you fail the round completely, and there’s no penalty for failing outright othe than the loss of time spent playing.

Chances are you’ll need a couple of attempts to get the handle of each game present in the different paintings. The game shows you which action you’ll need to complete to be successful before the nanogame starts, but even with this, it’s easy to fail the first time you play a nanogame, or, in some cases, every time you play. At times it’s hard to tell where the game wants you to make the action on the screen and there’s not enough time in each round for multiple attempts. Similarly, the nanogames that require tilting were either too responsive or not responsive enough to the 3DS’ tilt sensor. Maybe it’s just a problem with my 3DS, but any game that required tilting was a guaranteed failure for me.

The game has over 100 nanogames, but even with this variety, you’ll see a lot of repeats within the same painting. Once you’re done with a painting you can go back and replay the paintings to get bronze, silver or gold medals for number of rounds completed before using up all of your failures, and often times you’ll see games you didn’t see in multiple attempts at clearing the painting. I’m all for replay value, but at the same time, I’d rather see every game the first time I tried a painting than five instances of the same game.