Your biggest tip-off that Stephen Hillenberg had nothing to do with this: the curious inclusion of "sea ants" as minions for Plankton. SpongeBob spin-off material usually skewed a little closer to real-world marine life for filler characters, but not in this case. Also, SpongeBob actually gets a learner's permit at one point.

It's a quintet of five pretty forgettable mini-games tied together with two different loose narratives. Mini-games have basic theming to connect them to the TV show's high concepts, but they're not particularly compelling - just basic little time-wasters between narrative beats. Why is there a mini-game about collecting cheese off hooks? It happened in an early episode once, all you need to know. The real question is, why is the mini-game's name a fart joke, when SpongeBob of this era never really went there?

You're mainly playing this for the weird historical curiosity this game presents, being an early enough adaptation that the characters could get away with being wildly off-model and out-of-character here. The animation is trying its best, but it's definitely a swing and a miss for me.

If it colors your read on my review, I only did a "Right Side" run. No interest in a "Wrong Side" run, even if it's a different story, since... it's all just the same filler mini-games.