What a complete shit this game is.

I wasn't too happy with my initial review. Copping out my conflictions by refusing to rate a game I know that even half a star is too generous a rating. Just because I like the gameplay doesn't mean I should cloud my my judgement.

I remember when I first played this game. It was just after my 18th birthday, and I thought games that were full of offensive and edgy humor were what you were supposed to play as an adult. I had friends saying how cool this game was. Needless to say I was a reactionary chud, and I did like this game back then, even if some stuff was too much for me. I let everything slide because "mechanics good" and I liked some designs. Honestly my memories of this game continue to gaslight me to some extent, but I try to move past that.

Yes, game is fun, but even in the gameplay there was stuff that made me uncomfortable. When trainer classes and pokemon designs are meant solely to make fun of minorities, as someone who is a minority themself, I have a hard time laughing. I can't simply "turn off brain" and "enjoy things" when said things prepetuate such harmful mindsets. Even if they're passing jokes, they normalize hate and can snowball into thinking these ideas are ok.

For every mon I think genuinely works as a fakemon, there's a nazi furnace. For every meme I think is funny, there's a ones that lack taste. For god's sake the default name for the male protag is french for rape. Yes, I'm offended, and yes I'm a soy leftist crybaby tr*nny who uses tumblr and twitter; I literally made this review because someone told me to cry about it on my previous one.

I could have just said "good gameplay doesn't excuse hate", but this review isn't for backloggd, it's for myself. I needed to tell myself to let this game go. It's not like there aren't good Pokemon games official or not, and I shouldn't let myself rot as I try to figure out if this game should be praised or bashed.

The game may be made with passion, but it was not made with love.

"Wake up! Time to start another fantabulistic day!" The alarm clock rings you awake. Groggy and fatigued you get up in your usual rut. Stuck working under the boot of those who treat you as a tool rather than a person, yet forced to manufacture a smile as this is the only way in your current life. You don't want to do this anymore, you told yourself this a while ago, yet you continue out of demand rather than of passion. Hey, if it makes others happy then it has to be worth it right? So you trudge along, stretching yourself until you find yourself deflated, only to go back home and lay in your bed only to hear your alarm clock signal you to do the same thing over and over again. This is We ❤️ Katamari.

Knowing anything about the history of this game makes the humorous tongue-in-cheek dialogue feel more cynical. It's still funny, but it's obvious that this game was written this way as a way to cope and reason for the need of this game. "Welcome to the sequel to our hit game Katamari Demacy" is very blatantly the theme of everything that happens, it even says so in the opening cutscene. While there is still more work to be done, the King is rather dismissive of continuing to make katamaris. Only when a fan of his work mentions how much they loved what "he" did does he entertain the idea of continuing work. Now, with new ideas being thrown at you, you are forced to continue with the demands, no matter how zany or obtuse.

Everyone praises the work, so we must continue going. Everyone looks up to the King of All Cosmos as this bringer of joy, when the worker, you, are made to mass produce. When you get things right, all goes well and we continue on to work on more Katamari making, but when you slip up or underperform, then you are met with the wrath of your boss. Everything mirrors what it must have felt like for Keita Takahashi to work on a sequel he never wanted, or just anyone suffering from industry abuse. Working on products well past their time because they are popular and make money, one of the most dreadful outcomes of any franchise or IP in media entertainment.

It should be noted that unlike other Katamari games where the game over screen is a playable minigame with a high score to track that makes losing arguably fun, this game holds no punches. It is impossible to avoid the onslaught of lasers from the King, and there is no scoring system. Once he is done berating your "incompetence", you are sent back to the level again to make it right this time. Forced to continue after mental and physical harm come your way.

I should also just mention the abuse you suffer in this game. I had only played Forever and Reroll before this game, and it's very apparent that the King is not a good father/uncle. Disregarding the physical abuse of his child nieces and nephews, there is also this general dismissiveness he holds against you. Only if you surpass his completely made up expectations does he shower you in praise, but not reaching those bars is met with a blase reaction. Going for the standard set isn't enough, it has to be better. You ARE royalty, after all. Even in this game which does not have a scoring system and he is generally nicer on stage completion The King still shows his ugly side when rating you every now and then if you do not meet the goals he never tells you about. Only now, as I played this game did I find out the reason.

Generational trauma is something that affects many, including myself. The awful experiences of an event cause us to be met with abuse and neglect in a viscous cycle, and it appears that The Prince and his cousins deal with it themselves. We get to see a younger version of The King in flashbacks during this game, The Prince of All Cosmos if you will. His father holds this same level of dismissiveness as The King would later go on to adopt, from physical abuse to seeing anything below the best as failure. Granted, it is a kid's game, and eventually The King makes amends with his father and inherits the crown, but it doesn't feel right. The last cutscene of the game is seeing The King, all grown up when his wife shows him the newborn prince and they all party around. A sweet moment soured by the realization of the torture that would be inflicted later.

Honestly it all rings true, to me at least. I will not go into it but I did grow up in similar, although not as hyperbolic scenarios. Physical abuse was common as a child, and even now as an adult, while everyone around me saw me getting straight B's in my last semester as something to be proud of, my own mother didn't, which made me undermine my own success when I had felt like I was going to fail two of those classes. I want to say this is something I have gotten over, but that would be a lie. Having this type of behavior be what I'm exposed to has damaged me. Even while trying to be better than those before me I still have a short fuse and get easily frustrated, just like my mother and my grandmother before her. I've lost friends to it and much worse as I tried to end the cycle. It's not gone, it is currently a part of me, but I like to believe it's gotten better.

For a surreal arcade game about becoming a giant mass of objects, something about this game specifically is very profound to me. Maybe I am reading into it too much, but it's hard to overlook what is being shown when I relate to it so much.

I normally like to end reviews with a shitposty type joke, and I was going to do one with the sumo level and how you just vore people, but I think I found my own capitalism metaphor in it. In that level you help a sumo gain weight so he can defeat another sumo, and what starts as a humble binge of food and random objects eventually leads to him getting so fat that he devours other people and destroys the city if you go big enough. The fact that to often fulfill your life's ambitions requires trampling over others regardless if you know of it or not is reflected in this level, and if I'm still reading too into it you can just say it's the funny vore level and laugh.

That's what I would say about this game in general. My views and experiences are mirrored here, so the game is a lot more profound to me, but I know for many others it is just a silly game that is very very fun. And sometimes that is all a game needs to be.

I guess it's fitting that after my first (serious) review that I review a game I find on the opposite spectrum. In my MOTHER review I briefly touch that my interest with the game transcends its mediocre review score, and while granted, my rating for this game isn't much higher than that of how I rated MOTHER, it is a game I hold considerably more contempt for. Persona 5 is a game that while at its best is fun to think about certain aspects (namely the gameplay and aesthetic which I will talk about shortly), the writing of this game has disgusted me and left me uncomfortable at numerous points that it considerably sours the experience for me. There is some seriously messed up and problematic material in this game, but I figure I should start with the positives first.

It goes without saying that Persona 5 is a visual marvel. It oozes flair and confidence in its music and especially visual presentation that has left me awestruck on multiple occassions. The UI feels like a streamlined and futuristic graffiti, aptly representing how the Phantom Thieves rebel against their society. It's one of my favorite art styles for a game and I have tried to emulate it on my own time it's that good. But that is just the style, how is the substance?

Gameplay has this weirdly satisfying pacing to it. Whenever I get bored with dungeon crawling is just often when I near the finale of a palace (I usually do palaces in one day if possible), and when I'm wanting to get back to it the game usually starts heading towards its next arc. Persona fusion makes Joker feel like an invincible badass, which is funny because if he dies your game instantly ends. A bit of a side tangent but I never liked that in games, why have the party leader be the load bearer in jrpgs when revival items work on other party members. Sometimes Joker just keels over because of a few enemies targeting him and that just feels frustrating and unfair, especially with this game having quite a few instant death spells. Besides that however, gameplay is pretty simple but pretty enjoyable which is usually how I like my JRPGs. Blasting enemies with your favorite colors of magic and shooting them in the head with assorted firearms is satisfying due to all the vibrant and poping effects. That is only half of the gameplay, and sadly is what I think is the better side of the coin.

Now, that doesn't mean I think the social sim is without merit. Theres a lot of various activites, especially in royal, to take care of, with just enough days to get what you want done. Routing what you want to get done feels satisfying, and it feels nice to see your bonds grow closer with others. Ryuji, Yusuke, Sojiro and Yoshida are very charming characters that have great moments, and raising not only their confidants but of everyone else is satisfying due to their affects on gameplay. I just wish that the game didn't spend an eternity to unlock certain things to do in the city, from locations to other confidants. Considering each arc can take 10+ hours, it feels like I'm just waiting to unlock certain mechanics as I wade through the first few chapters of the game with limited options. If only my issues with the game ended there.

You may have noticed that I only listed male characters when talking about confidants I like, and that is not a mistake. Persona as a series, or at least starting from 3, has had issues depicting women and your relationship with them. Hell, one of the biggest memes I hear about the series is how the writer doesn't think men and women can exist in non sexual/romantic relationships. This has lead to issues throughout the latest 3 games, but as I have not played those, I would rather keep my discussion to 5. Now granted, I have not finished Persona 5. I played the original release up until the end of Futaba's palace and Royal up to the end of Kaneshiro's, which is earlier than in the vanilla game. As such, I will mainly only talk about what I have experienced while also somewhat mentioning other issues I have heard later on in the game.

To say the writing of persona 5 objectifies women is a complete understatement. They're half baked and uninteresting characters at best and completely disgusting in their portrayals at worse. Of the ones I've seen so far, Makoto is by far the least offensive, but she also doesn't do much besides be the general brains of the thieves. She's not who I have issues with however. Ann is a character I just feel bad for. A victim of sexual grooming in the first arc, the fact that she then goes on to be constantly hit on, sexualized, and otherwise just made into a general pin up model is appalling. While yes I understand that she still wants to become a model, it feels off when the game makes it a constant joke to point out her in universe hotness, from her cleavage revealing skintight thief costume to out of character moments such as Yusuke asking her to strip model for him. And to those who say that her wanting to be a model empowers herself and has her growing out of an abuse, why would you give this sort of arc to a 16 year old? Even then, shes more of a victim of this games writing, and she actively wants to not be sexualized outside of her modeling gig from what I've seen. The same cannot be said for Kawakami. After your local incel forces you to order a maid you get to see your teacher all dressed up to work for you wow! While she doesn't want to work for you and would wish you to forget about that encounter, the fact you can have her still be her maid and still press on in the relationship is borderline creepy. It gets worse with the fact you can eventually romance her like any other women in this game, especially after the first arc made it a point that teachers dating students is wrong. I guess if you don't outwardly abuse them it's fine I guess! Absolutely horrid.

Those are the main two I wanted to talk about, but they're not the only ones I have problems with. I think Mishima is a fucking tool, the jailkeep twins are annoying, and while Haru is an aesthetic gender apparently her arc has her dealing with her getting sold off and then having little to no screentime afterwards. They're all pretty minor gripes for characters sure, but I wasn't done yet. There's something evil left in this game. A being that haunts my brain stem and I only wish absolute suffering on. Anyone who has played this game talking about, so I'm just going to get to who it is.

Morgana is straight up my most hated characrer in gaming. This whiny shit bitches 24/7 and does nothing productive at all. He contributes to Ann's horrible treatment and has the gall to make everything about him. Never have I wanted to erase a character off my screen more than him, and from what I hear he gets even worse later in the game. He is just generally unlikable and I don't know how else to explain it. The biggest irony of his existance is that his VA has also voiced my favorite character in all of gaming (Nami from League of Legends), so that's like one positive I guess? Except not really because that ties him to League which is a massive L in itself, lmao.

Persona 5 is a game I want to really like. I want to take the gameplay and art syle and apply it to games that aren't pedophelic or hate women, but I can't. I'm still going to finish this game, but probably on PC so I can mod over it and have a more ironic enjoyment. While my experiences are often mixed to positive in the moment, it's one of those games where I sour on it more and more as I distance myself from it. Considering this is the first MegaTen I've ever played, it doesn't set a good precedent, yet I'm still morbidly curious to play other Persona and SMT games when I'm done. It's weird, but for as much as I hate this game, there's something weirdly charming like that. That I can just want it play it and other games in its series even with its humongous fault. I don't see my opinion on this game changing anytime soon, but hopefully the good parts of it shine more when I get my third fucking copy of this game (why) and beat it for real.

Being a cop is so antithetical to everything Sonic T. Hedgehog is and what he stands for. An icon of freedom and rebellion against societal norms cast as as the iron fist of the unjust law is like if you turned Lucas from Mother 3 into a capitalist. 'Oh but he is stopping Eggman from evil" or "He is still a cool guy on his off time" doesn't change the fact that this Sonic has probably incarcerated many innocent individuals on his own biases or because of how cruel certain laws are. This is not who Sonic is, I refuse to believe it.
Fuck this game.
All Cops Are Bastards.

Pokemon is a franchise that is hard to place for me. We’ve all had that era when we were kids when we doubted if it was “cool” to still play this series; that Pokemon was just a fad that we all grew out of. Most people I know have seemed to grow out of that phase, but only in a temporary sense. Now it seems that wave has come back to hit us again, with many fans of the series feeling a general malaise when it comes to playing these games. “It’s all the same. Why play a series that gets worse and worse each generation.” Comments I keep seeing constantly. I won’t deny there has been some seasonal rot within the franchise, specifically gen 6 and gen 8 are a series of games that I do not enjoy playing, but I often hear the notion that the entire series has no merit, something that just irks me. I guess it pokes at my nostalgia bone a bit too hard since like most detractors I did grow up on this franchise, yet unlike them I have found something to cling onto with these games, especially with the most unique main series game, Pokemon Black & White.

B/W are often considered one of the best games in the franchise. Seen as the last bastion before the slip to mediocrity, these games seem to have this magic that no other can capture. Yes, it’s easy to say it has the best gameplay, Pokedex, music or graphics; all of which I believe to be the case, but there’s another reason I find this game stands taller among its relatives, being the only Pokemon game to try to delve more into the story aspect rather than gameplay.

First let’s start with the titles of the game, which lay the groundwork to how the events of the game play out. Normally the title for each game just represents the cover legendaries in some way. Oh this one is orange make it gold, this one is blue make it sapphire. It’s a way to hype up the player towards what legendary beasts they can acquire on their journey, but these games seem to do it a bit differently. For the mascot of Black it’s a…white dragon? And for White it’s a…black dragon…Not normally what a player would expect from the usual fare, but instead of using it to shill the coolest new lizard on the block they use it to tell us what the game is about. B/W is about the balance of all things, with box art that subtly pays homage to the yin yang, a symbol we should all be familiar with. Just like how the yin yang embodies balance and how nothing is truly fully good or fully evil, B/W are games about the balance of philosophies, specifically of truth and ideals, and this seeps into many aspects within the story and characters.

Let’s start with your rivals. B/W is the first game to have more than one rival character, Cheren and Bianca. Cheren is studious, prideful, and has big aspirations for his future, while Bianca is energetic and cheerful while still being nervous about the outside world. Cheren keeps losing no matter how hard he strategizes and keeps saying he wants to get stronger, while Bianca realizes that while she cherishes the chances to be with Pokemon that being a Trainer just is not her strong suit and wants to live with them in a different way. This leads to Black & White 2, where after hard work and determination Cheren finally honed his skills enough to be a Gym leader, while Bianca settled down and became an assistant to the region’s Pokemon professor Juniper. Cheren’s idealism pushed him forward, never letting his defeats get him down, while Bianca realizing the truth that she is not cut out for battling Pokemon led her to an ultimately happier life. Both end up feeling like actual characters who grow instead of just a typical happy go lucky friend or an ass prick rival. Bianca is honestly one of my favorite characters in the series just because of her arc is something that should be said to anyone of all ages. If you find out what you’ve always wanted is something you struggle with or lose passion in, it’s always ok to back down from it, and maybe approach it from a different perspective like she did. It’s honestly one of the most impactful messages to me personally in any game I’ve played.

But what about if truth and ideals get conflated? What if idealism goes too far, to the point where the truth gets muddied? That’s where Team Plasma sticks in. Pokemon is a franchise that faced common criticism for its content. Capturing wild animals and fighting with them is something that can seem abusive from the outsider looking in, and Team Plasma feels like Game Freak acknowledging those concerns. To start off, I just want to point out how much I love their designs. The holy templar aesthetic works really well for a group of extremists devoted to a misguided cause; and that’s ultimately how I view them. Team Plasma’s goal to liberate pokemon from their owners does sound reasonable on paper, but only just that. In the Pokemon world it's shown that not only do Pokemon like and enjoy battling, but they have other uses in society besides just being entertainment. They can be used for construction, research, provide medicine and ferry people across the ocean. Hell, ice cream was basically invented because Vanillite exists. It does not help that their motivations seem a bit skewed, as early on in the game they are seen abusing a Musharna for their plans, painting them in a less than gray light. They’re obviously not good people, but they think they are, and no other person in their group exemplifies this than their leader; The King of Plasma, N.

N walks the fine line of another rival character and an antagonist. A mysterious young man who boasts about he will find the legendary dragon and with its power command all people of Unova to release their pokemon, yet he does not seem to bear malice or resentment towards the player despite them being a trainer themselves. I’ve heard him described as a pseudo protagonist before, with a design that certainly screams main character and like his army’s goals has seemingly righteous motivations. However what separates N from his grunts is naivete and strictness to his code of honor. Every battle not counting your final encounter with him has him use low level Pokemon native to the current area, as if he only catches them in case the need arises and discards them back into the wilderness afterwards. He truly does care about his goal to the end, and when he obtains one of the two dragons of legends he challenges the player to meet him at the Pokemon league. When you get there and revive the other dragon of legend the battle with N awaits, and the significance takes a different meaning depending on which version. In Black, you, with Reshiram, the dragon of truth, face down Zekrom, the dragon of ideals, showing N how his sheltered outlook on the world was faulty; but in White, the tables are turned. N having Reshiram wants to implant what he views as the truth, trying to shoot down your ideals that people and pokemon can live together as one. Bringing back that pseudo protagonist thing I mentioned earlier, white is often seen as a heroic color as opposed to black, and with Reshiram it can be seen as him seeing himself as the main character of this story, as Unova’s hero. It amazes me how the same battle can have two different meanings based on one simple change like this. And with his defeat the day is saved right? Well, no not exactly.

Enter Ghetsis, a rather controversial figure in the community. He appears several times throughout the game and is very much definitely the true antagonist, and what most people don’t like about him is how he clashes with the rest of what Team Plasma has. Instead of a zealot who fights for what he sees is right, he is an obviously evil character who reveals at the end of the game that yes he does want to remove all pokemon from their trainers…to take over the world. A lot of people felt like this was cheap and that it ruins the message of the game, but I just simply don’t think so, not fully anyways. I will say that while I do not believe Ghetsis is very interesting on his own, I love how much of a depraved asshole he is, especially in 2, but for this game I think what he does on his own is sinister enough and it does coincide with some of the more questionable actions that his grunts do. He effectively groomed N, secluding him in this castle where he is constantly pampered and instilling this mindset into him that having a pokemon is abusive, and I think what works well is moreso how N internalizes all of this and views those ideals genuinely. It can be implied that a lot of other grunts feel this way too as in B/W2 Team Plasma has split into two different identities. One is full of truly devoted followers of the belief to make pokemon’s lives better, yet they do these in unobtrusive ways and attempt to keep the other half of Team Plasma at bay. Clad in different, more sinister gear, the followers of Ghetsis no longer shackle themselves to the lies they pretended to care for and instead become absolutely ruthless. It shows a dichotomy that in the original team, there were those more naive like N, while there were others doing it simply for their lord Ghetsis.

After his defeat, N finally realizes how his entire life was built up as a life, and reflects on it in my favorite scene in any Pokemon game. N has one last heart to heart with the player while the Mother 3 love theme plays as he talks about how he now knows he can be more open in his beliefs, and leaves with his dragon to see the world and learn from others. It’s honestly a great ending to his arc, setting up the beginning to his betterment and abandoning his old life. I grew up in a family of racists and bigots, and it was only after I learned from others that I was able to change as a person for the better. N is just like that, with an abusive father that you help him escape from metaphorically, and I hope his story resonates with others just as much as it does with me.

Now it’s one thing for a game to have a great story, but Black and White also just feels comforting in its setting to me. Going to be real, I grew up relatively close to New York, where Unova is based. More specifically It was the parts of New Jersey that the opening segment of B/W2 takes place in, so I’ve been to New York a few times in my lifetime and it kind of just resonates with me. Unova as a region is brash and lively, just like how most romanticized versions of America are. The soundtrack is bombastic and it absolutely captures what northeastern America can be like, it feels homely in that regard. Yet the one location that catches my eye the most is the one that strays differently than the rest, Opelucid City.

Opelucid City is a town that has two separate themes based on the version you play. In Black, it’s one of the most futuristic locations in the series while in White it’s a place taking pride in its rich history. It's one of the most visually distinct towns in the series regardless of what version you play, and what I love so much is how it subtly ties into the game's themes. Depending on what version you play you face a different Gym leader, Drayden, an older man and mayor of the city, or Iris, an extremely young girl. What I love is how like the yin yang this game’s box art takes notes from, similar symbolism can be construed from this setup, as Drayden is the gym leader in Black and Iris in White. The older man in the idealistic future and the young girl living with the truth of the past just has this nice little note that makes me feel that extra thought and care was put into this game; and I feel that care exists a lot throughout the game.

As a game, there’s a lot of things that B/W just does right to the point that it feels impossible to list them all. I love that with more focus on story comes a more realized region. Most Pokemon games tend to have the bullet point issue of “Go to town, get badge, leave”, yet there is more to B/W that makes it feel less like a to do list. Besides the waiter trios, every gym leader ends up being involved in the plot in some way, usually dealing with Plasma who rear their heads in every location to make themselves a constant threat or just seeing parts of their routine outside of being a gym leader. It makes the world feel more realized and the characters more memorable even if they are still boss battles at the end of the day. Little details such as Bianca’s team being based on the events that happened up until the first gym, Cheren using items in battle after reading about them in trainer school may be tiny, but add that extra little polish to make the game feel like it was made by people who were doing more than just the bare minimum, which is something I wish I could say about later entries.

No other game in the series is like B/W, and after this game is when I think that fatigue with the franchise I mentioned at the beginning of this essay set itself in. Sadly, B/W were infamously hated on release, and I can only assume the fans were mad just because the game only allows you use their favorite mons from past gens, (Btw this is pure copium, Unova has my personal favorite dex), and part of me feels the negative reception influenced other games in the series. B/W2 while still very good games gave the story a backseat booster seat instead of putting it front and center, focusing on refining the gameplay which I think was already pretty solid in gen 5. After this the series got watered down overtime. I already mentioned that I don’t like gens 6 and 8, but gen 7 is a bit complicated for me. Base Sun and Moon feel like they were trying to take a more story focused approach to a mainline game, which I thought worked pretty well, though not as much as gen 5. This gets backhanded when Ultra Sun and Moon come out which butcher the story in half and make base S/M irrelevant due to the gameplay updates. It’s saddening to think about, but with each game coming out to more and more negative press from fans and critics I wonder just how bright is the future for this franchise. Sure, B/W are often seen as among the best in the series NOW, but its original reputation hurt the overall franchise so much that it hurts to think about at times.

I won’t pretend Pokemon Black and White are the end all be all of games or that they’re perfect, I think Ghetsis and some parts of Plasma could have been handled better, and as a story a lot more could be fleshed out, but for a Pokemon game, a series which i only play for the gameplay, I gladly accept this games efforts for what it does right. This is definitely a nostalgia game for me, and that may have impacted my overall opinions on it, but that attachment I have lends it to be more than the sum of its parts. As I stated in my first review on this site, I often like games more for what I get out of them, even if it's not in the base game. Sure, most of what I said may have been conjecture, but it’s how I interpret the plot given what is already there, and considering this is the only Pokemon game I can do that leaves a lot to say on how I view it. We may not get another game like Black or White ever again from this franchise, but I’m very grateful for them being here in the first place.

What a disappointment for a game I was hoping could at least be passable. I should have expected this, and I partially did, but wow.

Cosmic Shake claims to be the sequel to Battle For Bikini Bottom, but it's not the sequel to that beloved classic from our childhood, no it's for the overly saturated slow and clunky remake we got a few years ago. 3 years later and we not only have the same bugs and glitches but completely new ones to this game. You're not supposed to go backwards like that! It honestly just reeks of a strained budget and a team who doesn't know what they are doing at this point, which seems to be a thing with most modern Nickelodeon games.

Gameplay is...there? Yeah you platform across big levels, but there is just this emptiness that exists in each area. What made BFBB so much of a joy is that while there was a main objective to each area, there were still side objectives and goodies to find that were mandatory to beat the game, incentivizing exploration. Here it's just jellies and doubloons which are only used for an optional costume shop. Without the incentive of primary (golden spatulas, goober tokens) or secondary (socks, extras) collectables and all we have are the tertiary ones, there just feels like there is no point to going around looking for secrets or doing anything but the main objective. So you are just left in large linear areas with the most forgettable music of all time and nothing to do besides barebones platforming and combat that was nerfed from BFBB. Yeah let's get into the combat...

There are now set action scenes that require you to fight enemies to progress. Sure that's fine, but the issue lies when the enemies in this game are not fun to fight. They're all loosely based off robots from BFBB, but they just feel worst to fight. The duplicatotron expy has 3 hit points and between each hit has an aoe unblockable stun attack, or the giant beefcakes who can't be damaged until they just conveniently do that one attack that makes them able to take damage, who also have 3 hp. It makes combat a slog when it was very snappy in other Spongebob games, not just BFBB or Movie but like Creature as well. Sure, you unlock new abilities in each level, but they all feel clunky to use like nearly everything else in this game.

This show also has that modern Spongebob folly to never stand on its own two feet and must rely on stuff from the show to keep going. While I understand it's cool to have references in a license game, I loved when BFBB did that, it is just so ham fisted that nearly everything in this game was "LOOK AT THE THING! ITS THE THING FROM THE SHOW/BFBB!!!!!" and it feels like this game barely has an identity to stand on. I think the trailers mainly using Band Geeks music as well as showing off all the costumes from other episodes really shows how little creativity went into this game. It hopes you cling onto your nostalgia the entire time without any substance.

Oh yeah speaking of those costumes, fun fact. This game came with a day 1 DLC for all the costumes you would most likely want that were shown in trailers mind you. Kind of fucked to see that you can play as spongegar in the trailers and then realize hes locked behind a $10 paywall. I know it's not important but this kind of backhanded marketing kind of fucked me up. Like there is already an in game costume shop but w/e.

I was originally going to give this game a 5/10 / 2.5/5, and in my mind it still is that. That is basically the dead zone of games for me, those that do absolutely nothing and while are technically functional give me nothing to enjoy or even really hate besides a massive blah. That swamp of mediocrity where games are forgotten, the worst fate any media could have. The only reason I gave this game a lower score was mainly because of how much it pisses me off, how the bugs are even more apparent, how there's DLC that isn't needed, how this is supposed to be a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time without knowing what made that game great. It all just breaks my heart and I wish I had bought Pizza Tower or fucking hell even Fire Emblem Engage over this, at least that game would've been funny bad with good gameplay as I've heard.

Do yourself a favor and just play BFBB. The original, the one that's actually good. Or even the movie game, which is a lot better of a sequel despite its flaws.

We owe that IGN guy an apology.