Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom takes place across 13 locations and lets you play as three of the main characters from the show, Spongebob, Patrick or Sandy Cheeks. Each character has his or her strengths - and you will need to know when to use each one.
For instance, if you need to get across large gaps (like any true platformer), then you use the deep-sea diving squirrel, that would be Sandy, to swing or hover (both with the use of her trusty lasso) across the troublesome trenches. Patrick can pick up items and throw them at various objects and people (not just baddies), while Spongebob can do the Underwater Bungee ('The ultimate wedgie experience'), and various other skills gained through progress in the game (like Bubble Bowling, and the Spongeball).
You will also meet various other characters from the series like Squidward and Mr. Krabs who will help you on your journey - mostly by allowing you to collect more Golden Spatulas - but more on those later.
Battle for Bikini Bottom starts off with the evil Plankton accidentally releasing his robots upon Bikini Bottom - oh and taking over his lab - The Chum Bucket - as well. So now, it is our yellow hero's duty to take out the bots and return sanity to Bikini Bottom - okay just destroy the robots. And why is it Spongebob's duty, you may ask? Because for some reason he believes he set them loose.
There are many different types of levels in these worlds. You will have to do everything from Tongue Boarding to hopping the rooftops of Downtown Bikini Bottom to taking on a giant robot Sandy at the Poseidome.
Along the way you must collect Golden Spatulas in order to move into new areas - you obtain these by finishing missions that people give you or sometimes just finding them around the levels. It's a pretty simple reward based system, to keep you from going into areas where you aren't ready to enter (either story or skillwise). You have to have a certain number of spatulas to open a gate into a new area. These areas include the Jelly Fish Fields, Rock Bottom, the Goo Lagoon, the Kelp Forests and several more.
