History YMMV / TheSpongeBobMovieGame

* MainstreamObscurity: The game sold pretty decently when it came out with a whopping 2 million units, and reviews for it were fairly positive as well, albeit many considering it to be slightly inferior to ''Battle for Bikini Bottom.'' That's probably the most your gonna be hearing of this game from the Mainstream public, as even to this day hardly anyone talks about this game all too much and discussions about its predecessor ''Battle for Bikini Bottom'' vastly overshadow it in every circle.

* FanNickname: The game's official name is just ''The [=SpongeBob SquarePants=] Movie''. To distinguish it from the movie itself, fans and ThisVeryWiki just call it "The [=SpongeBob=] Movie Game", while the ''[=SpongeBob=]'' speedrunning community usually calls it "TSSM", an acronym they don't save for the movie itself (the game's [[https://www.speedrun.com/tssm speedrun.com page]] also uses this).

* FanNickname: The game's official name is just ''The [=SpongeBob SquarePants=] Movie''. To distinguish it from the movie itself, fans will just call it the "Movie Game", while the ''[=SpongeBob=]'' speedrunning community usually calls it "TSSM", an acronym they don't save for the movie itself (the game's [[https://www.speedrun.com/tssm speedrun.com page]] also uses this).

** The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 digital port of this game was plagued with a lot of issues, due to the fact that it was a direct port of the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 version with no proper optimization updates to make it run on next-gen hardware. Issues included blurry graphics, severe audio desynchronization, and button lag that made the gameplay downright unresponsive at times. Overall, it was a very flawed port, and the game was eventually taken down from the [=PlayStation=] Store.
** While it's nowhere near as bad as the [=PlayStation=] 3 port, the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube version is notable for having inconsistent framerates that can go from 60 fps on one stage to 30 fps on another, many missing visual effects and background details, and far more bugs than the other versions.

** While the upgrade system is fine enough, there are a few issues with it. Namely, just figuring out that ''there's even one in the first place'' is an issue since the only indication in-game that there is one comes in the form of a single textbox that immediately disappears in a fraction of a second (on the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube version at least), meaning new players don't even get a chance to read it. Not only that, but some upgrades (namely Spongebob's spin and Patrick's ground pound) are required for progression later in the game, which the game never indicates. This means if you upgrade other abilities, you can accidentally make some of the later levels UnintentionallyUnwinnable, not helped by the game's use of AntiGrinding preventing you from getting the correct upgrade needed to progress.

** For the {{UsefulNotes/GBA}} version, the Cyclops is this. Not only do you need to pay attention to the rising thermometer on the side of the screen, which will result in instant death if it gets too high, but you also need to watch for his grab-attack, which can easily kill you instantly (you can wiggle out of it, but it will cost you a ''lot'' of time). You must constantly GroundPound the fire alarm switch to keep the thermometer down while trying to avoid his hands and waiting for an opportunity to attack his head, which is damn near impossible thanks to the Ground Pound leaving you vulnerable to being caught by his hands.

** In the [[UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance GBA]] version, the levels of World 5: [[spoiler:Shell City]] feature a frustrating mechanic that makes even the standard time limit look like nothing. In those levels, there's a thermometer on the side of the screen that is constantly rising, and the only way to keep it down is to GroundPound each fire alarm switch you find. If you fail to activate even one of these switches, the thermometer will get too high and instantly kill [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick. It doesn't help that these levels are filled with obstacles that can slow you down, ranging from spikes to falling hooks, so these levels have you in a constant and strict speed run that must be near flawless to beat. It also doesn't help that the boss of this world also runs on this same mechanic.

** While the upgrade system is fine enough, there are a few issues with it. Namely, just figuring out that ''there's even one in the first place'' is an issue since the only indication in-game that there is one comes in the form of a single textbox that immediately disappears in a fraction of a second (on the GameCube version at least), meaning new players don't even get a chance to read it. Not only that, but some upgrades (namely Spongebob's spin and Patrick's ground pound) are required for progression later in the game, which the game never indicates. This means if you upgrade other abilities, you can accidentally make some of the later levels UnintentionallyUnwinnable, not helped by the game's use of AntiGrinding preventing you from getting the correct upgrade needed to progress.

* ScrappyMechanic: One of the most common criticisms about this game is that Mindy will not grant SpongeBob and Patrick abilities they need to progress until they collect a certain number of Goofy Goober tokens to unlock them. This means the player will be constantly forced to backtrack and replay levels to get more tokens, which will more often than not be the extra challenges in the driving and slide levels. If that wasn't enough, said levels are also decently long (about 4-5 minutes each), the player is only able to complete each objective one at a time (necessitating 4 playthroughs of the level at best), and some of the missions, particularly the ring challenges, are NintendoHard. So this comes across more as padding than anything else and completely breaks the pace by shoehorning in a collect-a-thon style into a linear movie-based game.

* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The final boss track sounds a lot like the instrumentals for "Rock You Like A Hurrican" by Music/{{Scorpions}}.

* FakeDifficulty: Part of what makes the ring challenges so [[NintendoHard punishingly difficult]]is the fact you are only shown the location of one ring at a time, making it impossible to predict where the next one will appear, or sometimes, making it straight up impossible to get to the next one if you weren't already moving in the correct direction ahead of time. On top of this, the challenges are ''long'' (about 3-5 minutes depending on the level) and have ''no checkpoints whatsoever'', so missing even a single ring at any point means having to start the entire level all over again from the beginning. Needless to say, you will NOT be completing these without a bunch of patience and trial-and-error, and they will be the cause of many broken controllers.

* ScrappyMechanic: One of the most common criticisms about this game is that Mindy will not grant SpongeBob and Patrick abilities they need to progress until they collect a certain number of Goofy Goober tokens to unlock them. This means the player will be constantly forced to backtrack and replay levels to get more tokens, which will more often than not be the extra challenges in the driving and slide levels. If that wasn't enough, said levels are also decently long (about 4-5 minutes each), the player is only able to complete each objective one at a time (necessitating 4 playthroughs of the level at best), and some of the missions, particularly the ring challenges, are NintendoHard. So this comes across more as padding than anything else, while also trying to throw in the collect-a-thon gameplay of the previous title into a linear movie-based game.

** Pretty much all of the ring challenges in the driving levels, thanks to both the very loose driving mechanics and the very short time that the rings are available. The ones in No Weenie Parking Anytime and Drive of the Knucklehead Mcspazitron take the cake because of the [[MarathonLevel former's length]] and in the case of the latter, if you mess up once, you've failed the whole level and must start over.

** Although not as brutal as ''Rock Slide'' with no requirements for major sequence breaking, the Macho Time Challenge on ''Drive of the Knucklehead-McSpazitron'' has really tight timing. Even if you take the two major shortcuts on the track, you're liable to only beat the time by two to three seconds at the most, especially as the timer doesn't actually stop until you reach the Krusty Krab, and not immediately when you reach the final jump.

* ContestedSequel: Depends on the player's preference between this game's linear action-based gameplay or ''Battle for Bikini Bottom'''s open-world collect-a-thon style.

** In the {{UsefulNotes/GBA}} version, the levels of World 5: [[spoiler:Shell City]] feature a frustrating mechanic that makes even the standard time limit look like nothing. In those levels, there's a thermometer on the side of the screen that is constantly rising, and the only way to keep it down is to GroundPound each fire alarm switch you find. If you fail to activate even one of these switches, the thermometer will get too high and instantly kill [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick. It doesn't help that these levels are filled with obstacles that can slow you down, ranging from spikes to falling hooks, so these levels have you in a constant and strict speed run that must be near flawless to beat. It also doesn't help that the boss of this world also runs on this same mechanic.

** After the level it's introduced in, Spongebob's Bash is only ''required'' for a single passage in "Welcome to Planktopolis... Minions". Otherwise, it's only good for clearing out Flingers, which players are much more likely to do using his [[AttackReflector upgraded Spin]].

** Pretty much all of the ring challenges in the driving levels, thanks to both the very loose driving mechanics and the very short time that the rings are available.

* GeniusBonus: Most of the levels and sidequests get either [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin no-frills]] or [[{{Pun}} punny]] names, but how many kids would know what "Three Meter Island" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident references]]?
** There's also the MERV enemy, whose name is a pun referencing [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_independently_targetable_reentry_vehicle their homing missles]].

* UnderusedGameMechanic: In every platform level, there is the ability to switch between [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick... which can only be accessed at the ''end'' of every level, typically to use them in a couple sidequests one of them can only do to get Tokens.

** Finding all the hidden treasure chests is very hard due to many of them either being hidden in cryptic places or requiring the player to perform highly specific tasks unprompted. Special mention goes to the one in ''Three Thousand Miles to Shell City'' where you have to destroy a group of crates in a specific order, and the one in ''Shell City, Dead Ahead'' where you just have to ''know'' to hit three toasters hidden in the scenery of the level.