Video Game / SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman

SpongeBob SquarePants: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman is a Licensed Game published by Nickelodeon and THQ and released on the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Game Boy Advance in 2002. The console version is a 3D platformer developed by Big Sky Interactive Studios while the GBA version is a 2D platformer developed by Vicarious Visions.

One day, while playing fetch with his pet snail Gary, SpongeBob stumbles onto an old treasure chest and decides to open it. Inside the treasure chest was a green bottle, and when SpongeBob rubs it like a genie lamp, he inadvertently releases the Flying Dutchman from his long slumber. Angry that he's been disturbed, the Flying Dutchman casts a curse all over Bikini Bottom and one-by-one, captures each of SpongeBob's friends to serve in his ghostly crew. Now SpongeBob must venture out to Bikini Bottom to seek out the Dutchman's lost treasures, lift his curse, and save his friends.

Tropes:

• Adaptational Dumbass: Downplayed with Sandy, but it's doubtful the version of her from the show would genuinely believe a beehive was an acorn.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • Larry the Lobster. In the series, he's a nice guy and doesn't mind SpongeBob at all, but in the game, he comes off as fairly selfish and a jerk, as he was in his original characterization as a Jerk Jock. He refuses to give SpongeBob the letter on his championship belt until after he beats him in a competiton and runs away from him because he fears that other people might see the two of them together. It's almost as if he took a little dose of Squidward's personality.
  • Patrick occasionally shows this in the game as well. Most notably is the scene in Downtown where SpongeBob confronts him over delivering food to his customer, where Patrick then proceeds to smugly reveal that he got a job to SpongeBob then insults him from being slow, as if one-upping SpongeBob was all he ever cared about.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Flying Dutchman himself. While he wasn't exactly a saint in the show, he was at least a man of his word. Here, he kidnaps Gary for digging him up while planning to make him part of his pirate crew despite SpongeBob's insistence that he should be the one to go instead, then he goes out of his way to kidnap SpongeBob's friends despite them having literally nothing to do with freeing the Dutchman and seemingly just to torment him (something that Squidward lampshades when the Flying Dutchman shows up to kidnap him), and finally attempts to defeat SpongeBob and make him part of his crew anyway during the Final Boss.
• Advancing Wall of Doom: At one point in Goo Lagoon, The Flying Dutchman takes control of a ship ready to dock and pursues SpongeBob with it. You must run away from the ship as it's destroying the pier right behind you.
• Amusement Park of Doom: Chum World. Since it was Plankton's brainchild, this shouldn't be too surprising.
• Artistic License – Biology: SpongeBob gives Sandy a hive containing both bees and wasps as a gift. Said hive also fits inside a small glass jar that's been underwater for quite some time. Yet both species are not only perfectly fine, but only attack SpongeBob instead of Sandy or each other despite somehow living inside the same hive together.
• Big Bad: The Flying Dutchman, who plans to hypnotize SpongeBob and all his friends into becoming his pirate crew after SpongeBob releases him from his bottle.
• Bouncy Bubbles: In the Game Boy Advance version, one of the item pickups SpongeBob can get is a pink bubble canister that lets him blow bubbles he can bounce off of to reach certain areas he can't normally jump to.
• Brainwashed: Over the course of the game, the Flying Dutchman hypnotizes Gary, Patrick, Squidward, Sandy and Mr. Krabs into becoming members of his crew - he eventually tries to do the same to SpongeBob himself, but fortunately the treasures the latter collected rendered him immune to the Dutchman's hypnotism.
• Cats Are Mean: Feral snails — the undersea equivalent of cats — are one type of enemy.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: When Squidward is freed from the Dutchman's clutches, he asks SpongeBob what took him so long.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • The Treedome is leaking. From a pragmatic standpoint, it’s so that a model of SpongeBob wearing his water helmet doesn’t have to be made. However, there are some notable attentions to detail on display:
    • SpongeBob's jumping sound effect is slightly different to emphasise the absence of water.
    • When SpongeBob stands still, he’s visibly dripping water. When he walks, he leaves puddles behind.
    • When the player reaches the treetop area, water is seen pouring out of holes in the tree trunk. This is water that has rained into the branches from the cracks in the dome.
  • On the topic of attention to detail, every time Spongebob finds one of the Dutchman's treasures, an audio clip of a group of children booing and making disgusted sounds will play. There is one exception however: the reading glasses treasure in Jellyfish Fields will not prompt a reaction from the kids since it's not really anything gross like the others.
  • Spongebob and Squidward will have different dialogue depending on whether you win or lose the race against Squidward near the beginning of the game. Considering that the "race" is obviously a joke since Squidward doesn't bother putting in any actual effort, you'd have to deliberately let him win to see it.
• Double Entendre: The Dutchman's Graveyard has a lot of suggestive comments about "booty"; that is to say, treasure.
• Dem Bones: You encounter hostile walking skeletons in "The Dutchman's Graveyard".
• Early-Installment Weirdness: All the personality differences from the show might have been less likely to happen had the game been made today. Being made when the franchise was still relatively young, things probably weren't set in stone when the game started development. Examples include Patrick and Larry being condescending jerks towards SpongeBob (though the GBA version has Patrick as his normal self), Sandy being dumb enough to confuse a bee hive for an acorn, and the Flying Dutchman being a vengeful spirit that inhabits a magic bottle and curses whoever releases him.
• Fetch Quest: The game itself is one big fetch quest due to the number of collectibles you need in order to proceed, which includes the Gold Doubloons, the Jellyfish, and the SPONGEBOB letters. Collecting every last collectible is critically essential for 100% Completion.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The PS2 version has one that causes the game to freeze right in the middle of loading screens. Thankfully, the GameCube version has been spared from this bug.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Due to the lack of water, Tree Dome is the only level in the game not to have jellyfish, instead having bees and wasps that Spongebob needs to "fish" with his jellyfishing costume. Spongebob's jumping sound is also different compared to every other area in the game for the same reason.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Spongebob needs a bus ticket to access Chum World, with the level itself being accessed via bus stop like the others. Despite this, the level's entrance clearly shows Spongebob used a ferry to get there, with said ferry being the only way to return to Bikini Bottom.
• Ghost Pirate: Many, though not all, of the Dutchman's crew are ghosts like him.
• Gold Is Yellow: Doubloons are bright yellow, rather than the more earthy yellow real gold generally is.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: To advance through the game, you need to collect all of the SPONGEBOB letters and the Dutchman's treasure in each level.
• Graffiti Town: Downtown Bikini Bottom.
• Green Hill Zone: Jellyfish Fields.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The "catch Plankton if you can" task in Chum World. You are given no context for this task other than a note from Plankton saying he'll be back later, and Plankton himself is nowhere to be seen anywhere in the level no matter how long you wait. What you're supposed to do is complete every other area first and then go back to Chum World, where Plankton will be standing holding the final letter tile. There is no indication whatsoever that you're supposed to do this, and it doesn't help that the game railroads you into going to Chum World first before Goo Lagoon (due to Larry refusing to hand over his bus ticket), yet the level can't actually be completed until you go to and clear Goo Lagoon, backtrack to Downtown with the Reef Blower for Sandy's trash mission, then come back to Chum World.
  • Many of the letter tile tasks suffer from this due to having vague descriptions, and the game not giving any context for what part of the area those tasks are even in. This is especially a problem in areas such as Jellyfish Fields and Goo Lagoon, which are huge, have confusing level design, and have multiple subareas, none of which you are told what tasks they contain and where.
  • The Jellyfishing competition in Jellyfish Fields is infamous for this. The game counts the 100 jellyfish needed to win the competition as your game total, not just for Jellyfish Fields (for example, counting jellyfish you caught in Bikini Bottom and Downtown). Thing is, most players would logically assume that the competition only counts jellyfish caught in Jellyfish Fields, and the only thing telling you otherwise is an easily missable textbox that only shows up one time. Not helping matters is there's only 84 jellyfish in Jellyfish Fields, meaning you HAVE to catch some in Downtown and Bikini Bottom in order to win the competition. This had led to many players getting stuck, assuming that they missed something, when they've already won the competition via total jellyfish caught in every area.
• Have a Nice Death: Dying during the final boss fight will trigger a short cutscene of the Flying Dutchman gloating and making Spongebob part of his ghostly crew.
• Hub Level: Bikini Bottom.
• Immune to Mind Control: Patrick proves immune to the Dutchman's hypnosis, likely due to his low intelligence, though Patrick actually wants to be a pirate and goes willingly. SpongeBob becomes immune to it as well because of the treasures.
• Interactive Narrator: The narrator and SpongeBob speak directly to each other at many points throughout the game.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Sandy's Treedome since you get to climb her tree. The lighthouse in Goo Lagoon also qualifies.
• Kick the Dog: The Flying Dutchman refusing SpongeBob's Take Me Instead, taking Gary, going after SpongeBob's other friends who had nothing to do with freeing him from the chest even though he's only supposed to go after those who free him and disturb his treasure, and later coming back to try and take SpongeBob anyway.
• Mass Hypnosis: The Dutchman unleashes this power on the Bikini Bottomites and SpongeBob's friends, turning them against him and making them his mindless slaves. He tried to do the same to SpongeBob before the final battle, but the treasures he collected protect him so he's unaffected.
• Monster Clown: Plankton's employees at Chum World are anglerfish dressed up as clowns. While some are harmless, such as the ones who give SpongeBob challenges to complete, others will attack him on sight.
• Muscle Beach Bum: One type of enemy encountered in the Goo Lagoon levels are buff lifeguards who attack SpongeBob for running on the beach or just because. They come in two varieties: a smaller one that can be defeated in one hit, and a larger one that requires three.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Dying to the Flying Dutchman actually gets you some unique dialogue from him where he declares that SpongeBob is all his, then the game reloads to before the boss fight like normal.
• No-Sell: Subverted. SpongeBob believes that collecting the Flying Dutchman's treasures makes him completely impervious to the Dutchman's powers, and they do make him immune to his attempts at hypnosis... but the narrator corrects him: they only make him mostly immune, and the Dutchman can still inflict bodily harm against him.
• Oh, Crap!: SpongeBob has this reaction when the narrator tells him he's not actually completely immune to the Dutchman's powers, which he assumed due to reading it in Squidward's book and not knowing it was based on outdated research.
• Palette Swap: A variation in that the swap appears before the original, the lobster construction worker enemies found in the Downtown construction site are obviously Larry's model tinted blue.
• Palmtree Panic: Goo Lagoon.
• Permanently Missable Content: If you do not collect all of the doubloons within the pier stage of Goo Lagoon before the Flying Dutchman tears it apart, then those doubloons will be gone. This could potentially make the game Unintentionally Unwinnable if you didn't collect enough of them.
• Pickup Hierarchy:
  • Primary: SPONGEBOB letter tiles, the Flying Dutchman's treasures
  • Secondary: Gold Doubloons, Jellyfish, Sand Dollars
  • Tertiary: Square Pants
• Playable Epilogue: Averted, see Point of No Return below.
• Playable Menu: The main menu puts SpongeBob in the Krusty Krab's kitchen, at which point he can access the menu options by walking to various parts of the area: the grill for New Game, the door out of the kitchen for Load Game, the condiment section for Options, and a storage cabinet for Extras.
• Plot Coupon: The SPONGEBOB letters are needed to be collected in order to advance through the game. Seven of the nine letters are scattered around the levels^note with some of them being held by NPCs who will only give the letter to you once you complete a task for them while the other two are obtained by collecting a certain amount of Gold Doubloons and Jellyfish. Once you find them all in a level, you will be transported into a puzzle minigame where you have to arrange the collected letters into a complete image of a treasure chest. Then once that's done, you have to use the treasure hunting gear to find one of The Flying Dutchman's lost treasures.
• Point of No Return: Once you enter The Flying Dutchman's Graveyard, you cannot return to Bikini Bottom. Likewise, once you beat The Flying Dutchman, reloading the same save file again will only return you to the final boss so the only way to replay the levels again is to start a new game or use the level select cheat code.
• Power-Up Motif: Practically the entire theme of the whole game. All five of SpongeBob's costumes (including the two event-specific ones) have their own distinct music when worn, and even default SpongeBob himself has his own theme.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The GBA version uses music from the show for stage themes, converted to 32-bit form by Martin Schioeler.
• Retcon: It appears this Flying Dutchman is completely different from the one from the original show. Never in the show does the Dutchman say anything about eternal slumber or prison bottles. Likewise, in the game's opening, he outright states he's never met "a talking cheese block" ^note SpongeBob before, despite their many encounters in the show.
• Scary Stinging Swarm: SpongeBob buys a beehive from Squidward thinking it's a giant acorn and gives it to Sandy as a present. When she takes it out of its container, it unleashes a bunch of bees and wasps that SpongeBob must capture in addition to knocking the hive off the tree.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The plot of the game begins when SpongeBob and Gary accidentally release the Flying Dutchman from the magic bottle he's trapped in. The game ends with SpongeBob trapping the Dutchman in another magic bottle after beating him in a boss battle.
• Shout-Out: Collecting the SPONGEBOB letters is fairly reminiscent of collecting the KONG letters in the Donkey Kong Country games.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The normal theme and the Jellyfishing theme will invoke this if they play in Goo Lagoon during the climb up the lighthouse or the pier scene with the Dutchman, as they are both very cheerful, not at all suitable for a scene with climbing a lighthouse during a thunderstorm or a chase sequence where the villain is trying to run you down with a ship.
• Tactical Suicide Boss: One of the Flying Dutchman's attacks has him drop bombs on his ship that SpongeBob can pick up and throw at him. Said bombs are the only way to properly damage him, and he goes down after a few hits.
• Take Me Instead: SpongeBob pleads the Flying Dutchman to take him instead of Gary at the beginning of the game. It doesn't work. The Dutchman later comes back to try and hypnotize SpongeBob into serving him anyway after having taken not only Gary but several of his other friends as well; thankfully, the treasures he has collected up to that point protect against the hypnosis.
• Under the Sea: The entire game.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Flying Dutchman's Graveyard, which combines Lethal Lava Land, Big Boo's Haunt, Derelict Graveyard, and Gangplank Galleon all in one sitting.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: It's possible to hit Sandy and Larry during object-smashing competitions.
• Waddling Head: Unlike most other fish characters, the Chum World clowns don't have a separate head and torso.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The fate of Chum World is never revealed, with Spongebob simply going there to search for one of the Flying Dutchman's treasures, and making no attempt to stop Plankton or bring people back to the Krusty Krab. By the end of the game, Spongebob simply leaves the amusement park as it is, meaning Plankton still has a successful business in operation (as indicated by the amount of people in the Big Top area) that's stealing customers from Mr. Krabs, but this whole plot point is completely forgotten about in favor of stopping the Flying Dutchman, who's defeat is treated as a happy ending despite Plankton still being at large. Chum World itself has never made an appearance in any other game or the show, leaving its fate unknown.
  • On that note, the whole subplot about the Krusty Krab going out of business is completely forgotten about right after the food delivery missions in Downtown are completed, and the aforementioned Chum World subplot is introduced.
  • Plankton shows up for a single cutscene to introduce Chum World early in the game, then later in Jellyfish Fields to give a hint about how Spongebob is supposed to get a ticket for the ferry there. Afterwards, he basically disappears from the plot, with his final appearance being a chase sequence in Chum World. After Spongebob grabs the letter tile he was holding, he completely vanishes from the game entirely with no fanfare or resolution whatsoever.
  • Larry the Lobster simply appears in Bikini Bottom after completing Jellyfish Fields, and disappears just as quickly after Spongebob defeats him in a karate match. He doesn't even get kidnapped by the Flying Dutchman like Spongebob's other friends, with his sole appearance being dedicated to the Goo Lagoon area.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: All snails encountered in the game are afraid of the sound SpongeBob's reef blower makes.
• Your Size May Vary: The beehive that SpongeBob gives to Sandy is initially small enough for him to carry in his hands and fit inside a glass jar. After giving the hive to Sandy, it suddenly becomes bigger than SpongeBob's entire body, as he has to body slam it out of the tree.

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