Lottery Sticks!: “SpongeBob SquarePants featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom” For Nintendo DS
Developer: Natsume Co., Ltd.
Publisher: THQ Inc.
Genre: Puzzle Platformer
Release Date: Late 2008
Well, isn’t that title a mouthful. We are now at the end of the Nicktoons Unite series, where they put a lot of emphasis on SpongeBob’s inclusion... Oh, and I guess those other guys are here, too. It makes it seem that this is a SpongeBob SquarePants game, but it’s more accurate to call this a Nicktoons Unite game.
“Globs of Doom” also has some unique properties compared to the rest of the series: it is the only Nicktoons Unite title not to have a Game Boy Advance game—the Nintendo DS game is the sole handheld version—and Timmy Turner is nowhere to be seen.
Story
Interestingly, the Wise Old Crab from “Nicktoons: Battle for Volcano Island” makes a reapparance. He finds an ancient prophecy foretelling impending doom and contacts Jimmy Neutron to alert him. However, Jimmy is already aware of the impending doom thanks to a bunch of meteors crash-landing everywhere. Jimmy says that they will need to assemble the team (minus Timmy...) in order to deal with this new threat, but they will need some more hands...
Jimmy then teleports himself, Danny Phantom and SpongeBob SquarePants to Volcano Island before also teleporting Invader Zim, Dib (from Invader Zim), Tak, Traloc (from Tak and the Power of Juju), Beautiful Gorgeous (from The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius), Technus (from Danny Phantom) and Plankton (from SpongeBob SquarePants). Although the heroes are at first reluctant to work with the villains and vice versa, they eventually agree to work together. They then pair off by drawing sticks.
Thanks to the meteors, a bunch of goo is now everywhere, including alien creatures. It’s up to the heroes and villains to save all these worlds!
Gameplay
There are five stages with three levels each, with each third level ending in a boss fight. We also have a final boss fight that is playable after completing the five stages. With each stage, you have two pre-determined people (one hero and one villain) that you take through. Bikini Bottom has you bring SpongeBob and Technus; Amity Park has Danny and Plankton; Pupununu Village has Tak and Beautiful Gorgeous; Retroville has Jimmy and Dib; and Space Station has Zim and Traloc. (Yes, Zim is treated as a hero and Dib is treated as a villain in this game. I suppose it would be more accurate to say protagonist and antagonist...)
Each character has their own special ability which lets them traverse or affect the environment in different ways. You control one character at a time, and in order to end the level, both characters must make it to the end. However, the levels are designed such that you often separate in order to make progress, using their special abilities to do so. This game is then a puzzle platformer in that respect, which is honestly a bit refreshing compared to the other platformers in the Nicktoons Unite series.
For combat, you are given a surprisingly wide selection of moves, including a dash attack, an upward attack, an aerial downward attack, et cetera. Compared to other Nicktoons Unite games, the enemies don’t have an excessive amount of health, so combat is fine for the most part. However, the bosses can be a bit spongy themselves, so you win some, you lose some.
There is also a mechanic where some enemies can have blue or orange sparkles around them, indicating that they have a resistance to heroes (blue sparkles) or villains (orange sparkles). Honestly, this doesn’t come up often, so it doesn’t add much to the game.
Characters
Given how the levels are designed around only two people, no character feels useless. This is, again, refreshing given the other Nicktoons Unite games.
SpongeBob can create a square bubble which can serve as a platform, allowing him and Technus to reach high up places. The bubble can also be pushed by fans, so you sometimes have to change the direction of fans in order to get the bubble to go the way you want. Technus, on the other hand, has a glide which gives him good horizontal reach. Technus also has a homing attack which made the first boss pretty easy.
Danny’s dash allows him to phase through certain walls, letting him get to otherwise blocked off switches and areas. Plankton has a double jump, can enter tiny pathways and is able to launch a mini-rocket which can serve as an additional platform and break certain walls. Plankton’s second jump in his double jump is pretty small, honestly, so the rocket really makes up his movability.
Tak is able to freeze enemies, turning them into a platform that he can jump on. When freezing an enemy, if you’re close enough to them, you will also get pushed up onto the resulting platform. Beautiful Gorgeous, on the other hand, is able to stick to walls and has a kick capable of breaking a specific kind of wall. Most of the time, you’re making use of her wall-stick ability.
Jimmy has a jetpack that allows you to fully control him in the air; however, it has a limited power supply, so you have to recharge at power stations by standing on them. Dib uses wires in order to conjure an electric ball that you can also fully control in the air, allowing you to short-circuit electric gates.
Zim can shoot these mechanical arms straight up, allowing him to cling and raise himself up onto specific platforms. A platform has to be in an upright position in order to be grabbed on. Traloc has a magic powder that stuns enemies. Honestly, you can probably make it through Zim and Traloc’s stage without using Traloc’s special ability at all, but it would make it significantly more annoying.
Final Boss
It turns out that the person behind all the goo is Globulous Maximus, a great big orange glob who is in search of the “absorbent yellow” one. You may bring any already established pair of hero and villain into the boss fight. I decided to bring in SpongeBob and Technus, mostly due to Technus’ homing attack.
Honestly, I really didn’t like this boss. He has two phases which both take a while thanks to the amount of health that they have, and if you die on second phase, you get sent back to the beginning of first phase. It also doesn’t help how in both phases, the boss travels around a lot outside of your range of attack. Although Technus’ homing attack did often reach the boss, it isn’t a very strong attack, so this boss took a bit.
The arena that you fight the boss in has platforms that raise when you have one of your pair stand on a switch. This is meant to get you in range of the boss in order to hit him. I didn’t really bother with this much, though, since I used Technus’ homing attack for the most part. It also doesn’t matter as much for the second phase.
In the first phase, Globulous floats around, going down and up. Even with the platforms raised thanks to the switch being pressed down, he can still float high enough to be out of your range. His attacks consist of these small bullets which are small, fast and disappear after hitting you and a large energy ball that is slower, bigger and persists even after hitting you—you just have to wait for it to go away on its own. The energy ball will also block any attacks that hit it, which is the most annoying quality of it.
The second phase has Globulous take on a smaller, thinner and humanoid form. In addition to the bullets and energy ball, second phase Globulous will shoot out multiple eyeballs at you à la Eye of Cthulhu from “Terraria”. He will also curl up into a ball and ram into you, during which he is invincible. It is difficult to hit second phase Globulous due to his faster speed and all the attacks that he throws at you which can shield him.
After defeating Globulous, he reveals that he just wanted to know how SpongeBob always seems so happy because he wants to be happy as well, and SpongeBob tells him... to think happy thoughts. Hmm. Apparently, the specific advice SpongeBob gives depends on who you bring in, because a longplay I watched that brought in Zim and Traloc has SpongeBob tell Globulous that, “It takes one to know one!” Yeah, SpongeBob is zero-for-two on giving good advice here.
Still, the advice somehow works, and Globulous becomes SpongeGlob, now happy as a clam—or a sponge, I guess. With that, the world is saved, and the game is concluded.
Cheat Codes
This game has an abundance of cheat codes that you can enter and unlock. Interestingly, in addition to the standard cheat codes that make you more powerful or give you cosmetic changes, you also have cheat codes which make the game more difficult, such as by making enemies and the boss tougher. I think this is a neat idea and can add more replayability to the game for those who want the extra challenge.
Conclusion
For the most part, I enjoyed this game and think it is potentially the best out of the handheld Nicktoons Unite games that I have played thus far. I admit that the final boss made it end on a bit of a sour note for me, however, in addition to Zim and Traloc’s stage (I didn’t dislike their stage as much as the boss, but it just felt like there were too many enemies).
Also, because this didn’t fit anywhere else, I just wanted to mention that Vlad Plasmius is a boss that Danny and Plankton face off against, and Plankton says that he “love[s] [his] work, buddy!” and that Vlad is a “guy after [his] own heart!” What is cooking between them...