Thank you Outright Games for providing us with a review code!

Despite Patrick being the second or third most-known SpongeBob character, the guy rarely has moments in the spotlight. Recently, they’ve been giving the lovable starfish some love with his very own show—with a mixed reception. Now it’s time for him to star in a game he can call his own.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Patrick Star Game is a very different take from the more recent SpongeBob titles. While Battle for Bikini Bottom and The Cosmic Shake are platformers in the style of 3D platformers from the 90s to mid-2000s, The Patrick Star Game follows in the footsteps of those crazy sandbox titles such as the Goat Simulator series, just in a more family-friendly wrapping. It starts perfectly too as Patrick gets up, excited for a new day and… goes and does things. There is absolutely zero plot in Patrick’s Game. Very fitting for such an enigmatic character. You’ll have Patrick doing things such as blowing fish residents away with reef blowers, driving vehicles around Need For Speed style and taking out criminals, and catching jellyfish.

One thing in Patrick’s Game is that he has a control scheme that takes some time getting used to. The jumping physics are more of an “all-or-nothing” situation. Patrick has air control while in the air, but only one type of jump. For each trigger, if using a controller, also lets Patrick control one of his arms and he can do various things when he is holding the dozens of items available. Some of them include condiment bottles in which he can spray at others or paint the town in ketchup or mustard. He can also find reefblowers and cause havoc around the town that way as well.

Please understand that the experience is heavily physics-based as many of these open-world sandbox titles are, there is jank to be abound. In this case, most of the jank is intentional. There is an achievement (called feats or quest tasks) that has you clip through the ground called “Rock Bottom”. The physics are all over the place and nearly any item that isn’t a building or stationary landmark can be interacted with. Patrick’s Game encourages you to play around its environment and experiment with the physics, as outside of competing in the Fry Cook Games, you can take on any quest or tasks at any point at your leisure. You can even stop some of these quests halfway through, take on another, and then continue that quest from where you left off like nothing happened. Some very silly situations can occur as Patrick can sleep on demand. Activating Patrick's narcolepsy, causing him to tumble downhill at high speeds. Burp while rolling around to launch him in the air, flying right into exploding pies, carrying Patrick across the town. This is just one of the many crazy examples in my playthrough.

While Patrick walks around familiar landmarks of Bikini Bottom such as Glove World and Jellyfish Fields, he’ll meet up with various SpongeBob characters that either have a list of objectives for him to compete in or a minigame that has you interact with the physics. Some of these minigames are quite enjoyable, like the one Sandy has you do, skydiving through rings with various aerial backpacks and parasols, changing the way you soar through the sky. Other minigames aren’t so fun such as Mrs. Puffs Rage Room, which lacks impact for a minigame that wants you to cause as much destruction as possible. All of these tasks and quests earn Patrick sand dollars. Sand dollars are simply a point system that keeps track of a player’s progress and unlocks costumes for Patrick to wear. Many of the costumes are references and callbacks to many early SpongeBob episodes and moments.

As far as I am aware, the voice cast comes back to reprise their roles. They’re still putting in a solid performance even with hearing the age of the cast that have been doing these roles for over two decades now. The soundtrack takes inspiration from the show but goes in a different direction for some tasks. During vehicle-based tasks, it’ll play a ska-inspired track when making food deliveries. Overall, the soundtrack and sound direction are solid, and more than I expected from a title such as this.

Patrick’s Game looks acceptable graphically. The environments have enough fidelity that it’s easy to tell what is what, and they are distinct enough that I can navigate without the use of the in-game map. The character models look like the characters and are expressive enough. Although, the way SpongeBob himself looks, is pretty uncanny. He looks unfinished compared to the rest of the models.

Moral concerns are pretty few, as given for such a title and IP. Violence is kept to the bare minimum. While there are destructible objects and stuff, the fish people pretty harmlessly get pushed around by all the physics and pie/barrel explosions. Crude humor is also kept to a minimum, as Patrick can burp on command, but it does serve more of a gameplay purpose besides Patrick being gross.

I definitely enjoyed my time with The Patrick Star Game, but I had to be very tolerant of my experience with the Switch port. I feel like a broken record having to constantly state how poorly some Switch ports run, but this might be the worst Switch port in recent memory. With some ports, they can at least run at a consistent 30 FPS. Patrick’s Game can barely manage 20 FPS the majority of the time, with it dipping as low as 10 FPS or lower when you reach downtown Bikini Bottom. Shockingly, the game only crashed on me once and I wasn’t able to replicate it. Please, unless you have no other option, avoid the Switch port and buy it for any other platform.

Other than the Switch port being barely playable, The Patrick Star Game is a nice, kid-friendly(er) take at the chaotic sandbox simulation genre either for people who love Patrick Star, or those who may have found those Goat Simulator games too crude for themselves or others. The asking price might seem like a lot for a title that shouldn’t take someone any longer than 6 hours to even 100% it, but I’m sure it’ll go on sale at the time of this review anyway.