Nicktoons: Battle for Volcano Island

Anything except ask you to attack.

The worlds of Nicktoons Battle for Volcano Island could be combined as one giant puzzle. Every scenario presents a different navigational problem. Players will need to avoid spiked barriers, thrust themselves over large gaps, and remove goo dripping from an unknown source, among many other things. 

It’s not up to the player to decide how these problems are solved. They are not optional, negligible, or in any way substitutable for any solution but the one intended by the developers.

Solutions are determined by the type of environment, each of which requires a different character to bypass. That's essentially what this game is – one of bypassing areas to collect the items that allow you to bypass more areas. It doesn't take the genre anywhere else, but don't give up hope just yet. Though this game is far from what its target market is looking for, some gamers might still find it worth examining.

Battle for Volcano Island features four recognizable Nick celebrities: SpongeBob, Danny Phantom, Patrick Star, and Timmy Turner. Drawing upon TV's most popular cartoon character, the game starts off with SpongeBob under your control. He can jump and blow bubbles. Given how quick and smooth the controls were – no unnecessary stops or stuttering (it sounds simple, but let’s not forget the number of games that screwed this up) – I expected to acquire several options for SpongeBob. I figured the game was starting out slow, allowing kids of all ages to get the hang of the experience.

Then another character entered the picture: Danny Phantom. Danny could jump just as well as SpongeBob, but the growing superhero did not come equipped with any bubble-shooting powers. He was gifted with the ability to change color, an effect the game refers to as "ghost mode." For now its usefulness was not quite clear. Ghosting did not prevent enemies from hurting Danny, and that's typically the whole reason for having such a feature. Not that there's anything "typical" about Danny. 

Before I got a chance to sink into my two playable characters, another entered the fray: Timmy Turner. As it turns out, his parents are pretty odd! They follow him around for no apparent reason, popping up when you'd least expect it. A couple of the times were predictable – it seems they liked to show up whenever they knew Timmy wasn't going to successfully complete his jump.

Timmy, unlike the others, has a special jump. He can jump the standard way. But he is without powers comparable to SpongeBob or Danny, nor does he have powers that resemble the character you'll acquire next – Patrick.

Timmy's own abilities enable him to grab onto any of the rings found throughout the game. All characters can grab them, but only Timmy can stretch his arms further than the length of his entire body. From this position the player can swing Timmy around and launch him in any direction, catapult-style.

Danny's ghost-like powers turned out to be another key to puzzling scenarios. Depending on which character the game wants you to play as, you may be bombarded with a series of problems that only one specific character can fix. In Danny's case, all you'll get is colored platforms. The two main colors you'll encounter are blue and green. When you're playing as normal Danny, blue platforms are solid – green platforms are transparent and can be walked through. When Danny is in ghost form, the platforms' solidities are reversed. Now blue is the one you can walk through, and green is as hard as a rock.

The cool part about this is how you'll have to change between normal and ghost modes to climb through a level. The higher the platforms go, the harder they'll be to navigate. You'll have to switch modes midair, and that's not always an easy thing to do. Once or twice in a row isn't too bad. Certainly this is nowhere near the challenge of the average GBA adventure game. When you have to change modes several times to sustain your position in the level – it's not Earth-shattering, but it keeps your fingers moving.

SpongeBob's bubbles, though seemingly useless at first, are the only way you're going to remove that weird goo that keeps pouring out of the island. Patrick, the star-man blob thing, can stick to certain walls and use his pants as a parachute.

I enjoyed some of the levels and appreciated the controls, but for most gamers, that's about as far as Battle for Volcano Island’s appeal will go. This kid-targeted game is big on exploration and world puzzle solutions. It's a thinking game. You don't fight enemies, you run away from them. 

That right there is enough to kill the intended audience. The average SpongeBob, Danny Phantom, or Fairly OddParents fan is not going to have the patience to tolerate what this game throws at them.

In addition to the puzzles already described, there are also a series of cheap, hit-or-miss conundrums that do not control very well. When playing as Timmy, his destination will, on multiple occasions, be blocked by an unnecessary wall or ceiling. I know where the game was headed with this: more challenge. But without analog sensitivity to carefully adjust Timmy, and without a 3D camera to see everything in front of you, there's no way for it to provide extra challenge. Just more frustration.

Gameplay: 6
A clever world puzzler with numerous turnoffs. Battle for Volcano Island is an interesting title that’s worth looking into if you like unusual games. Most kids, however, should pass. They’ll get more out of the standalone SpongeBob games, which are much more action-oriented.

Graphics: 6
Nothing new from these visuals, which are well below the best the Game Boy Advance (a six-year-old handheld) and SNES (a 15-year-old console) games have to offer.

Sound: 7
Better than most GBA soundtracks. The sound effects are weak, but the music is kind of catchy.

Difficulty: Easy
Frustrations aside, Battle for Volcano Island isn’t a difficult game. Kids – who are less patient and less experienced – might beg to differ.

Concept: 6.9
Battle for Volcano Island’s world puzzles are great when they’re not frustrating. When they are, the game doesn’t feel like it’s worth continuing. Also, the characters – while fun and necessary for a game with a large cast, where is the individual significance? They all have different powers. But in any other game, each of those powers would have been applied to the same character. I know that was the concept – to cram Nicktoons’ stars into one game. But if you’re going to do that, you need to take into account the importance of each character. Applying one or two unique moves to each party member is not enough, especially when those powers could have easily been applied to just one character.

Overall: 6
Nicktoons Battle for Volcano Island presents some interesting concepts, but there isn’t enough to any of them for the game to pan out. Hit-or-miss puzzles do, on rare occasions, hit a homerun. In most cases, however, they strike out.