And here I still managed to end up enjoying Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated despite starting it off with bad impressions for me. Sometimes I think it is impressive when I play a "bad" game that's bad in the way I don't like it, rather than it just being plain boring, because that means there's more to talk about in terms of what makes it not work.

First of all, the control is too slippery. While it isn't a huge deal on the ground, when trying to glide, SpongeBob will be turning way too fast, making you miss jumps or have a hard time controlling him.

I do have some mixed feelings about the level design. I liked the different movement options and how , they are probably the best part of the game, but the levels themselves feel like they want to cram in too much in them with how short they actually are, which results in them being more memorable from concept rather than gameplay. My guess is that it's because this game has the same controls as BFBB, but that it fits more for a collectathon like it while this game is a lot more linear with the occasional collectible, which way too many are hidden in plain sight. I know this is a kids game, but even to them this is too easy. And aside from said collectibles, there really isn't anything else to do in the levels, since if you want to fully complete them, you need to backtrack.

The story is mostly just an excuse to include as many SpongeBob references as possible. Hell, a majority of the levels literally use the same locations as BFBB with just a new theme such as historical set pieces. And in terms of structure, you just go from one world to another in a straightforward manner, nothing more to say.

There are also many technical problems. I normally don't complain too much about these sorts of things, but it was too distracting in this game, like the sound design. Sound effects don't always occur, voices either cancel each other out or talk on top of each other, and just like in BFBB, get used to hearing the same lines over and over again. And there are several times where the game would just stop for a few seconds, likely from there being too much on screen, and as you can guess, that's not fun (there are rarely any loading screens in the game, so compared to previous SB games, this one has to balance a lot in just one level).

And this is pretty unimportant, but anyways. I've been a fan of SpongeBob since I was little, but in recent times, I've decided to move on to pursue other media. I still wanted to give this game a chance, because, hey, I still have my fondness for the sponge. But then I left it feeling pretty disappointed, so let's just say, I feel even more ready then ever to move on.

But major thumps up for this game not restricting itself to just the pre-movie era when making references to the show.

This game is very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, it has really really good visuals, and a great engine. The world is very colorful, and it looks like straight eye candy. It really feels like a lot of it is ripped straight from the TV series. The controls, and feel of the game are also really good. Everything feels snappy, much like the original game, and the new moves feel like a great fit. The music and sound design is also great too, and enhance the game. Overall the look and feel of this game is actually incredible, and is really surprising for a licensed kids game, but man there's a lot I don't like. The game is a buggy mess. Weird glitches would happen all the time. Most don't effect gameplay, but sometimes it would be a real pain. There was a point where I had to exit the game and open it again because the O button just straight up would not respond, and I needed to ground pound something to progress. A lot of the levels are just straight up not fun. Like it's so repetitive. Lot of the platforming is solid, but fighting the enemies is so monotonous and tedious. I also thought the final boss was really underwhelming, and not a great way to conclude the game. Overall a mixed bag, but still very much above the average licensed kids game. Worth picking up despite it's flaws!

A welcome surprise after years of less than subpar Spongebob games. As a Battle for Bikini Bottom fan, I appreciate what this game was going for, especially with all the callbacks to what is still, in my opinion, the best game in the franchise by a huge margin.

But it does feel really... cheap? Unfinished even? More time in the oven would've really helped to polish what's here. Animations are pretty janky, combat isn't anywhere near as satisfying as BFBB, it's ridiculously short, and everything just looks kind of plain. I'm sure the devs weren't afforded all the time and money they would've liked, so I respect the shoes they were trying to fill here regardless.

Cosmic Shake is a really good Spongebob game that doesn't quite reach the shoulders of the two giants that are BFBB and the Movie game, but it's a step in the right direction I hope to see turn into more of a leap by the time we get another entry.

2023 Ranked

This one was a pleasant surprise, I enjoyed myself! ...that is, if the game didn't glitch my save file at one point and I had to start over from the beginning again. Other than that, good stuff!
Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated was an alright remake of the gamecube original and this is supposed to be the sequel we never got to it. When you view it from that lens it's hands down the best Spongebob game we've gotten. With tons of love and callbacks to the series that I know all ages of the show will appreciate. This show was a huge part of my life and playing through this game made me feel like a kid again. This was definitely a passion project made my fans of the series that respect its source material, you can tell everyone had a lot of fun voicing their lines. For a licensed childrens game in the year 2023, It's certainly up to stuff, I can imagine this being some little kids favorite game.

The follow up/sequel to Battle for Bikini Bottom, it's alright but has a few issues.

The game areas take inspiration from the TV specials. A medieval area was taken from Dunces and Dungeons, a Wild West area was taken from Pest of the West.

The only playable character is Spongebob but his move set is quite sizeable. Continuing from BfBB are spin attack and ground pound. But borrowing from Sandy from BfBB, Spongebob can glide using the Krusty Krab Pizza and he can Dodge by cartwheeling which was similar to Patrick's ability to cartwheel from the movie game.

To get to the different areas, you must take portals but I wish it was more open world like modern games. Since in BfBB, it was like Super Mario 64 with a collectathon, this is more linear like Sunshine and Galaxy with light exploration.

For the next major Spongebob game, I would like to see an open world type game with tons of references from new and old episodes. More playable characters like Mr. Krabs and Squidward. Also a story that made it sound like it could be a interesting TV special or movie.

A throwback to the gamecube/ps2/xbox era of platformers, I had a good amount of fun with this one. Going in I was expecting a similar experience to Battle for Bikini Bottom but that was not like that at all. Instead of a collectathon this is essentially a linear 3d platformer, and a solid one at that. Gameplay is solid, it controls well and actually has a lot of combat which I didn't expect. It mixes it up a bit with minigames and things but for the most part it's a lot of jumping (woohoo!). There are some collectables and a hub world but they are very underutilized, you essentially are just going from point A to point B but that isn't necessarily a bad thing since it was fun almost the whole time.

Spongebob destroys reality by making wishes and has to rescue all his friends who are trapped in other realities. This leads to some fun creative levels like a karate movie set or cowboy world, then you get to see alt reality versions of some of the characters. The writing obviously isn't anything to write home about but there were a few moments I laughed at.

My expectations with Cosmic Shake as a budgeted 3D platformer that doesn’t cost full price is that it would be decent at least and I’m happy to report that the game is wonderful. It has a few problems that makes it feel so low-budgeted, but I would say there is enough heart put into it for a budgeted title that I would recommend if you love to play another colorful 3D platformer.

Now my biggest surprise with this game was the writing. I still think the characterizations are a bit flanderized, but the writing itself made me smile so much on how the character dynamics bounce so well off each other with their dialogues and not having to rely on visual gags as the main substance that is comedy, which unfortunately current SpongeBob suffers from way too much. I haven’t enjoyed this much writing from SpongeBob since like half of season 4 or Sponge Out of Water. They also make a lot of callbacks from early seasons and thankfully most of them don’t feel so forced in except for 2 of them from my experience.

Top all of this with surprisingly well-animated cutscenes are that very expressive, having all the voice actors that still sound great voicing their iconic or even side characters, and having a new brand character for this called Kassandra whiles is a very predictable type of character still a great addition to the cast of characters. This is easily my favorite written SpongeBob adventure in a video game form.


Now as for the gameplay itself, you only play as SpongeBob this time compared to BFBB where you can also play as Sandy or Patrick. That might sound like a downgrade, but they made this up by combining other playable character move sets into SpongeBob for this game and that was honestly such a wise decision because this leads to SpongeBob being way more fun to control compared to the previous games where he was pretty basic due to having to balance previous games around other playable characters to have different move sets each. Now that they can only focus solely on SpongeBob, it's much more satisfying to unlock new moves like the dodge roll, pizza glide, or karate kick that I consistently use for platforming or combat that are engaging. it leads to the level design being very focused and shaking things up enough to feel new, but not ruining the overall flow that is pure platforming, which I do think Movie Game failed at it, and even BFBB to an extent with a few obnoxious objectives.

The game is very linear compared to BFBB and depending on what you expect from this game, I do understand being let down by the lack of openness that is the collectathon structure in BFBB that was well known. However, I can easily swallow that because I do think the level design despite being very linear is still very engaging to go through at least when it comes to the main paths, and isn’t so much of a straight line that it fights against you. There are still enough of these open sections for you to complete main objectives from different points, it has that doughnut shape structure within these level sections where the game lets you complete stuff that eventually leads you back to the main path naturally or find a doubloon that lets you spend on cool unlockable costumes that are callbacks to the past. The structure & level design is consistently well-designed & focused I find to be more fun than BFBB when it comes to the main paths at least. There is also not a single level that I disliked, unlike BFBB where Kelp Forest was just a mess.

The last few things I have to praise before I get into my complaints is that the game looks gorgeous. Environments or characters look so stylized or colorful, each level looks so distinctive. The soundtrack is also very cool, not blowing my socks off, but it was very catchy to listen to during the game.

Now, my biggest complaint with this game is the finale. Not to spoil what exactly happens, but it feels very anticlimactic & the final boss gameplay-wise is a complete joke. Left me soured a bit at the finish lines.

My last major complaint is that whiles going through the main paths is very fun, I do think optional quests that require you to backtrack makes 100% of the game just not very fun, especially since the last 20 doubloons that you use to unlock costumes are useless. So these optional quests feel like padding the game out, it is not the end of the world for me because just finding doubloons is enough to unlock all the costumes but keep this in mind if you are considering 100% this.


In conclusion, I’m very happy with this overall package that was made by people who loved the source material, but they also knew how to design a very fun 3D platformer despite its low budget showing its cracks sometimes. For a game that goes for a lower price, I can recommend this to anyone who is a fan of SpongeBob or are into 3D platformers in general

There were quite a few audio bugs during major cutscenes, and some pop-in. The level design is also pretty forgettable compared to BFBB and the Movie game.

It's still fun if you like the previous games, but it definitely feels like people trying to make a platformer from scratch for the first time at certain points. If I'm not mistaken, the developer hadn't really made their own game until this one. They just seem to be fans of BFBB that got to do Rehydrated.

If there's one thing I do love about this game though, it's the music. They really went all out in that respect.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a classic 3D platform game set in the world of SpongeBob. The game was announced as the most important game of this franchise, but it's not what they told us.

Starting with the positive aspects of this game: the characters and their charisma. While the story isn't extremely intriguing, it resembles an episode of the cartoon. SpongeBob and his friends exhibit the same humor that we typically see in the TV show, providing some laughs during gameplay.

Unfortunately, the gameplay is rather boring. I had the impression that I was playing a generic 3D platform game from the PS2 era. There's nothing innovative here, and everything that The Cosmic Shake attempts to do has been done much better in many other games.

The Cosmic Shake targets SpongeBob fans specifically. I'm not one of them, so I had an enjoyable time with it, but that's about it. If you're a devoted fan of this franchise, you'll likely have fun observing the characters' interactions. In conclusion, I recommend considering purchasing this game only if you find it at a significantly reduced price; otherwise, it might not be worth it.