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
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