What a disappointment for a game I was hoping could at least be passable. I should have expected this, and I partially did, but wow.

Cosmic Shake claims to be the sequel to Battle For Bikini Bottom, but it's not the sequel to that beloved classic from our childhood, no it's for the overly saturated slow and clunky remake we got a few years ago. 3 years later and we not only have the same bugs and glitches but completely new ones to this game. You're not supposed to go backwards like that! It honestly just reeks of a strained budget and a team who doesn't know what they are doing at this point, which seems to be a thing with most modern Nickelodeon games.

Gameplay is...there? Yeah you platform across big levels, but there is just this emptiness that exists in each area. What made BFBB so much of a joy is that while there was a main objective to each area, there were still side objectives and goodies to find that were mandatory to beat the game, incentivizing exploration. Here it's just jellies and doubloons which are only used for an optional costume shop. Without the incentive of primary (golden spatulas, goober tokens) or secondary (socks, extras) collectables and all we have are the tertiary ones, there just feels like there is no point to going around looking for secrets or doing anything but the main objective. So you are just left in large linear areas with the most forgettable music of all time and nothing to do besides barebones platforming and combat that was nerfed from BFBB. Yeah let's get into the combat...

There are now set action scenes that require you to fight enemies to progress. Sure that's fine, but the issue lies when the enemies in this game are not fun to fight. They're all loosely based off robots from BFBB, but they just feel worst to fight. The duplicatotron expy has 3 hit points and between each hit has an aoe unblockable stun attack, or the giant beefcakes who can't be damaged until they just conveniently do that one attack that makes them able to take damage, who also have 3 hp. It makes combat a slog when it was very snappy in other Spongebob games, not just BFBB or Movie but like Creature as well. Sure, you unlock new abilities in each level, but they all feel clunky to use like nearly everything else in this game.

This show also has that modern Spongebob folly to never stand on its own two feet and must rely on stuff from the show to keep going. While I understand it's cool to have references in a license game, I loved when BFBB did that, it is just so ham fisted that nearly everything in this game was "LOOK AT THE THING! ITS THE THING FROM THE SHOW/BFBB!!!!!" and it feels like this game barely has an identity to stand on. I think the trailers mainly using Band Geeks music as well as showing off all the costumes from other episodes really shows how little creativity went into this game. It hopes you cling onto your nostalgia the entire time without any substance.

Oh yeah speaking of those costumes, fun fact. This game came with a day 1 DLC for all the costumes you would most likely want that were shown in trailers mind you. Kind of fucked to see that you can play as spongegar in the trailers and then realize hes locked behind a $10 paywall. I know it's not important but this kind of backhanded marketing kind of fucked me up. Like there is already an in game costume shop but w/e.

I was originally going to give this game a 5/10 / 2.5/5, and in my mind it still is that. That is basically the dead zone of games for me, those that do absolutely nothing and while are technically functional give me nothing to enjoy or even really hate besides a massive blah. That swamp of mediocrity where games are forgotten, the worst fate any media could have. The only reason I gave this game a lower score was mainly because of how much it pisses me off, how the bugs are even more apparent, how there's DLC that isn't needed, how this is supposed to be a sequel to one of my favorite games of all time without knowing what made that game great. It all just breaks my heart and I wish I had bought Pizza Tower or fucking hell even Fire Emblem Engage over this, at least that game would've been funny bad with good gameplay as I've heard.

Do yourself a favor and just play BFBB. The original, the one that's actually good. Or even the movie game, which is a lot better of a sequel despite its flaws.

We owe that IGN guy an apology.

Reviewed on Feb 01, 2023


3 Comments


1 year ago

IGN was right about too much water
Spongebob lives underwater
i dont know where im going with this
Cool review! Even when you use the costumes SpongeBob uses his magic costume in cutscenes. Too bad, would been funny to see band geek SpongeBob in the caveman level cutscenes.

1 year ago

IGN owe us an apology for existing.
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