Sweet, Sweet Victory! (Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake in review)

    Are ya ready, kids? I certainly am! When I was a little kid in maybe Third or Fourth Grade, Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom came out, and unlike most licensed games of the time, it was actually a lot of fun. It wasn't based on any one episode, but more just focused on the concept of Spongebob and traveling to several different locations from the show while defeating robots that Plankton accidentally created. Obviously many years have passed since then, but thanks to speedrunners and just overall nostalgia for the Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox era, a few years ago they released a remake of that game, Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. This was more or less the same game that was put out so long ago, but it looked a lot better with the new hardware. This time, there were a few glitches that weren't present in the original game (one hilarious one allowed you to teleport to the final boss from the beginning, and made the speedrun time about three minutes in the first few days after release), and also this version had a multiplayer mode that I'm told was nothing to write home about. All in all, this was a more easily accessible version of the game than its original 2003 release, though I think the common conception was that this port may have been a little rushed. It was certainly a fine version of the game, but I figured it would be the last Spongebob 3D Platformer that would come out for some time. I'm so glad that I was wrong because a few years later, Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake was announced, and it finally came out late January 2023. Feeling a bit nostalgic myself, as well as on recommendations from a few friends, I picked it up a few days later and I'm happy to say that I've finished it now. Did this game make me feel as goofy as a goober, or am I wearing my "I really wish I weren't here right now" button? Let's find out today, I'm ready!

Just a normal day in Bikini Bottom...

    The Cosmic Shake begins like many episodes. Spongebob wakes up and wants to go to Glove World with Patrick, and after a short tutorial segment, they're met with a mermaid merchant named Kassandra who lets Spongebob take some special bubble soap home with him. He blows lots of bubbles while making wishes to benefit all of his friends, but in doing so, accidentally rips holes in the fabric of the universe, sucking all of his friends into alternate dimentions, and transforming Patrick into a balloon. Spongebob has to work with the saleswoman Mermaid, giving her "cosmic jelly" to fix the world before Bikini Bottom is destroyed forever. That's the starting point for this little adventure, and it's a really fun premise overall. Obviously "multiverse" concepts are very popular right now, but this gives a good backdrop to pay tribute to many different episodes of Spongebob from over the years. On top of just paying tribute to episodes, a lot of these levels feel like they're remixes of the worlds from Battle for Bikini Bottom. For instance, instead of Jellyfish Fields, we have Wild West Jellyfish fields, etc. It's a cool way to, again, pay tribute to what has come before. Spongebob has to travel to all of these worlds to save his friends, and in order to get into the worlds, Madame Kassandra has to make costumes for him, so he'll fit in with the portal. It's a silly reason, but it gives a lot of fan service. One level has Spongebob in his "Ka-rah-tay" outfit, in one he's wearing a glove on his head from Glove World, and on top of the story costumes, there are tons that you get from collecting doubloons, an optional pick-up from around the worlds. The main collectible in the game that you pick up are bubbles made of cosmic jelly, which certainly have more to do with the story here than the "Shiny Things" did back in Battle for Bikini Bottom, and I think that's a really nice change. The Golden Underwear and Golden Spatulas do make a return here from that game, and the Golden Underwear still gives you one more health point, but the Golden Spatulas don't seem to do anything in this game, while they were pretty much your main objective in the older one. I actually had to look up what the Golden Spatulas are for, since the game doesn't even seem to fully acknowledge them. 

    There are a lot of classic mechanics from Battle for Bikini Bottom that were kept in here, but all remixed to work with Spongebob. In that older game, you could play as Spongebob, Patrick, and Sandy, but since Spongebob is your sole playable character this time around, they had to figure out a way to make it all work. Sandy's lasso move, which acted like a grappling hook, is now replaced with Spongebob swinging with a long arm on a hook. Sandy's glide move was replaced with Spongebob pulling out a Krusty Krab Pizza box and gliding down with that. Spongebob retains most of his moves from the older game, he has a spin attack as his standard attacking move, he has a ground pound, though instead of having to do with bubbles, he just falls to the ground in what I think is a reference to the intro from the cartoon. He actually has two ground pounds, a stronger one is triggered after a double jump, and it has more of an animation like a belly flop. On top of these, there's a karate kick, a new move for this game, which allows for much better lateral movement which feels really good, especially since the Glide move seems a bit heavier than you would expect. Another new move that comes along in this game is the bubble shot, which allows you to trap enemies in bubbles for a quick stun. It's honestly not a super great move, but it works okay as a projectile attack. Spongebob's tongue slide is back as well, and it feels pretty much the same, which could be good or bad depending on how you felt about it in Battle for Bikini Bottom, since it's pretty much the same here. In this game there are also sections where you ride a seahorse or Spongebob's unicycle (another nice callback), and they control fine, for the most part. The seahorse relies on fairly similar mechanics to the tongue slide, but with a speed boost that can be triggered with Square (On PS4 anyways, which is where I played it), and the unicycle reminded me of a game like Subway Surfers, where there are lanes that you can switch between, which makes for a nice change in this sort of gameplay.

More references than you could shake a spatula at!

    Spongebob has been on for so long that there are tons of little memes and jokes that people my age still regularly refer to, and it's great to see so many of them referenced in this game. Fred the fish appears, better known as the "my leg" guy, and boy does he say his famous line. The Invisible Boatmobile is parked behind Shady Shoals Rest Home. The silhouette of the Hash Slinging Slasher is shown in one puzzle sequence. Honestly the list goes on and on, with a wide variety of different references visual as well as in the character's dialogue! Spongebob's aforementioned glide move in this game uses a Krusty Krab Pizza box for it, even singing the Krusty Krab Pizza song while he does it. The loading screens occasionally say, "One Loading Screen Later," accompanied by the french narrator, which is a great touch, as is the fact that a lot of times in this game, the music in the background is pulled directly from the cartoon. It's a fantastic little nod to the fact that the game is really emulating the spirit of the show. Perhaps more importantly than anything else, we have Clancy Brown as the rightful voice of Mr. Krabs, who didn't record any dialogue for Battle for Bikini Bottom, and instead they got someone who just... didn't sound right. All of the Voice Acting sounds spot on in this game, since they got the actual cast to reprise all of their roles, including the Flying Dutchman and Mrs. Puff, which is fantastic, since they both have such iconic voices. Of course, many of the Voice Actors from the show are voicing multiple characters, since they have such varied voices that they can go with, but all of them lend to the feeling of this game just being a classic episode, or maybe a TV movie of Spongebob from back in the day.

    Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake was a great game, and even though it was on the shorter side, and didn't have the polish of a lot of most modern games now have, it feels like a love letter to the PS2/ Gamecube era of 3D Platformers, and it looks gorgeous at that. It's clear that animation and technology in this medium have come a long way since Battle for Bikini Bottom came out in 2004. All of the characters are so expressive here, and I'm really happy that studios are still wanting to make games in this caliber from time to time. I've not really checked official reviews of this game, but based on what I've seen on Twitter and the like, I think people have really enjoyed this game for what it is. 3D Platformers are always just a lot of fun, and this one is no exception to that rule. I would highly recommend this game to people who want a short, fun, and funny game, especially fans of the show that the game is based on, of course. I'm happy to report that The Cosmic Shake is far from a load of barnacles, and is in fact, the Spongebob game for you and me.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I was always a huge fan of these sorts of games when I was a kid (Battle for Bikini Bottom and Fairly Odd Parents: Shadow Showdown were definitely two stand outs for me), and so I'm very glad that this genre has been coming back in the past few years, even if just in the indie game scene for the most part. I hope that more games like this will come soon, because this was a pretty fun time, not perfect, of course, there are some stuttering issues, but they don't get in the way of enjoying it, and they're fairly infrequent. I hope you'll have a great week, and until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Krusty Krab employee, I'll talk to you soon!