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Aficionados of Nickelodeon’s iconic square-panted hero will largely agree Battle for Bikini Backside is the most effective SpongeBob recreation. Practically 20 years later, developer Purple Lamp Studios introduced it again with a full remake, and it was clear followers have been hungry for one thing recent. The group’s response is SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake, a recreation which builds upon the gameplay of the 2020 remake with some authentic concepts of its personal. The end result? This feels just like the remake of a PS2-era platformer that by no means existed.
It follows a lot of the identical design seen in Battle for Bikini Backside, giving the sport an old style really feel. Just like the 20-year-old fan fave, Cosmic Shake helps you to discover a easy hub world, with a number of comparatively massive ranges branching off. SpongeBob feels similar to management as he did earlier than, solely this time he has just a few new methods. It additionally options Tiki crates, huge slide sections, and a handful of boss encounters. In the event you performed the remake from a few years again, you may know roughly what to anticipate when it comes to gameplay.
As an alternative of utilizing bus stops to journey to every stage, you may use massive portals to warp to alternate dimensions of Bikini Backside. That is as a result of SpongeBob will get his fingers on a magical bubble wand that grants needs, and naturally, he will get a little bit carried away. His needs disrupt his hometown with dimensional rifts, flinging his buddies throughout actuality — even Patrick is caught within the chaos, changed into a balloon. The pair are tasked with touring to every dimension and retrieving their misplaced buddies to place issues proper.
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It is a good excuse to offer some various ranges with neat themes; you may go to the wild west, a movie set, the stone age, and extra, and SpongeBob at all times has a fancy dress to match. Every degree’s location is riffing off one thing from the cartoon collection, leading to seven distinct, enjoyable environments that’ll be acquainted to followers of the present. It is clear the developer took simply as a lot inspiration from the collection because it did the earlier recreation, if no more so.
As talked about, the platforming and fight largely keep on with the blue print used for Battle for Bikini Backside Rehydrated. SpongeBob’s double bounce, stomp, and primary spin assault are all right here, they usually really feel respectable sufficient to drag off. New talents embody gliding, a mid-air karate kick, a bubble that may activate sure switches or quickly entice enemies, and swinging from fishhooks. These further talents are doled out separately, giving the journey a pleasant sense of development. There is a contact of jankiness with a few of these, just like the fishhook swing, however it’s okay when you get used to it.
The gradual gathering of latest talents means you may have causes to revisit previous ranges. Every stage has secrets and techniques or alternate paths you possibly can’t work together with in your first go, so if you wish to see and do every thing, you may have to retrace your steps as soon as SpongeBob is powered up. It is the identical for the hub, which progressively grows and adjustments, introducing small challenges and minigames.
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Talking of revisiting levels, characters within the hub will even give you aspect quests. These are quite simple, amounting to discovering X variety of Y in stage Z, however it offers you an excuse to dive again in and discover the degrees a little bit extra. Golden doubloons are your reward, which will also be discovered all through every degree, and these are used to unlock extra costumes for SpongeBob. There are dozens of those, and whereas they’re purely beauty, practically all of them are lifted from the collection, so they are a good bonus for followers.
Jelly can also be all over the place in every degree, which you may collect within the 1000’s as you crack open Tikis and defeat enemies. The one goal for Jelly is to buy the outfits you unlock, so you may wind up with an enormous surplus of the stuff. The dimensional jelly monsters you combat are loosely primarily based on the enemies from Rehydrated, with some capturing at you from afar, bigger ones requiring a number of hits to take down, and so forth. Utilizing SpongeBob’s common assault, his karate kick, and floor pound will get you thru every combat, however we discovered battles to be extra of a nuisance than something. They don’t seem to be onerous and a few enemies are simply annoying to combat. Once more, it simply looks like design from a bygone period.
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That sentiment extends to the boss encounters too. Every degree ends with some type of boss combat, they usually’re high quality however not one thing you’d wish to repeat. You would be pleased with them in 2003. Some are a contact extra impressed, just like the western stage’s pursuit of Mr. Krabs alongside a practice, and one other tasking you with serving cake whereas a witch assaults from above. The extra conventional ones that have you ever leaping over increasing shockwaves whereas keeping off common baddies really feel fairly performed out, although.
Whereas the journey is enjoyable sufficient from starting to finish, the presentation is not fairly there to help it. Visually the sport is fairly good, evoking the cartoon with vibrant places and characters. Nonetheless, cutscenes really feel oddly erratic, with the timing on cuts typically so quick you barely have time to course of what was proven, or the joke that was simply made. Cuts to gameplay also can really feel a little bit jarring. Conversations you progress your self are okay however typically embody these grotesque close-ups from the present. They’re usually a spotlight of the cartoons, however they do not work right here. That is as a result of there are too lots of them to make an actual impression, they do not really feel earned, they usually’re delivered with nearly no sense of comedy.
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Sadly, this leads onto the subject of bugs. The sport is critically tough across the edges, with quite a few small points popping up throughout our 15 hours of playtime. Conversations would sometimes minimize off audio, music typically layered over itself, and interactive objects wanted to progress quickly vanished. Most of those bugs are fairly innocent, however they depart a mark on an in any other case nice-looking title. Whereas the developer has promised post-launch updates will deal with many points, for now the sport is a little bit shaky.
Conclusion
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is an earnest effort to supply one other nice recreation for the character, however it hasn’t fully labored. The premise is sweet, the extent design is imaginative, and there is a clear love for the IP with its numerous references and costumes. Nonetheless, a few of the gameplay feels very dated, whereas numerous presentational shortcomings and a laundry checklist of bugs maintain it again. In the event you’re an enormous SpongeBob fan, there’s completely time available right here, however a common lack of polish and a few played-out design imply it is not fairly the candy victory we have been hoping for.