SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake certainly has its standout moments, as well as some elements I genuinely love. But for the most part, it is unfortunately, a disappointment.
Like with many people, I presume, I was expecting The Cosmic Shake to be a sequel, follow up, or at least spiritual successor to Battle For Bikini Bottom. But, it isn't. It tries to be, but it just isn't.
Instead of being a decently open collectathon, who's progress is entirely determined by the player's eagerness to collect, like in BFBB, The Cosmic Shake is a painfully linear platformer that wears a deflated BFBB skin.
Sure, it has a hub world, but it doesn't really contribute to anything and offers little in the way of exploration.
Sure, it had "collectables". But they don't serve any purpose other than unlocking the plethora of costumes. (Which btw, the system for this is so strange. You have to collect a certain number of gold doubloons to unlock a costume tier, and then you use the cosmic jelly to unlock the four costumes. Why are there two walls to this? Why not just give the player all the costumes when they get the doubloons, or just let the player purchase the costumes with jelly specifically? That would have made collecting jelly at least feel worthwhile in the slightest...) They really serve no purpose other than this and can be entirely ignored.
And sure, there's plenty of enemies who reminded me of enemies from BFBB. But every single one was done better in that game! And the ones that aren't just trying to make you think of BFBB are just so... annoying. Almost all of them require you to wait around for a specific moment to attack them, or you have to deal with getting stun locked, or some other annoying time waster that stops you in your tracks. They just aren't fun to fight.
My point is, I think this game wants to be BFBB's successor, but something just went completely wrong somewhere along the way, The very foundations that made BFBB work just aren't here, and all that's left is a mostly empty shell that kind of looks like it at a glance.
But honestly, I can deal with all of these elements to some degree. I'm not a fan of them, but I can deal with them. What I can't deal with, and what really frustrated me throughout my entire playthrough, was how painfully handholdy this game is.
The game literally doesn't let you press the attack button at the beginning of the game, not until a giant prompt comes up that says: "Press X!" Then, you can attack all you want, but up to that point, you can do nothing but jump.
And this goes on through most of the game.
There are so many moments where you just can't do something, and then the game just says: "Okay, you're good" and then SpongeBob just gets a new ability for no reason. He doesn't unlock it in a cutscene, learn it from a mentor, or even pick up a random thing floating in the air that lets him do it. He, and by extension the player, are just given the ability when the game decides to, and I got so fed up with this almost immediately. It doesn't help that, aside from the flying kick, most abilities are mostly forgettable or useless anyway.
I think my favorite example of this baffling decision can be seen in the rock bottom level, where the game introduces you to a new spooky jelly that you have to sneak past. The game gives you a little MGS style object to hide inside and everything. You can't attack them, so you have to sneak past them (or just run past them like I did lol).
Well, actually, you can attack them, once the game arbitrarily lets you.
You're suddenly given the ability to instantly kill these previous impervious enemies, simply by going up from behind them and pressing the attack button. That's it. Why keep it hidden from the player? Why not let me figure it out myself through experimentation? What is the point? It's just bad game design, and left me feeling like I was being directed by someone else instead of going on my own adventure. The best game I think I can compare it to is Metroid Other M, in regard to how Samus' abilities are unlocked when the guy watching over her just sort of tells her she can use them, instead of unlocking them herself. It was bad design then and its bad design now.
I know I'm ranting about the handholding in a kids' game, and I probably seem ridiculous, but I just was not a fan of this aspect of the game in the slightest. I kept having to tell myself: "Well, this is a game for kids, so I'd probably like it more if I was still a kid." And that's probably true, but the fact I had to justify my time playing it like that is not a good sign in my book at all.
Now, with all of my grievances laid out, with all of that being said, it's important to not that this game isn't some poorly made, corporate controlled, cash grab made by people who were just trying to get paid. It was made, very clearly, by passionate people. People who love SpongeBob.
This is evident by the story, voice acting, and especially the cutscenes. While I didn't really enjoy playing through the game, I always had a smile on my face during the cutscenes. The characters are always so expressive, bouncy, and silly that I just couldn't help but enjoy myself. (They do overuse that one joke where they zoom in on something, but whatever, I can deal with that). If this were a SpongeBob movie or special, it would instantly become a classic. There's so much love here that I honestly feel kind of bad giving the game such a low score. The developers' love for SpongeBob, and its fans is clearly evident throughout the entire experience.
But I have no idea what went wrong. I don't know if the direction for this game was misguided, or maybe if the studio but off more than they could chew, or maybe if the publisher had a small release window and forced the studio to crunch to meet a deadline. (This last one is probably the actual answer, judging by both the industry as a whole, and how crunch affected Rehydrates specifically). But whatever happened, well, it happened. And as a result, we got The Cosmic Shake, a game I found almost entirely boring, frustrating, and forgetful. And yet, still booming with love. I really wish there were more positive things for me to say, but as it is, I can't really recommend this game unless you have a kid, deeply love any kind of 3D platformers, or just violently love SpongeBob. Otherwise, you should just play Battle for Bikini Bottom, either the original or Rehydrated. Or any other 3D platformer.
I really loved Kassandra though. Easily the greatest woman character to ever exist in SpongeBob. Please bring her back for literally anything. She was perfect.
Like with many people, I presume, I was expecting The Cosmic Shake to be a sequel, follow up, or at least spiritual successor to Battle For Bikini Bottom. But, it isn't. It tries to be, but it just isn't.
Instead of being a decently open collectathon, who's progress is entirely determined by the player's eagerness to collect, like in BFBB, The Cosmic Shake is a painfully linear platformer that wears a deflated BFBB skin.
Sure, it has a hub world, but it doesn't really contribute to anything and offers little in the way of exploration.
Sure, it had "collectables". But they don't serve any purpose other than unlocking the plethora of costumes. (Which btw, the system for this is so strange. You have to collect a certain number of gold doubloons to unlock a costume tier, and then you use the cosmic jelly to unlock the four costumes. Why are there two walls to this? Why not just give the player all the costumes when they get the doubloons, or just let the player purchase the costumes with jelly specifically? That would have made collecting jelly at least feel worthwhile in the slightest...) They really serve no purpose other than this and can be entirely ignored.
And sure, there's plenty of enemies who reminded me of enemies from BFBB. But every single one was done better in that game! And the ones that aren't just trying to make you think of BFBB are just so... annoying. Almost all of them require you to wait around for a specific moment to attack them, or you have to deal with getting stun locked, or some other annoying time waster that stops you in your tracks. They just aren't fun to fight.
My point is, I think this game wants to be BFBB's successor, but something just went completely wrong somewhere along the way, The very foundations that made BFBB work just aren't here, and all that's left is a mostly empty shell that kind of looks like it at a glance.
But honestly, I can deal with all of these elements to some degree. I'm not a fan of them, but I can deal with them. What I can't deal with, and what really frustrated me throughout my entire playthrough, was how painfully handholdy this game is.
The game literally doesn't let you press the attack button at the beginning of the game, not until a giant prompt comes up that says: "Press X!" Then, you can attack all you want, but up to that point, you can do nothing but jump.
And this goes on through most of the game.
There are so many moments where you just can't do something, and then the game just says: "Okay, you're good" and then SpongeBob just gets a new ability for no reason. He doesn't unlock it in a cutscene, learn it from a mentor, or even pick up a random thing floating in the air that lets him do it. He, and by extension the player, are just given the ability when the game decides to, and I got so fed up with this almost immediately. It doesn't help that, aside from the flying kick, most abilities are mostly forgettable or useless anyway.
I think my favorite example of this baffling decision can be seen in the rock bottom level, where the game introduces you to a new spooky jelly that you have to sneak past. The game gives you a little MGS style object to hide inside and everything. You can't attack them, so you have to sneak past them (or just run past them like I did lol).
Well, actually, you can attack them, once the game arbitrarily lets you.
You're suddenly given the ability to instantly kill these previous impervious enemies, simply by going up from behind them and pressing the attack button. That's it. Why keep it hidden from the player? Why not let me figure it out myself through experimentation? What is the point? It's just bad game design, and left me feeling like I was being directed by someone else instead of going on my own adventure. The best game I think I can compare it to is Metroid Other M, in regard to how Samus' abilities are unlocked when the guy watching over her just sort of tells her she can use them, instead of unlocking them herself. It was bad design then and its bad design now.
I know I'm ranting about the handholding in a kids' game, and I probably seem ridiculous, but I just was not a fan of this aspect of the game in the slightest. I kept having to tell myself: "Well, this is a game for kids, so I'd probably like it more if I was still a kid." And that's probably true, but the fact I had to justify my time playing it like that is not a good sign in my book at all.
Now, with all of my grievances laid out, with all of that being said, it's important to not that this game isn't some poorly made, corporate controlled, cash grab made by people who were just trying to get paid. It was made, very clearly, by passionate people. People who love SpongeBob.
This is evident by the story, voice acting, and especially the cutscenes. While I didn't really enjoy playing through the game, I always had a smile on my face during the cutscenes. The characters are always so expressive, bouncy, and silly that I just couldn't help but enjoy myself. (They do overuse that one joke where they zoom in on something, but whatever, I can deal with that). If this were a SpongeBob movie or special, it would instantly become a classic. There's so much love here that I honestly feel kind of bad giving the game such a low score. The developers' love for SpongeBob, and its fans is clearly evident throughout the entire experience.
But I have no idea what went wrong. I don't know if the direction for this game was misguided, or maybe if the studio but off more than they could chew, or maybe if the publisher had a small release window and forced the studio to crunch to meet a deadline. (This last one is probably the actual answer, judging by both the industry as a whole, and how crunch affected Rehydrates specifically). But whatever happened, well, it happened. And as a result, we got The Cosmic Shake, a game I found almost entirely boring, frustrating, and forgetful. And yet, still booming with love. I really wish there were more positive things for me to say, but as it is, I can't really recommend this game unless you have a kid, deeply love any kind of 3D platformers, or just violently love SpongeBob. Otherwise, you should just play Battle for Bikini Bottom, either the original or Rehydrated. Or any other 3D platformer.
I really loved Kassandra though. Easily the greatest woman character to ever exist in SpongeBob. Please bring her back for literally anything. She was perfect.