SpongeBob SquarePants Battle For Bikini Bottom Rehydrated

The new cartoon platformer is here, SpongeBob SquarePants The Cosmic Shake has released, and even though I am not getting it right as the game release I do plan to give it a whirl in the near future, I decided to take a step back to the remake that got this ball rolling and lead to this game. The beloved 3D platformer collectathon from the PS2, GameCube, and Original Xbox era, one hailed as one of the best licensed games ever. The remake of Battle For Bikini Bottom that when it came out divided some audiences, but after some good quality time with the game I found myself, enjoying it... mostly.

I used to rent this title on GameCube and the game based on the film constantly as a kid I did not beat the game until I was in college because I would love the first half of the game but get burned out or tired of the second. The later levels were ones that I would not like or get tired of therefore I would not finish the game. Ironically enough that carries over to this game as well as I loved the first few stages and the ones in the later half of the second and third sections of the central hub are ones I try to avoid at all times. 

The presentation is almost perfect, there were some glitches, as well as pop in. I played this game on PS4 and encountered a decent amount of getting locked into areas, or even the pop in. The audio was lifted from the original which I recognized because I rented the original and played it countless hours when I was younger. The game controlled well and mostly looked great. The graphical upscale and brighter colors popped and even though the cutscenes were presented in the same way and only the major ones were fully animated, while the in-game ones were static, things were clean and nice. The game sounded good even though the music didn't stay with me outside of a few tracks, but this was the case with the original as well.

This game feels like the original in both good ways and bad, with the problems mentioned but with the things that made me love it. Some of the stages are more well designed then others, the only problem is that all the qualms I had back then, carry over to now. I would say this game is good, not great, it has peaks and valleys and the same rings true for this remake. Some stages are not fun to navigate, have gimmicks that did not work well or work well with me, and or just be dull. The presentations, some of the levels, the amount of collectibles do make it easy to avoid the less then desirable parts of the game which helps some of the game's shortcomings. With collecting enough side pieces and doing enough in the first half can lead to minimal time or skipping the later half of the game.

This game has plenty of fun pieces and I still enjoy it, even with the parts I do not like, there is more then enough that I do. I recommend this for fans of platformers or the show, or someone like me who loves both. This game is good with a couple of elements that keep this short of great and the remake is a good way to play it on modern platforms. 

There was also this cut hoard mode where you fight tons of enimies from the game with friends or alone and, it is not good, skip that part. Rest of the game great, this mode could have been left cut.