Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake – PC Review

Genre: 3D action platformer
Developer: Purple Lamp
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Release Date: January 31st, 2023
Edited by AlexKnight2005

Some strange things have come across my desk over the last few years, and the “sequel” to the (originally) PS2 game SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom was nearly the last thing I expected. THQ Nordic got Purple Lamp to develop The Cosmic Shake, the same as they did Rehydrated, taking over from Heavy Iron Studios for the major consoles of the day. I got the PC version, so I can’t speak to the console editions. I assume they’ll be similar, so your mileage may vary.

The game opens with SpongeBob, complete with a rubber glove on his head(?), on his one day off from the Krusty Krab, obtains a bottle of magic bubbles (the reason I can’t show this game to my eight-year-old this game), from a mermaid fortune-teller-like critter, and in his trademark inability to read the manual and soak in the potential consequences for his actions, proceeds to pull a “Nice job breaking it hero” stunt, by granting a huge pile of wishes for himself and all his friends.

Needless to say, this ends very badly. Bikini Bottom gets trashed, and SpongeBob (alongside balloon Patrick) gets conned into gathering jelly stuff for the “fortune teller,” and a large third-person platformer ensues as the sponge rescues his friends across a collection of eight worlds (including Bikini Bottom as a hub). There are several changes from the previous game that bear mentioning, for good or ill. First, You will only play as SpongeBob, as opposed to having Patrick and Sandy as additional playables. Maybe not great, but everyone’s favorite dish-cleaning tool has a way around that.

SpongeBob has many costumes that he wears throughout the game, and yet more than can be bought with collectibles. A few also come with the Deluxe Edition, but I digress. You need one for each world, which gives you the skills you need to do what you need for that world. You keep those abilities later on, however.

There’s a downside to this, of course. You’re stuck with SpongeBob’s quips for the entire game, which gets old quickly. He only has a spare handful of them, mostly lines from Krusty Krab scenes from the TV show. If you’re a fan of the show, it may seem cute for a couple of whiles. I would have preferred if there were more of them. That said, they got the current voice for all the characters from the show and their doppelgängers for each world you visit, including SpongeBob and Patrick, both of whom you will hear a lot from.

As for the rest of the soundscape, it’s about what I’d expect from having to listen to my kids watching the show. Music seems dragged from the show directly, and what is new has the same sort of themes. It’s appropriate but not spectacular. Too much of a change would likely have had a negative impact with fans, so I can imagine why the devs made this particular choice. What there is works really well, but there’s just not enough to prevent it from becoming repetitive.

There are some gameplay bits, from QTE mini-games to 3D platforming. It’s in the platforming that this game suffers its biggest issues (voice acting and music aside). Jumping has to be near pixel-perfect, and even then, the platform you’re trying to reach may be playing coy and not quite connect. The next moment, you might be stopping off in Broken rock junction (return to checkpoint) or falling not quite enough to kill you, and you’ll have to climb back up to that point— no matter how far back you wound up. Needless to say, that can be more than a little aggravating. If you do happen to get kicked back to some point before the previous checkpoint (which doesn’t happen very often, but it’s still possible), it’s often much simpler to load the last checkpoint you hit rather than do it all again.

This brings me back to the “lives” system. You can fail up to as many times as SpongeBob has spare underwear in the upper-left corner of the screen. If you’re out, then it’s back to the previous checkpoint. There are some around in fixed positions on each map, and any monster you drop that has more than one hit point will cough up a spare. You’ll need to nurse these carefully, though— once claimed, they don’t respawn.

Combat is a thing in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake, albeit not particularly complicated—this is a game intended for children, so don’t expect dodge rolls or enemies that require them in order to survive long enough to beat them. That said, you will want to put down enemies quickly, especially if you have enemies that spawn others. You’ve only a few tricks in your arsenal to get it done, and you’ll use at least most of them frequently. Controllers are nice to have here for veteran console players, and I generally recommend them for this one.

I hesitate to call it good, but the one thing that hasn’t changed since the late nineties is the tendency for 3D platformers to generate frustration more than glee. Nor is it bad as such, as the number of outright bugs is tiny. Hitboxes for jumping puzzles can be a right pain in the backside.

In the final reckoning, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake isn’t a bad game; if you’re a fan of the show, you’ll get a lot more of the jokes (my teenager found it far more entertaining than I did). For a game that runs $39.99 on Steam, it’s not a bad investment for the experience, and it’ll be a fun thing for the kids. I’d personally wait for a sale. If you have a teenager that likes tearing through video games, then get it. It’s generally safe and won’t destroy the budget. As always, your mileage may (and probably will) vary.

Pros:

• Not particularly buggy
• Fans of the show will see a lot they like
• Combat can be frenetic but not difficult
• Music and dialog are reminiscent of the TV show

Cons:

• Dialog quips during platforming can be repetitive
• Jumping puzzles require near-pixel-perfect timing
• Lives system
• Falling off things that aren’t lethal can cost progress

Lord Crocosquirrel gives SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake a Drastik Measure of 5.5 out of 10.0 (55)