Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated - Review
I found Spongebob Squarepants at a weird point in my life. I was working at a fast food place making burgers, no drivers license, the only thing I was missing was living in a giant pineapple under the sea. In the morning before I would go in for my shifts Spongebob was on TV, my daily guilty pleasure as I sympathised with Spongebob. I missed out on a few of the earlier Spongebob licensed games, this included Battle for Bikini Bottom. Now it’s nearly 20 years later and I’ve been given a second chance. Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated takes the old dried up husk of the original 2003 PS2/Xbox/GameCube era game and refreshes it with a visual upgrade. Has this old sponge been given new life? Or does it need to be sent down to hell with the Flying Dutchman?
Plankton is once again scheming to steal the secret recipe to The Krusty Krabs Krabby Patties. This time he is going the more straightforward route with an army of robots, only he forgot to flip the level to make them obey him. Now Bikini Bottom has become overrun with robots and due to coincidence Spongebob thinks he is the culprit. Spongebob is joined by Patrick the Starfish and Sandy the Squirrel to stop the robots and collect all the golden spatulas. You’re going to be exploring all over Bikini Bottom to find them and save the day!
The plot would struggle to hold up in the usual eleven minute episode, so it’s easy to forget there is a plot for hours of this game. There is still plenty of that Spongebob charm, with a lot of chuckle-worthy moments that fit very much in with the series. When it all boils down to it you need to explore all the different areas of Bikini Bottom and get as many golden spatulas as you can. You’ll open up more areas the more you collect, although if you try and collect as many as possible from the beginning you run the risk of getting ahead of where the game intends to keep you gated off. Not that there’s any real order you have to go in, but some spatula objectives may be out of reach if you haven’t unlocked a skill yet.
Battle for Bikini Bottom is a 3rd person platformer and old fashioned collectathon. If you played the original then you’ll be very familiar with alot of this game already. What made this game stand out back in 2003 was that it was surprisingly good for a licensed game. THQ Nordic is endeavouring to remaster a bunch of ports from fondly remembered franchises, Spongebob is one of them. Now it’s 2020, games have come a long way in nearly two decades, so it’s strange to come back to a relic like this. While the visuals have been given a makeover and there’s a few additions put in, this still feels very much like a platformer from 2003. At the time it was a pleasant surprise, it has now become more of the unpleasant surprise you find in that mysterious microwavable container in the back of your fridge. Now while I say that, Battle for Bikini Bottom isn’t a bad game, but it has aged poorly. Given the work they put into this remaster/remake, it's strange they didn’t make some quality of life improvements to make the game more fun.
You’ll swap between the three characters because each of them have different abilities. Spongebob can blow bubbles and use a spiky bubble helmet. Sandy can lasso items, grapple and swing, and hover after a jump. Patrick can pick up items or enemies and throw them, which is exactly as fun as it sounds. Once again this game shows its age as the division of skills between the three characters pad the game time. The most notable ability is Sandy’s lasso hover, it’s something that would help all the characters to have! The platforming is dicey and the hover helps to at least alleviate the more frustrating platformer moments. One ability all three characters share is moving too slowly. At first I was worried my Joy Con was drifting. Prepare for hours spent feeling like you’re moving as slowly as Gary. While it doesn’t make the game harder to play or get in the way, it does make moving around the areas feel like a slog for no reason.
I am playing the Nintendo Switch version, so I went into this knowing it will likely not look as nice as the other versions. However, it should run just fine given it’s still built on a 17 year old game. It doesn’t look as nice or run as nicely, but it runs alright enough to play. The frame rate gets choppy and some pop in and blurry visuals really stand out every now and then. Ultimately the biggest issues that pull this game deep down into the Goo Lagoon are issues that were present all those years ago. The platforming is rough, attacks aren’t reliable and the oft-repeated dialogue are just some of the gripes I have with this game. And prepare for loading. Long loading. When you go to a new area of course there will be some loading, but it goes on that little bit too long. Should you have the misfortune of falling into the goo or veer off the world limits, you have another wait ahead of you. Battle for Bikini Bottom is entirely playable on the Switch, it’s just not the nicest way to play it.
The cast of Spongebob Squarepants are mostly present, sounding as good as they ever did. The noticeable missing persons are the always great Clancy Brown as Mr Krabs and the still missed Ernest Borgnine as Mermaidman. While Ernest has passed away, this remaster/remake would’ve been the perfect opportunity to get Clancy Brown in to record new lines. Overall it’s a pretty small issue, but it’s rough listening whenever you hear their fill in. It’s not even his fault, for whatever reason he needed to step up, it’s just really noticeable and if it bothered me I’m sure I won’t be alone here. As for the music, it’s your standard Spongebob fare. It helps add to the feel that this is a Spongebob game.
The controls felt like a continual struggle as I made my way through Bikini Bottom. A and B buttons would be better swapped as jumping always feels out of place, this doesn’t help when platforming is very common. Attacks that should’ve connected don’t and whether you’ll grab onto the edge of a platform or fall to your death is unreliable. Having not played the original it’s hard to tell what of these issues are just part of that version or what’s new. Regardless it’s a shame with all the work done on it that it didn’t bring the controls to 2020 too.
There is a multiplayer horde mode that has been added in. If you and a friend want to get into some wave-based combat with Spongebob and friends then this might help you kill some time. In this mode the roster expands past Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy, it's a shame that Squidward is only playable in this mode. Honestly this mode wasn’t something I would’ve even thought of approaching if not for this review. It’s a nice bonus if you want another game to play with friends.
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated has been given a nice visual upgrade from an early 2000s era game. But it isn’t enough to hide that the game still plays like it did back then. Playing it in 2020 I can see why it appealed back then, a lot of series regulars are there, they have the look and sound downpat and there’s even some of the humour. Some additions have been made; adding in cut sections from the original and the horde mode. What was fondly remembered as being a surprisingly good licensed game in 2003, is a just passable licensed remaster in 2020. The biggest shame is that they didn’t take the opportunity to make a new game that does the long-running series justice.
The Score
6.5
Review code provided by THQ Nordic
The Pros
+The return of a fan favourite licensed game
+Captures the feel of Spongebob’s world and the series
+The visual upgrade does look nice
The Cons
+Time hasn’t been kind to this fan favourite
+Unreliable controls
+Loading times
