Thank You THQ Nordic for providing us with a review code!

Out of all the things to happen, a spiritual sequel to SpongeBob’s Battle for Bikini Bottom was something I would have never predicted. Back in 2020, a beloved licensed platformer was remade into Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, bringing a cult classic of sorts to modern consoles. Remakes of licensed games, let alone remasters usually don’t happen. Especially sequels to said licensed games decades later. Purple Lamp is once again in charge of this SpongeBob title, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake.

The Cosmic Shake stars SpongeBob once again tasked with saving Bikini Bottom. This time, it isn’t another one of Plankton’s schemes that make everything all screwy, but SpongeBob and Patrick’s own mishaps. After buying a mystery bubble wand from a mermaid named Madame Kassandra, SpongeBob and Patrick decide to have their usual fun. The bubble wand is also able to grant wishes through magical mermaid tears. All the wish-granting SpongeBob and Patrick grant for the citizens of Bikini Bottom and themselves soon causes reality to go out of wack, ransacking Bikini Bottom and its surrounding areas. SpongeBob and Patrick (who is now transformed into a cute balloon mascot) must travel to these Wishworlds to save the Bikini Bottomites, but it also seems like their new friend Kassandra has some ulterior motives.

Even though The Cosmic Shake takes from Battle for Bikini Bottom, it swaps out the collectathon format for a more linear action-adventure platformer approach. SpongeBob is also the only playable character this time around, but that is compensated with an expanded movelist and dozens of costumes to unlock. The overall feel of progression is more similar to The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie game, in which you complete objectives in subsequent order, then move on to the next one. 

The seven worlds SpongeBob can access through the Bikini Bottom hub are large in scale, taking you through familiar grounds that are also heavily changed. For example, the Jellyfish Fields now has a Wild West aesthetic to them filled with kid-friendly versions of saloons, and Rock Bottom has a Halloween theme. Purple Lamp even takes one of the planned worlds of Battle for Bikini Bottom (Glove World) and manages to make an entire level based on it. While I do feel that some of the levels start to deviate from the core concept, the huge worlds are great to look at and engaging to traverse. Hopping on platforms and trampolines, using boulders to move through lava, and finding items in an enclosed area are just some of the objectives in each level. They are mixed up enough to prevent each task from feeling repetitive. 

Instead of robots, the main enemies are jelly creatures. There are a variety of jelly monsters that each fulfill different roles. Combat has been expanded upon slightly as there are more mandatory combat sections. Now, combat has its hits and misses, but it's functional and quick enough. However, the main issue is that some of the jelly enemies only have very specific windows of opportunity to inflict damage so it tends to slow the pace down considerably. Fortunately, these enemies take at most three hits to defeat.

As SpongeBob frees more friends and worlds, he’ll unlock more abilities. Most of these are used for traversal, such as a grappling hook to swing from points and a Kah-Rah-Tae kick sending him flying in a direction. Most of these are context-sensitive, so you can't use them willy-nilly. But once you unlock most of his moves, soaring through the skies and chaining your abilities together is fun and engaging. These abilities are also used for optional challenges that will test your platforming skills. This is also where my biggest complaint with The Cosmic Shake comes from. A lot of these challenges for these abilities, you’ll unlock the ability needed for the challenge in the next world. This happens frequently enough that it began to annoy me. Coupled with the fact that sidequests are unlocked in the same way, it feels like unnecessary padding to extend the overall length of the game. No matter what, you’ll have to play each level at least twice if you want to 100% it, hurting replayability. On the positive end, the optional challenges are usually worth revisiting the worlds for.

The humor of The Cosmic Shake is very similar to Battle for Bikini Bottom and the earlier seasons of SpongeBob. It does reference the newer and recent seasons and the fact that SpongeBob now has Patrick to roll dialogue and banter off of, makes many situations pretty humorous. I will say that some of the humor does rely on referencing the thing in the cartoon and expecting people to laugh because they remember it without doing much else with it. 

The costumes are another standout feature of The Cosmic Shake with SpongeBob having access to dozens of costumes either through unlocking them from story progress, or finding doubloons scattered throughout the worlds. From costumes, such as the Kuddly Krab onesie, his wizard outfit from the movie, the band geeks outfit, and the sheet ghost, to many more—there is bound to be a costume from SpongeBob’s expansive history that you’ll enjoy. The models, lighting, and texture have also seen an upgrade from Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated. The fluidity and expressiveness of the characters during the pre-rendered cutscenes look great. Running at a stable 144 FPS with my specs (Geforce 3060ti and Ryzen 5 3600) made them look even better. Although, some scenes were missing models and the transitions from gameplay to scene and vice-versa could have used some extra work. Some people prefer the more washed-out colors of what SpongeBob used to look like, but I feel the bright cheery colors for the modern era complete the series well. The PC port of The Cosmic Shake is pretty basic as you can only adjust the resolution and window size. No options for remapping controls exist.

The Cosmic Shake uses a lot of music from the series and has its own original tunes. The original work is a bit more subdued compared to Battle for Bikini Bottom and has some dynamic parts for the combat sections. I do find the music to be fine, if a bit generic. When it comes to voice acting, all the original voice actors are back and they sound just as you remember them—except for SpongeBob towards the beginning portion. He sounded a bit off at first, but that was cleared up pretty quickly. 

SpongeBob is a kids property, but there are still some concerns to point out. Violence is kept to silly slapstick and cartoonish antics. Language is of course squeaky clean. The only thing that could be considered supernatural is magic. It’s kept to a fairytale-like basis and SpongeBob himself only uses it via the magical bubble wand. While there are many costumes in the game, some of them can be questionable. A few costumes include one with SpongeBob only in his underwear, one in a maid outfit, and a rainbow-colored SpongeBob. However, the "Rainbowbob" costume is a reference to the episode "Idiot Box" and not an LGBT reference—as far as I see from the description from said costume. 

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is an interesting sequel. While I don’t think it is as good as Battle for Bikini Bottom, it’s easily the second or third-best SpongeBob game. Thinking about it, that’s not saying a whole lot considering how bad a lot of his games are, but even if this didn’t have a SpongeBob skin on it, I would see myself enjoying it. The characters are as likable and fun as ever, and the platforming is cool both in visuals and gameplay. A lot of the problems in The Cosmic Shake can be fixed with updates, but the restriction on the optional content does hurt its replayability. It took me around 7 hours to see the credits, with about half of the optional side content left over so the length is on par with many 3D platformers. And morally—what else can I say? It’s SpongeBob after all. The IP almost never goes too far in a bad direction. It’s pretty easy for me to say that if you still like SpongeBob or enjoyed Battle for Bikini Bottom, you’ll have a good time with The Cosmic Shake.