SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom — Rehydrated Review
Absorbent and Yellow and Porous As Ever
When I first played SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, I was a much younger gamer. My dad bought the game for me after I expressed my interest in it during one of our Blockbuster Video nights, back when Blockbuster was still a thing and had a video games section.
They say to never judge a book by its cover, but that cover is what initially drew me in. SpongeBob, a beloved cartoon character, giving a military salute with an army helmet on, a confident smirk spread across his face.
I loved this game as a kid and THQ’s sequel SpongeBob SquarePants Movie game, and with good reason. I had the chance to play as SpongeBob, fighting hordes of Plankton’s robots set to “Don’t Obey,” exploring every nook and cranny of iconic locations in Bikini Bottom, and getting those satisfying animations every time I collected a Golden Spatula.
Needless to say, when I first heard about a remaster of a game I thoroughly enjoyed as a child, I had to get my hands on a copy on the release day (I ended up going to a Walmart and two different GameStop locations to pick one up.) So, how does it hold up after 17 years?
A Familiar Game with Some Tweaks
My first impression of the game is how incredibly vibrant the colors are on everything. Rocks, houses, enemies, destructible tikis, and characters all feel like I’m viewing them through either an Instagram filter or somebody at the dev team decided to crank the saturation well above 11.
Certain animations have been shortened or altered to make the characters seem more lively. Using the bubble helmet upward attack is much faster than I remember, and the mini animation you get when you collect a Golden Spatula feels a bit too abrupt compared with the original (The Mario Galaxy series timed the “victory” animation you get when collecting a star perfectly, in my opinion.)
Character interactions have been changed to reflect SpongeBob’s more animated nature, and though the dialogue for everything is the same, you’ll notice a jarring disconnect between a few of the characters and the dialogue you associate with the TV series, namely, Mr. Krabs and Mermaid Man.
Gameplay Improvements and Drawbacks
With any good remaster comes the opportunity to improve on previous systems. A cool small detail I noticed right off the bat was when I walked near Squidward’s house, I could hear clarinet music playing.
The developers likely wanted to be nicer to the jellyfish in the game, because instead of having them spin away after being hit and then disappearing, they just disappear the moment you hit them. Robots now have knockback damage, meaning you can hit a robot and have him fly back into another robot to kill him.
Environmental hazards, like spikes and ice, aren’t as punishing as they used to be in some regards. The spikes that come out of the ground have a longer delay, and ice isn’t nearly as slippery as in the first game. An enemy that shoots Tar-Tar sauce at you now shows red circles on the ground, queuing the player as to what spots to avoid.
A small drawback I noticed while playing had to do with the teleporting cardboard boxes present in the original. When you jumped in a box in the PlayStation 2 version to access a previously explored part of the level, you got a satisfying animation where the box shook for a second, then it would cut to the other box shaking and SpongeBob would jump out of it moments later. In the remaster, you jump in the box, hear a rough cardboard noise, and appear instantaneously outside of the other box, with no animation of your character jumping out.
Another drawback I noticed was the difficulty spikes in platforming sections. In SpongeBob’s dream sections, you’ll face rotating cubes with spikes on them, with much less surface area to jump on. Slide levels in later stages of the game are also pretty punishing; with no checkpoints halfway down the slide to reset to, you have to try again from the very beginning.
Final Thoughts
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom — Rehydrated is a faithful remaster of a 17-year-old platforming game designed for kids. Boss fights are easier and faster to complete, but the platforming is a little more difficult in some areas than I remember.
Waves of nostalgia hit me while playing this game much like the Goo in Goo Lagoon (the perfect place to sing about “steppin’ on the beach”, show off your Anchor Arms, or rip your pants.) The developers left some cool easter eggs in this new release, including pictures of “Handsome Squidward” inside Squidward’s house and cave paintings of Patar and SpongeGar inside a cave section of Goo Lagoon.
The Flying Dutchman is as spooky and pirate-y as ever, and the variety of platforming puzzles you have to solve with SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy provide a good mix of mechanics and diverse combat abilities. Sandy’s lasso ability holds up well after all these years (roping a robot from a distance and destroying it in one tug never gets old.)
Is the 10 hours of story content you’ll get in this game worth the $30 asking price? Depends on who you ask. For the nostalgia factor, definitely. Playing this game made me want to go back in time to my grandparents’ house to watch the show on cable in their old recliners.
For the time spent on the story? Probably not. I think it’ll be a great stocking stuffer this holiday season when it goes on sale for $20 or even $15. Regardless of the reason you buy this game, I think you or your kids will thoroughly enjoy it, even if Mr. Krabs sounds like he has “bilge water on the brain.”
