Intro

I’ll get straight into it. Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake is a pretty darn solid platformer that has that classic quirky, outlandish, yet wholesome SpongeBob feel.

Cosmic Shake comes around three years after the much beloved Battle for Bikini Bottom remake and it still manages to deliver a fresh experience. I’ve done my best to divide the review into appropriate sections and you can feel free to skip to the one you want below.

Art Style

The art is colorful in a cartoonish way and manages to capture the spirit of SpongeBob. It won’t quite be the same as the 2D animation from the cartoon obviously, but they do a pretty good job of trying to faithfully capture the feel of Bikini Bottom. They do insert some pretty hilarious and disturbing drawings during some cutscenes.

Moving on, the animations felt pretty good and responsive for the most part. I did have a minor nitpick about the attacks of the red tikis and Slamvil jellies because they have an outwardly radiating wave that does damage that may be a bit hard to perceive if you aren’t paying attention. I could just be getting old.

The cut scenes do have some nice touches that show some effort went into the game. For example, one cut scene with Balloon Patrick had his arms stretching to grab SpongeBob’s face while having some goofy facial animations. It was a small but appreciated touch to something that could have easily gone unnoticed. There are levels with bits of 2D drawings that are pretty hilarious and referential as well.

Level Design

The level design is a blast from the past and in a fun way. It features large and spacious worlds with many gravity defying platforms that existed in so many 3D platforming games of yore. You’ll definitely feel a tinge of nostalgia and familiarity if you played these types of games in the past. The levels are pretty well designed. Most of the levels are well disguised linear paths with many small side paths that lead to secret collectables such as doubloons, golden spatulas, and etc. Some levels have the paths converge back onto itself so it does feel way more open. The game does an excellent job of placing the collectable jellies in key locations to direct the player’s eye to potential paths.

There are seven worlds in the game and each world feels pretty unique. The color palettes used as well as mechanics introduced in each world definitely help create its own identity.

The seven worlds are:
Pirate Goo Lagoon – which has a pirate theme
Karate Downtown Bikini Bottom – which has a karate movie being filmed on a set theme
Wild West Jellyfish Fields – which has a wild west theme
Jelly Glove World – which has an amusement park theme
Halloween Rock Bottom – a spooky Halloween town theme
Medieval Sulfur Fields – a castle party theme
Prehistoric Kelp Forest – ooga booga is all I can say

Each world has its own boss fights and they are each unique and fun in their own way. For example, in Medieval Sulfur Fields, the entire boss fight is delivering cake. Yes you heard me correctly. The boss fight is delivering cake.

Each boss is also a cameo from the cast of SpongeBob so look forward to seeing some very familiar faces.

Audio

There’s not much to say other than the music is great, it’s a mix of recognizable SpongeBob tracks and some solid video game tunes. The sound effects are all great too. You could say they’re to pie for.

Game Mechanics

The game mechanics are straight forward. Let’s start with the combat abilities. You start off with a standard melee attack and as you progress through the new worlds you will unlock new abilities. One of the first abilities unlocked is a ranged attack that will bubble one enemy, incapacitating them for a temporary moment. This is handy for disabling those pesky ranged units from attacking while you take care of the melee mobs.

SpongeBob will also learn a flying karate kick. This move is actually fantastic. You can go flying from one enemy to another and infinitely chain the kicks if the enemies are spread out near each other.

Other abilities include a butt stomp, a belly flop that is essentially just a stronger butt stomp, and the Reef Blower, a very powerful device that will suck in enemies and shoot out a charged shot. The only downside is that you can only use the Reef Blower in certain sections and you cannot interact with things like buttons until you drop it. This is so you can’t just bring the Reef Blower everywhere.

As for movement abilities, SpongeBob has the double jump and a short glide if you hold the jump button. I personally had a small bit of trouble with the glide going off prematurely on keyboard since it’s the same keybinding as jump and double jump. You also have sections where you can glide on a surfboard, and use a rope on hooks to sling yourself across like spiderbob. The movement felt pretty smooth and cohesive. The later levels have you combining double jumping and gliding into speed boost rings and then slinging yourself across into more jumps.

As for the platforming, it felt pretty fun. It was not very difficult at all and although you may miss a few jumps sometimes, you usually respawn right very close by so you can try again. If you hit the lower area, there are usually shortcuts to bring you back up again quickly.

Difficulty

Speaking of the platforming, the game is a very simple platformer at heart. The mechanics and controls are pretty simple to grasp and the difficulty level seems to be aimed at a younger audience. However, I did find myself dying a couple of times in the later levels so the game wasn’t a complete breeze. If you aren’t paying attention, you’ll definitely die a couple of times but thankfully there is no real penalty for dying other than restarting at a checkpoint (if you lost all your health) or the nearest platform from where you fell to your death. There are many check points so the game is pretty generous and you won’t lose much time or progress. I appreciate this quite a bit. You also won’t lose any objectives completed, and resources or collectables gained before you died. The game makes replaying it very convenient, letting you load at any checkpoint for previously cleared levels as well as having most of the shortcuts already activated.

The levels themselves are pretty easy to navigate with well placed jellies to guide the player’s eyes to pathways as well as some conveniently located signs. Even Patrick will turn into a giant arrow to point the way forward and have voice lines to direct the player’s attention to certain locations. It won’t be too difficult to navigate the levels. If you ever get lost, you can look around the map for sections that still have jellies and enemies around.

As for the boss fights, most of them are fairly manageable to beat the first time through for most experienced gamers although I did have some difficulty with the boss in the Prehistoric Kelp Forest the first time. Again, I must be getting old.

For the ocd gamers, there are a few collectables and side quests to complete and they are not too difficult to obtain in terms of effort and time required so you will not have to worry about collecting everything and unlocking all the achievements. Also, I wouldn’t stress about collecting all the jellies because they do respawn if you ever die. Also, I would recommend saving ten thousand jellies before spending any so you can unlock the SpongeBob Jellypants achievement which requires you to be holding ten thousand jellies at one time. This is the only achievement that may take some grind.

Controls

As a keyboard and mouse gamer (I even beat Dark Souls using keyboard and mouse) the keybindings seemed sufficient. I would definitely recommend using a controller as aiming SpongeBob for his karate kicks is definitely much easier with an analog stick. Spacebar being bound for both glide, jump, and double jump led to some frustrating platforming moments (where I would glide early instead of double jumping and then gliding) but they were far and few between.

Final Thoughts

I think this is a pretty good homage to SpongeBob and a great spiritual successor to Battle for Bikini Bottom. It captures the quirkiness of the world of SpongeBob while providing a simple platformer that just focuses on fun without tedious and meaningless timegates to grind like modern games. The day that SpongeBob gets a battle royale mode and a battle pass is the day gaming has officially died. As I say this, I already know there probably is a SpongeBob battle royale out there somewhere. Curse you modern game design!

The game is definitely on the easier side but it’s a fun romp and won’t overstay its welcome. You can definitely feel that some degree of love and effort went into making the game.

Also I really enjoyed the one liners from the NPCS. They ranged from goofy, to hilarious, to wholesome and really added a dimension of liveliness to the surrounding world.

The game also has excellent replayability. Once you beat the game, side missions unlock and they are short enjoyable arcs that net you some fancy new costumes for SpongeBob.

Amount Played and Playtime

For complete transparency, I received a review key from Terminals for which I am grateful for. I earn very little money doing this so getting review keys is the only way I can continue to cover games.

I did finish the game at 11.8 hours played with 24 out of the 44 achievements obtained. I spent quite a bit of time exploring on my first time through so it is definitely possible to beat the game in less time. I will definitely go back to 100% the game but I had to push out this review as soon as possible. I estimate that it’d probably take me around eight more hours to collect all the achievements and unlock everything (unless you are using a guide) so you are looking at around twenty hours to 100% the game. Some gamers may take less time and some more time.

I will link an unedited playthrough of the early portions of the game if you would like to see uninterrupted gameplay.

Thank you for reading, I really do appreciate it and I will catch you guys next time. If you need help with anything in the game please feel free to let me know and I will respond in the comments as best as I can or make a guide. YouTuber, Cheetah’s Guides has some excellent achievement guides if you need help so I will link his channel as well.

https://www.youtube.com/@CheetahsGuides

Steam Store Page Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282150/SpongeBob_SquarePants_The_Cosmic_Shake/