Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake Review

A solid 3D platformer through and through, the game was exactly what I was expecting out of a budget Spongebob game, and this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of Battle for Bikini Bottom, this game is the underrated hidden gem that I wished BfBB was but wasn't. Its a nice throwback to the older episodes of Spongebob which I still to this day remember and I still recite from time to time.

What made me prefer this game over BfBB is the more linear structure of the game, BfBB was basically a collectathon platformer but wasn't a very good one compared to something like the Spyro games or the first Jak and Daxter. Cosmic Shake however was a solid linear adventure, sure nothing in Cosmic Shake is going to be revolutionary or light your world on fire but what overall platforming gameplay is here gets the job done, you got everything from the genre, like glides, double jumps, ground pounds, context grapple hooks and dashes, everything that has been done before but the game's level design is solid enough to the point where you feel going through a simple yet engaging ballet of jumps and obsticles, and no awkward exploration with a weirdly segregated map like BfBB to get in the way either and also no multiple characters, it's just you playing as Spongebob which is good since the character swapping of BfBB got in the way of the moment to moment gameplay.

My only major gripes with this game is the use of quest markers but it's nothing too distracting since the game is at least consistent about it, I did wish the devs thought the player was smart to navigate the levels without any guides or hints. That and the last few levels feel anti climatic and rushed, you just go to the Krusty Krab do some jumping and then final boss time. Also a big gripe I have while I didn't think the writing was too bad, the writers made it way too obvious that Kassandra was evil, I am not expecting an award winning narrative out of a game like this but at the same time, they didn't really try to make Kassandra seem like she was anything other than evil. I prefer narratives to be predictable and don't like expectations being subverted unless it feels earned but they could've done a better job here.

Overall, a solid 3D platformer and worth playing as a Spongebob fan, if you didn't like BfBB, it's worth checking out since it's structure is different and this game works better as a linear affair.