Once again, both kids and fans who grew up loving the Spongebob Squarepants cartoon series are challenged to save Bikini Bottom from Plankton’s robot army! Remaking a classic favorite is something that many developers have been doing and it seems that Purple Lamp Studios knew this was a title worth the effort. Teaming up with THQ Nordic, they released Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated recently with some additions and upgrades. But how well did they do and is it worth the player’s time to revisit this game in a new graphical and mechanical standard? In short, I would say it is!
Story
Plankton has devised another plan to steal the Krabby Patty formula and this time he plans to take over the entire town of Bikini Bottom to reach his dastardly goal! As is typical though, he has botched his own attack and created an evil robot army with no leader, leaving nobody safe from their treachery - not even himself. It is up to Spongebob and the gang to put a stop to the robots and save Bikini Bottom.
Gameplay
There are a total of three different characters you can play is in the main game: Spongebob, Patrick, and Sandy. Each character has their own attacks and advantages as well. Starting out with Spongebob you learn the basics of a standard, aerial, and ground pound attacks. Later you will end up learning both the bubble bowling and bubble rocket attacks as well. For Patrick, you have the standard and ground pound attacks only, but he has the advantage of picking up certain items and throwing them. For Sandy, you have the standard attack only, but you can use your lasso for a rodeo attack and to hover in the air to cover larger gaps.
To change between characters, you will need to find a bus stop on the level. Note that you can’t pick any character in any level, but instead, you always be given access to Spongebob, and then each level has a designated secondary character; be it Sandy or Patrick. This is because each level is set up with different challenges and while Spongebob has the largest variety of movement and attack styles, you will need to use the specific advantages of either Sandy or Patrick in order to complete a challenge in the level.
The goal of the game is to collect Golden Spatula’s and this is done by completing a variety of challenges or simply making your way to the end of each section of the level. You can start challenges in each level by talking to a designated character, such as Larry, Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, etc., who will then ask for your help with something. Every level has a total of 10 Spatula’s to earn giving a total of 100 Spatula’s in the game, but you will only need 75 of them to complete the game.
While you are working on grabbing the Golden Spatula’s there are other collectibles to focus on as well. These would be the shiny pieces that look like the flowers you typically see in the sky on the show and Patrick’s dirty socks. There are a variety of different amounts of these in each level, but you can use the pause menu to see how many of the socks you have left to find. It is the same menu you would use to check on how many of the main objectives in each level you have left to collect or find as well.
As for shiny pieces, you can gather these from either destroying robots or tikis. While robots have a wide variety of enemies, each with their own attack style and best ways to combat them, the tiki’s are a safer approach. The majority of the tikis are easy to break and harmless, but you do have TNT tikis that explode seconds after you get too close to them, stone tikis that are nigh indestructible, and shy tikis that hideaway when you get too close. You will need to use some thinking power in order to destroy tikis sometimes because of the different styles there are.
Each level also has its own style of level-puzzle setups to work through. This could be hitting a specific button to unlock a pathway or provide a ball for Sandy to use her lasso on to make progress in the air, or it could be as simple as making your way down a slide and making the right maneuver’s to grab a spatula or complete a goal. The good news that even if you mess up, you can use the box teleportation system to get back to sections of the level. Each level is broken up into different segments and each segment will have a box on one end and a box on the other which can be used to quickly teleport your player to that section of the level.
Visuals
They definitely took the time to remake everything in this game as the graphical quality is improved over the original title. While it does have the issue of being “overly-polished,” there is a brightness that brings a more friendly tone to the game that the previous version doesn’t have.
Sounds
In collaboration with a huge, long-time fan of the series (aka my wife), I have confirmed that the majority of the characters actually sound just like the ones in the show! The previous game had a few stand-ins, but it seems they either were able to get the actual actors or incredibly accurate sound-alikes. It was also nice that they consistently had music that was very keen to, if not exactly pulled from, the show throughout and matching sound effects as well.
Replayability
While the entire game requires you to collect Golden Spatula’s to make progress, you do not have to gather them all in order to beat the game. Also, you do not have to grab any of Patrick’s socks if you don’t come across them naturally. Both of these collectibles are gained through unique challenges or full level exploration. For those that want to fully complete the game, gathering every one of these items would be the main reason to come back to the game after completion.
There is also a multiplayer mode that you can play with friends at any time, but it is simply a wave system with a unique boss that was removed from the original game. You can always enjoy another round with a friend in this mode, but there isn’t much variety in the gameplay here itself.
What Could Be Better
While I am happy that they not only brought in the robot Squidward boss to the game but also created a multiplayer mode out of his addition, I feel that this mode was loosely put together. A simple system of enemy waves isn’t enough to hold people’s attention or want them to come back to the game mode often. It would have been nice to have multiple level systems to play off of, a boss rush mode to fight harder versions of the bosses with a friend, or some other unique elements to the multiplayer section that would make it at least feel more randomized and different rather than the basic version we were given.
Player guidance is practically non-existent in this game as well. For a kid’s game, I would imagine that there would be a hint system or guidance for times when players get lost. Even if it was something as simple as a sound effect given off from a key item of the level. There was only one level that I felt truly lost in, but I could imagine a few areas where if I didn’t have experience with game setup styles then I would have been confused about what was asked of me. Not to mention that I once passed up a key item on accident and had to spend over ten minutes looking for it because I had no clue what part of the level it was in and it gave off no sounds of its own.
Conclusion
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is a very well made remake of a classic title that is both entertaining and challenging. I do see this as more of a kids game made to be challenging enough for both skilled kid gamers and grown fans of the series, but there were times I felt it might have been too challenging for the audience it was made for. I enjoyed the game and found the humor style fitting to the show, but consider your target audience and add an update to help them out on their progress.
