Fresh off the commercial success of Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated in 2020, Purple Lamp Studios have emerged three years later, with a brand new all-original entry in the series with SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake. Will this latest SpongeBob outing make you dance a Cosmic Shake or will you let it Cha-Cha-Slide?
This latest instalment sees SpongeBob and chums getting a bit too giddy with wish-granting tears given by series’ antagonist Kassandra, accidentally tearing the fabric of the universe apart and opening up a huge vortex in the process. As a result, cosmic jelly slathers Bikini Bottom, Patrick turns into a balloon, and portals to Wishworlds have burst wide open. It’s time for SpongeBob and Patrick to undo the errors of their mischievous ways, by gallivanting into Wishworlds packed with pirates, knights, cowboys and icky ancient snails to restore balance to Bikini Bottom.
The set up provides a basic reason for SpongeBob and friends to engage in their spritely misadventures, but even though there is a tauter emphasis on story this time around, the cutscenes dryly inject context without drawing you in. At one moment the thunder strikes down on Bikini Bottom and the rampaging portal opens up to cause havoc, but the next, bright skies and a seemingly untarnished landscape is unveiled in front of you.
The lack of continuity is jarring, giving off the impression that The Cosmic Shake is a generic and sloppily put-together adventure with little consideration for the tale being woven. However, the silliness of the cast and the upbeat and bespoke sense of levity SpongeBob is known for puts a fluffy carpet over the shoddier aspects, making it a swell platformer children will enjoy, even if adults will likely get tangled up by the elementary-level game design.
At its thumping heart, The Cosmic Shake is a straightforward platformer, where running, jumping, and irksomely gliding with an unwieldy pizza box are the bread-and-butter banalities you’ll wearily grow accustomed to throughout. The Cosmic Shake makes a habit out of getting you to jump up to the top of peaks and gliding from platform to platform, though the latter in particular can be tough to control – why does SpongeBob even need to use a pizza box to glide? He’s not a TMNT character!
Conversely, hook-shotting using the grappling hook and blasting through boost rings does feel zippy and speedy, but there’s no sense of scale or a showcase of excitement to the action-it all feels passe, an echo of old-school platformers without an evolution or an acknowledgement of the improvements the genre has seen in the past 20 years.
The absence of gameplay refinements was OK for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated because that was a remaster of a 2003 game, but The Cosmic Shake is supposed to be a new and exciting entry – yet it’s apparent that the exoskeleton has been taken from Rehydrated and instead of adding flesh, skin and bones, it simply adds crayon scrawls, a funky wig and a nose that makes a horn sound when you squeeze it. This is to say that The Cosmic Shake is fit for the purposes of entertaining children and casual gamers, but it doesn’t appear to have concerns of being anything greater. It’s stuck in the past and it only subsists on its retro thrills to get by.
Like with platformers of yore, bashing wooden boxes is commonplace as you’ll grab the gooey jelly contents inside, which you’ll find plentifully as you explore all the Wishworlds. Jelly is The Cosmic Shake’s primary form of currency used to buy a myriad of costumes, though using it to buy anything more worthwhile is absent. Granted, the costumes are cool and quirky, but they don’t add additional flavour to this middling experience.
Regarding collecting stuff, keeping SpongeBob fresh is important, so when you see white underpants suspended in a bubble, be sure to grab them as they’ll extend your life and stop SpongeBob from chafing in the process. You may not need grab new underpants as falling in battle is far from a common occurrence, but if you do fall, you’ll be dropped to nearest saved checkpoint – which can be a little further back than you may anticipate.
While the platforming meat and potatoes of The Cosmic Shake are breezy, accessible and ideal for the little ones, there’s nary an ounce of oomph or aplomb to the whole shebang, leaving the platforming and combat gameplay feeling very lightweight.
Pertaining to combat, the swishy bubble blowing device SpongeBob uses as a weapon is quite rad, when you see harmful monsters squeezed into a bubble and helplessly levitating in the air. It’s equal parts cute and comical to behold, but there are no augmentations or crazier enhancements to go along with this gadget, resembling only a fission of the game’s general resistance to expanding the ideas it has.
Gelatinous monsters are in abundance in The Cosmic Shake and they range from nibbling little bulbous critters to giant moody beasts brandishing large bathtubs who are eager to smash you over the head with it. Smaller enemies will be easily trounced by SpongeBob’s basic attacks, but bigger, more brutish enemies have segmented health bars for you to whittle away at, so an emphasis on timing dodges and attacking when there’s an opening will provide dividends.
There are a handful of cool bosses to battle against as well. Each Wishworld contains a unique boss encounter, and they do a great job complementing the array of vibrancy and diversity The Cosmic Shake does possess when you look for it. They are somewhat bogged down by a blighting idiosyncrasy that forces you to take out grunts before you can damage the larger villain, but they won’t pose much of a threat if you can evade the oncoming projectiles and moving out of the way when you need to.
The glowing and diversely-themed Wishworlds are true highlights. The Cosmic Shake does an applaudable job of sucking you into its mischievous calamity, mainly due to the Wishworlds being spectacularly splendid. It’s jolly to go buck wild in the western Wishworld and the nautical pirate world will no doubt make you go yo-ho-ho like an excitable captain after plundering a naval vessel. The colourful and characterful quirkiness of SpongeBob bolsters the appeal of the Wishworlds greatly – the fusion of his juvenile antics and the cartoonish charms of the lands he explores make for a delightful pairing.
Musically, The Cosmic Shake blends old with new, unifying jolly tunes from previous entries in the franchise with new compositions. What we get is a lovely blend of old and new that makes for an appreciable audio festival of sound. The original cast reprise their roles, which is always something to be thankful for, therefore making SpongeBob come across in a classic fashion that even older fans can respect. The dialogue brings the chuckles and charm of the TV show and the previous games to. So, although it appears like business as usual, there’s much to like here regardless.
Conclusion
All in all, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a middling effort that is helped along by the titular protagonist’s whimsical humour, the sparklingly colourful Wishworlds and the jolly soundtrack. Unfortunately, The Cosmic Shake spirals down from its promising state as an original SpongeBob adventure because it feels like any old-school platformer from twenty years ago. Sure, the kiddies will find The Cosmic Shake to be a simple and satisfying slice of SpongeBob silliness to savour, but without an impactful zest to it, there’s not enough to make it stand out from previous outings. There’s a woeful dearth of depth here that ensures The Cosmic Shake flounders adrift in the high seas of averageness, instead of soaring into the skies of sensation. It’s an adventure that will do in a pinch, but SpongeBob fans know this could have been so much more.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
