Played on: PS5 (Original)

Difficulty: N/A

It’s been quite some time since Spongebob fans have gotten a game for the beloved Nickelodeon cartoon akin to Battle for Bikini Bottom. But THQ Nordic and developer Purple Lamp recently delivered a spiritual successor in The Cosmic Shake that’s nothing more than a subpar Spongebob game that prioritizes simple nostalgia over genuine love and care.

The game sees players play as Spongebob (voiced by Tom Kenny) as his trip to Glove World with his best bud Patrick (voiced by Bill Fagerbakke) takes an unexpected turn. After buying a mysterious bottle from potion vendor Madame Kassandra (voiced by Sirena Irwin), Spongebob starts blowing magic bubbles to help his friends. Unfortunately, the bubbles start opening portals that transport Spongebob and Patrick’s friends to alternate dimensions.  Now, to save their friends, Spongebob and Patrick must traverse these new yet familiar worlds to find their companions and restore Bikini Bottom to its former look.

Spongebob fans of any generation can easily find something to like about playing Cosmic Shake since it features many nods to the series. Given that past Nicktoon games, like All-Star Brawl and Nickelodeon Kart Racing have been released without having the iconic voices of characters, it’s refreshing that Cosmic Shake sees nearly every voice actor from the series reprise their role. Their voices really make the character interactions feel authentic and give Cosmic Shake the feeling of being a real Spongebob game. It’s also fun to hear this iconic voice cast spin their performances into different genres and depictions that fit the world their characters are a part of. There are also a lot of references to beloved moments from the series and jokes that’ll please fans – old and new.

More importantly, there’s a great selection of costumes for players to obtain for Spongebob. As players upgrade their tier by collecting coins, they’ll be able to purchase costumes with “jelly” currency and it’s a solid system honestly. Costumes are a great reward motivator for players to want to collect all the coins and save up their jelly, and there are some costumes that fans will adore seeing. From players being able to dress in themed garbs fitting for each level to some of Spongebob’s most iconic costumes – including his Goofy Goober hat from the first movie and some well-known Halloween costumes – fans will have a blast decking him out in their favorite look. Personally, it’s a little bumming that Doodle Bob isn’t a costume option, but there is a pretty awesome stylized skeleton costume that’s got a similar color palette and sinister feel.

There’s no doubt that Spongebob fans will at least come away from Cosmic Shake appreciating the doses of nostalgia the game offers. But this game is clearly not up to par in terms of design, ambition, or sheer mechanics. Cosmic Shake feels like a game that’s been transported to the future from the PS2 era and not for the best of reasons. In some ways, its design is meant to emulate the experience from Battle for Bikini Bottom and mascot platformers of that era. But Cosmic Shake is less of a trip down memory lane and more of a bland modern platformer that isn’t all that fun to play.

The platforming and combat become stale quickly and even when there are new mechanics introduced like karate kicking or gliding, they’re not game-changing enough to really revitalize the experience. Plus, Spongebob just says the same one-liners constantly, so you get tired of performing the same moves. Each level basically has players do the same thing – traverse familiar platforms and fight small groups of enemies until you reach a final boss or mission to end things. There’s an attempt to add new types of enemies each level, but it’s still never pivotal enough to effectively improve or change the experience over time. Even when a new enemy appears, you generally just go about defeating them in the same way – which makes combat very boring.

Even the inclusion of sections where players do some sand-surfing on Spongebob’s tongue and ride seahorses is ill-conceived as they just display the game’s crummy-feeling controls. It’s also bizarre how Patrick isn’t incorporated into the gameplay whatsoever. He’s just floating next to Spongebob the whole time and it’s like the developers had no idea what to do with him. The gameplay has pretty much no depth to it, and you start to feel like you’re on a rinse and repeat cycle basically after the first level.

The levels, themselves, are nothing special either and lack any real imaginative or creative qualities in their looks. This game barely boasts remarkable graphics or a visual design that’s remotely memorable. The levels generally feel like random mashups of genres and ideas that aren’t utilized well. For instance, players will get to visit Rock Bottom during Halloween, but there’s rarely any variation of characters to meet and aside from one section of the level, Rock Bottom’s Halloween celebration doesn’t feel prevalent enough. Frankly, it needed the kind of twisted sense of eeriness that’s seen in Glove World to be memorable and most of the levels just don’t leave much of an impression.

Cosmic Shake just feels like a game that’s just trying to be passable that’s a shame because it feels like it could’ve been so much more. Its multiverse concept has so much potential for content outside of the decent main story that it never takes advantage of. There isn’t much reason to return to levels after completing the main story aside from simply completing generic fetch quests for other characters. Even the few side missions that players can find when returning to levels are so uninspired. They’re basically the same kind of collectible fetch quest and don’t offer much motivation for completing them outside of gaining another costume.

None of this is to say that Cosmic Shake is a bad or broken game, but the lack of effort outside basic nostalgia makes it feel hollower than it should. These levels just feel like they were lazily slapped together, and the gameplay has no real inventiveness with it to maintain its engagement. Even the menu design is incredibly archaic and the reload save system feels totally broken – which ultimately makes this game feel older than it should. In terms of other video games out there and how far gaming has come; Cosmic Shake is far from impressive or feeling remotely like it belongs in this era of gaming. It just feels like a subpar effort overall and that energy or lack thereof drastically impacts how enjoyable Cosmic Shake can be as a game.

Spongebob fans will certainly be interested and slightly delighted by some of the basic nostalgia found in Cosmic Shake, but they’ll still find themselves wishing it was a part of a better game. Cosmic Shake is a bare minimum effort that doesn’t have the depth or care put into it to be anything more than a barebones platformer with some Spongebob nods lazily thrown in.

Watch the Trailer Here: