Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a beloved 2003 3D platformer starring everyone's favorite anthropomorphic sponge. Now it has been remade / remastered / Rehydrated in an all new release in 2020 for your favorite game systems. I just got one question for you - Are you rea ... Why did they bother? It, uh, isn't very good now and I can't see it being very good in 2003, either. Whoo boy. Read on for more on Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated and to watch gameplay video.
I mention in the video that the only reason why I really wanted to play this new remaster of Battle for Bikini Bottom is because I watched YouTube channel SuperMega play it and it looked sort of fun-ish. They had a mostly good time, but even watching them play it I could tell the game was really rough. And not in a "it hasn't aged well" sort of way. More of a "I don't understand how this became so popular in the first place" kind of way. In 2003 games like Mario 64, Mario Sunshine, Banjo-Kazooie, Jak and Daxter, and loads more were already available and absolutely put Bikini Bottom to shame.
The main problem with the game is just that it, honestly, isn't very fun. The levels that actually resemble something you might have seen on the TV show are by far the best, but far too many of the levels are only really tangentially related to the show and feel totally arbitrary. Like they just had to pump out the same 3D platformer content that every 3D platformer has. Of course, this is an issue I've noticed with most 3D platformers - the first 2-3 levels are always, ALWAYS, the best, and the rest of the game is more of a struggle.
The game is also, somewhat surprisingly, really freaking difficult. Oh sure, not for the first 30 or so Golden Spatulas you collect, but the latter half of the game is just brutal. As the level quality greatly decreases as you go through the game, the platforming you're tasked with gets increasingly difficult, and the result is a game that you get burned out on long before you reach the end.
So, yeah. I kind of hate it. It was OK to start with, and they did do a good job on the remastered graphics, but Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated just isn't very fun. At least it's only $30, so pick it up for cheap down the road to shatter your rose tinted nostalgia.
