Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a 2003 action platformer developed by Heavy Iron Studios and published by THQ for the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox. The game was remastered in a 2020 release Titled Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, this version was developed by Purple Lamp Studios and was published by THQ for the PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC and Xbox One.
In this review I will be mainly looking at the original game and then briefly discussing the remake afterwards.
Plankton has built an Army of Robots to help him steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula and take over the world. Unfortunately for him the robots were set to not obey mode and instead decide to take over Bikini Bottom leaving Spongebob, Patrick and Sandy to defeat the robots and put a stop to their chaos.
There are three playable characters in the game which can be switched at bus stops hidden within levels, each of these characters have different abilities which are needed to find secrets and progress through out the game.
Spongebob has the most moves in the game and each of these revolve around blowing bubbles, his most commonly used move puts a bubble helmet on his head which he uses to destroy robots that are positioned high above the ground.
His bowling bubble can be used to hit enemies that are wedged within difficult spaces or to hit buttons when he is standing on a pressure pad.
The cruise bubble is a projectile move that allows Spongebob to blow a timed missile at enemies.
Patrick is able to pick up heavy objects which he can hurl at buttons or stack up so that he can climb to higher places. Using freezing fruit Patrick can temporarily freeze body’s of water so that he can walk over them to find secrets that could not be found otherwise.
Sandy is my favourite character to play as in the game, she is able to use her lasso to grab enemies, swing across specific sections and temporarily glide across large gaps.
There are various surf sections in the game where players need to quickly travel down ski slopes which hide additional secrets and collectibles. I really like these sections I found them to be challenging with tight enough controls and overall a great experience.
I really enjoyed the boss fights in the game I thought they were really well designed and challenging to fight, some of these were references to episodes from the Television series and the others were robotic versions of the playable characters. Concept Art from the game shows art for a robot Squidward fight, this could be a sign that he may have been designed as a playable character at some point in development.
The main collectable in the game are the Golden Spatulas, these are needed to access new levels and areas in the game, players can either find these or be given them as rewards for helping in-game NPC’s. You can also get spatulas for finding Patrick’s missing socks, or by purchasing them from Mr Krabs in exchange for Shiny things the in-game currency.
The soundtrack is really fun and is one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard in a licensed videogame, its not phenominal or anything but it really works so well for this game. The music is a lot of a fun and can be more serious at times when needed, what I really appreciate is that in the rock bottom section of the game they removed the music entirely so that it felt just like the episode it was based on. my favourite was the Bikini Bottom Music that played during the hub world it made me think of jolly sailors travelling the high seas.
Battle for Bikini Bottom is one of the greatest licensed video games ever made, this is a really solid experience and a love letter to Spongebob fans from the developers. I was shocked with how much effort was put into this, mulitple playable characters, funny dialogue, great music, tight controls and lots of things to do, I do wish that the theatre gave us a little more than just concept art and a better completion bonus would have been appreciated but apart from that I can only reccomend you get yourself a copy of this game even though these days it doesn’t sell for very cheap I think it is well worth its price and is better value for money than the remake which we will discuss now.
The new version obviously looks better than its predecessor the graphics are lot more appealing and run at a higher frame rate compared to the original.
I also really enjoyed that the new game added up to date Spongebob references and memes for the younger fans and the older ones too.
Gorgeous new visuals aside lets discuss the game in general, the first thing that really sucks about this is that they didnt add anything new so this is purely a visual remake.
They modernised the music as well and while still is very good its lost a lot of its charm and doesn’t suit the game as well as did previously.
The theatre returns but they removed the concept art which makes sense as they should have replaced it with concept art from this game but instead they put a handful of still images from the game as your reward for unlocking the theatre.
I haven’t really got much else to say about this remake as it is very close to the original but it just feels like a few more months fixing up a few of its fall backs were needed. I think a bonus world would have been a great addition and if not the robot squidward fight that was added into the multiplayer could have just been added into the main game even if it was a hidden boss fight. As for the theatre how about instead of screen shots from the game they could have placed a playable ROM of the Battle for Bikini Bottom GBA game as it will probably never be released virtually anyway and it would give fans of the console game a chance to play a version they may have missed.
Speaking of the GBA game maybe one day I will take a look at it to see how it holds up compared to the console version.
If you do not have a an older system then rehydrated is still a really fun game it just struggles to compare to the original game that in my opinion is vastly superior.
Battle for Bikini Bottom 9.5/10
Rehydrated 7/10
My Favourite Spongebob episodes – Rock Bottom
In this season 1 episode Spongebob and Patrick have just finished a day of fun at Glove World and are catching bus home to Bikini Bottom but unfortunately they are on the wrong bus and end up in a town called Rock Bottom.
Rock Bottom is a unusual place where everything is backwards or just genuinely doesn’t make any sense, the area is quite dark and somewhat creepy which makes the need for Spongebob to get home even more intense.
The episode only really gets funny when Patrick manages to catch the bus home and Spongebob is left alone, poor Spongebob keeps missing every bus home by seconds and no matter what he tries he just cannot catch that bus and it soon becomes apparent to the viewer that the bus might be missing Spongebob on purpose. This is definitely one the funnier episodes and may be one of the highlights of the show where the comedy is at the expense of Spongebob and not another character.
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I have to say that this is the strangest Mario game I have ever played, its not a bad thing but its very different to its predecessors for one their are no power ups in the game but Mario has the ability to transform into most enemies and objects in the game by throwing Cappy at things, also the game adds a whole new wardrobe of outfits that Mario can purchase and wear throughout his adventure these new features are a nice change for the series and I hope that at least the outfits stay for future entries.
He’s collected Stars, he’s collected Shine Sprites so we all knew it wouldn’t be long before Mario was collecting moons and this game has a whopping 999 for you to find and buy, most of them can be collected fairly quickly but they are well hidden, thankfully you can collect the majority of the moons in a kingdom in a single visit as Mario Odyssey takes away the need to revisit a level every time you want to collect a moon.
Star Fox Zero is the seventh game in the Star Fox franchise and since it is the first game in the series to be released after an agonising ten year gap I suppose you could say it’s very important but after such a long wait for a new Star Fox game was this one worth it?
If you’ve ever played the Star Fox games before then you know that for the majority of the series the concept and general plot is very similar with only small details making up the biggest differences, for those who dont know Fox Mc Cloud is the leader of Star Fox a mercenary aerial attack team that travel the Lylat System keeping it safe from dangerous enemies and unknown threats, Star Fox Zero is another reboot of the original Star Fox for the Super Nintendo this has been done two times prior to Zero’s release in Star Fox 64 and Star Fox 64 3D, the plot of each game is very basic but very sad and when you finally win your victory feels so much more rewarding due to this, James Mc Cloud was the original leader of Star Fox, James was on a mission with his team consisiting of himself, Peppy O Hare and Pigma Dengar they traveled to the Planet Venom where they were to defeat a mad scientist named Andross who was threatening to take over the universe, before he could complete his mission James learns that his partner Pigma had set a bomb in his Arwing before they began the mission but it was too late and James was killed, Star Fox Zero takes place 5 years later, Andross has declared war on Corneria and now Fox Mccloud and his team Peppy O Hare, Falco Lombardi and Slippy Toad must travel to the Planet Venom to defeat Andross once and for all.
The two biggest complaints I hear about this game is one that its too short , I personally disagree with this as I really enjoy short games however Nintendo should not have charged such a high price when this game originally came out, there is an unlockable arcade mode available after you beat the story mode but its nothing more than the main game without any power-ups or health upgrades, the second big issue people have with Star Fox Zero is the motion controls, I will admit that the controls do a take a while too get used too but I personally didn’t find them that difficult too use and people often fail to notice that the motion controls can be switched out for a regular analogue control on the games pause menu, one great choice Nintendo made with the controls was how easy it is to now pull off a U Turn or a Somersault, both of these allow much easier control over your vehicles and unlike some of the older games in the franchise here they can pulled off with the simple click of a button, sometimes aiming at enemies on the TV can be a little bit of a challenge but if you look at the game pad you will have a view from the cockpit which makes aiming much easier.
The graphics are very impressive for a game as simple as Star Fox, I will say that largely civilised planets such as Corneria are much easier to appreciate than the sections where you are fighting in space, in these sections you will mostly see enemy ships and debris coming towards your Arwing and that is essentially the only major things you will see during those parts of the game where as when your in a city you will see flowing rivers, large buildings and waterfalls.
Audrey Hepburn is in this movie, she plays an angel called Hap who guides Pete’s spirit while he try’s to set up Holly with a new love interest so that she can move on with her life and be happy, unfortunately this was the last movie Audrey Hepburn ever starred in before her death in 1993.
Everyone on the internet is raving about the latest game in the Legend of Zelda franchise and its all for good reasons, Breath of the Wild was originally announced in 2012 when the Wii U was released and it had an expected release date of December 2013 but unfortunately due to development issues it got delayed multiple times before it was finally released to the general public five years later on March 3rd 2017 along side the companies latest gaming system the Nintendo Switch.
So the reason a lot of people are falling in love with this particular game in the franchise is because when compared to the earlier 3D Zelda titles this is a brand new and unique experience, instead of the usual formula of controlling Link from the first dungeon to the last while following a linear path Breath of the Wild takes place in a free roaming environment and even though there is a main objective the player is encouraged to explore Hyrule to its limits in order to find secrets and gather side quests.
The shrines make up the bulk of the game and even though they are not necessarily important to the plot it is still highly recommended that you solve as many of them as you can in order to make the game a little bit easier, if you would rather challenge yourself to a really difficult run of the game then you could skip all of them and remain at minimal health, however the first few shrines are forced upon the player as these shrines are needed in order to unlock runes.
It had been 11 years since a proper Rayman game had been released and for the longest time fans of the series accepted that Rayman was essentially dead and we just had to accept that those bloody Rabbids had taken over, but in November of 2011 we were all surprised and shocked when a new Rayman title hit retail store shelves.
I was very pleased when I found out that Rayman was going back to being a 2D platformer because we haven’t one of those on a home console since the original and that came out in 1995, however the gameplay does differ from the original game and in Rayman Origins case that is a good thing, first of all you do not need to collect all of the Electoons in the game to face the final boss however there is another collectible in the game called Ruby Teeth and if you manage to find all 10 you will gain access to the Land of the Livid Dead which contains a bunch of secret levels and a secret boss, the game has 10 main worlds and each contain a bunch of levels and half of the worlds contain a boss fight, the majority of the levels consist of fast paced platforming where your goal is get from point A to point B as fast as you can while hunting for Electoons along the way.
In order to collect those Ruby Teeth I mentioned earlier you will need to complete a treasure chase stage and I hope your good at platformers because these are really tough to beat, you will need to sprint,jump and swim your way through all of these levels, they are side-scrollers that scroll really fast and you will need really quick reactions in order to survive each one, they last around 2-3 minutes long and if you die you go back to the start of the level every time.
Rayman has had a re-design and I know a lot of people really like it but personally I do prefer how he looked in the first game however the world around him I really enjoyed looking at, the artistic detail is outstanding and the team behind the visuals need a reward for how fantastic this game looks, it honestly feels like you playing though a cartoon and with the games sense of humor and smooth gameplay it only goes to show how great a proper Rayman animated series could be, and yes I am aware that there was one in the past but like many people I don’t like to talk about it but maybe I will write a review of it at some point to show you just how insulting it actually was.
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