Review: SPONGEBOB BATTLE FOR BIKINI BOTTOM- REHYDRATED Is a Cup of Warm Water on a Summer Day
The original SpongeBob: Battle for Bikini Bottom was not a master class in gaming at all, but the fun use of characters, voice lines, and putting SpongeBob in a 3-D Platformer made for an all-around good game. The Rehydrated version adds little to nothing except a nice facelift and pointless multiplayer mode.
The basics of a 3-D Platformer are actually well executed here; all the jumping, running, attacking and collecting flow pretty well. However, the game frequently never challenged me as a player. As this is a children’s cartoon, it’s no surprise that the game is easier than others to match the audience. But having no seriously difficult collectibles or unlockables behind deeper skilled gameplay is disappointing because the game is old enough that a major part of the audience, if not the majority, is older and well-experienced gamers.
The visuals are actually probably the best part of this whole game. The high resolution character models, the bright color,s and vibrant environments almost look better than the actual TV show at times. But all these great visuals don’t amount to much when you’re just walking around aimlessly, not having to pay a lot of attention to anything at all while going through the different areas.
The multiplayer mode is shallow, easy, and doesn’t really have anything other than a second player to a closed environment which doesn’t challenge either person. It would’ve been interesting if you could play through the main campaign with two people, or three people, each person taking on one of the playable characters. This would allow players to never backtrack to Bus Stops to switch characters.
Compared to other remakes and remasters that have come out in the last few years, SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is very low in content or quality. It does its job fine, and if younger gamers were really into SpongeBob, then maybe this game will entertain them for a bit. For all other players, this Rehydrated version adds nothing of major substance other than some pretty visuals.
