SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated

 Switch
User Score
8.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 279 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 221 out of 279
  2. Mixed: 20 out of 279
  3. Negative: 38 out of 279
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  1. Starfree
    Jun 23, 2020
    7
    This is one of the few games of my childhood that I really don’t remember too much of. Playing though was a huge nostalgia kick for me and some parts felt like new experience. The story is way better than what you would expect from a spongebob game and the gameplay is incredible. But there is one big problem that people shouldn’t ignore... this game is game is littered with glitches.This is one of the few games of my childhood that I really don’t remember too much of. Playing though was a huge nostalgia kick for me and some parts felt like new experience. The story is way better than what you would expect from a spongebob game and the gameplay is incredible. But there is one big problem that people shouldn’t ignore... this game is game is littered with glitches. Nothing that completely breaks the game, just small annoyances that can get in the way of platforming. It definitely doesn’t effect the experience negatively. And then there’s the loading screens like wtf is going on? The game is beautiful but it’s not impressive enough to merit a 3 minute long loading screen! There are a few graphical glitches, but most of which I find are pretty funny so I like them. The game is incredible... but there are a ton technical problems that just can’t be ignored.… Expand
  2. MasterFoxMan
    Jun 23, 2020
    7
    As fun and faithful as this game is to the OG spongebob game. The low framerate + the buggy mess of certain sections is too much for me to give it anything higher than a 7.5

    The remastered music is great, the reuse of old voice lines gives a GREAT nostalgic feel to it. Not to mention its quite nice to have something to give my sisters to play that I used to when I was their age!
  3. Khaki-
    Jul 3, 2020
    6
    F is for Framerate Issues, even when Docked.
    U is for Unoptimized.
    N is for New Issues that were Nonexistent Before. PLEASE FIX THIS GAME, PLEASE! Considering not much was changed aside from graphics for this remake, it's surprising how many new issues are present within the new game. Framerate consistently and constantly fluctuates even in small areas, abysmal loading times even    F is for Framerate Issues, even when Docked.
    U is for Unoptimized.
    N is for New Issues that were Nonexistent Before.
    PLEASE FIX THIS GAME, PLEASE!

    Considering not much was changed aside from graphics for this remake, it's surprising how many new issues are present within the new game. Framerate consistently and constantly fluctuates even in small areas, abysmal loading times even when respawning, sounds either not playing or playing all at the same time, SpongeBob sneaking even when holding the control stick all the way down, extreme pop-in even on enemies and objects, the controls feeling noticeably slower and floatier, all issues that weren't present within the original. It's jarring too considering the other games with similar graphics and technical prowess on the Nintendo Switch that run better.

    Despite these shortcomings, there's genuine fun to be found. There's platforming challenges, combat challenges, puzzle challenges, all exceptionally crafted and faithfully recreated to feel as if the player is truly traversing through an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. Although it's greatly hindered by the aforementioned issues and controls that feel slightly off from how the original played. It makes me wonder how much of this is worth it for the incredible shiny new visuals or if the visuals even matter on a console like the Nintendo Switch when the gameplay is being severely held down.

    I think THQNordic and Purple Lamp are very lucky we live in a time were games can now be patched and fixed via updates over the internet. If these issues were present in the original release I doubt it would be as greatly loved, and certainly not a game speedrunners would be playing. With the right fixes or even the necessary hardware (I don't know if these issues are present in the other versions), this would be a truly fantastic remake of a truly fantastic game. However, it's still a shame this game is initially plagued with the issues it has now and is a haunting blow to it's reputation, something which no amount of patches can fix.    … Expand
  4. SirWeeb
    Jun 23, 2020
    5
    Reviewd with ver. 1.0.1

    When the game was announced, i was pretty happy to see battle for bikini bottom being remaked. I also heard that purple lamp studios were listening to the community about their opinion. So i was pretty confident in the studio. But when i'd played the game i've noticed that some imputs weren't read. So i've missed a lot of jumps. I also noticed that the    Reviewd with ver. 1.0.1

    When the game was announced, i was pretty happy to see battle for bikini bottom being remaked. I also heard that purple lamp studios were listening to the community about their opinion. So i was pretty confident in the studio.

    But when i'd played the game i've noticed that some imputs weren't read.
    So i've missed a lot of jumps.

    I also noticed that the loading screen took so long before you can play.
    So if you die a lot (what happend a lot to me because of imputs) you need to wait for about 20 seconds before you can play again.

    Some other thing i've noticed is that the clam in jellyfish field would always take shiny objects from you whenever you respawned.

    But to give the game his + points

    The animations were amazing
    The voice acting was great
    Most of the original voice actors were taking their role as their characters

    The game is in my honest opinion not worth it at this moment.
    I've heared that purple lamp studios is working on a patch that will fix the game

    You can always wish that i would be patched fast.
    But i hope they will take their time with fixing its problems.
    Because it would be sad when this game will come down as a bad remake
    You can tell the passion Purple lamp have put in the game

    As time will tell, i hope this game will turn out amazing    … Expand
  5. imoviesreview
    Aug 18, 2020
    7
    Now this is still a good game. However, I never played the original growing up. (Unless you count the PC version) I don't really have much love for this game. This is a good game, but it won't be anything special for non Spongebob fans. It just not that interesting compared to Mario games. I did play the movie game which was sort of a sequel to this game. Now maybe the movie game is betterNow this is still a good game. However, I never played the original growing up. (Unless you count the PC version) I don't really have much love for this game. This is a good game, but it won't be anything special for non Spongebob fans. It just not that interesting compared to Mario games. I did play the movie game which was sort of a sequel to this game. Now maybe the movie game is better then this, and I can point to several reasons why that is. But the movie game does have problems. But because of my nostalgia for that game. I think highly of that one, and because I don't have nostalgia for this game I only think this is just good. I think that's the problem with this remake. You have to have some love to the original or at least the source material for me to recommend this.… Expand
  6. Ert0426
    Jul 21, 2021
    7
    A really good remaster of the original. The modern visuals and soundtrack are great, and it's still very fun. However, there are a few problems. A lot of the bugs from the original and some of the toughest levels were not fixed, and the non-cutscene models could use some work. Still really good overall, though.
  7. OmegaChase1002
    Jul 11, 2020
    7
    This is not a perfect game. But it's not as bad as the critics say, either. It's somewhere in the middle. It's okay. Just okay.
  8. GabFire
    Aug 9, 2020
    5
    Eu não consigo entender como tem tanta gente gostando desse lixo, o jogo não tem nada de impressionante, nada mais e nada menos que é o Bob Esponja de sempre com sua calça quadrada renderizado num jogo vergonhoso e mal desenvolvido, pode ter quantas recomendações for, eu não recomendo, existem vários jogos melhores.
  9. RomShenhav
    Jul 19, 2020
    5
    I absolutely loved this game when I was a kid.
    However, the game's mechanics did not age well.
    Platforming is tough and frustrating, often leads you to fall and missing the platform because the character's shadow disappeared. It mostly happens with Spongebob and Patrick, less with Sandy because she can hover and her double-jump is easier, for some reason. However, lassoing with Sandy to    I absolutely loved this game when I was a kid.
    However, the game's mechanics did not age well.
    Platforming is tough and frustrating, often leads you to fall and missing the platform because the character's shadow disappeared. It mostly happens with Spongebob and Patrick, less with Sandy because she can hover and her double-jump is easier, for some reason. However, lassoing with Sandy to the Texas-themed hook is broken, and sometimes the indicator for attaching to the hook isn't showing up, with Sandy falling and then you'd have to restart the whole sequence all over again.
    Loading times are abysmal, at least on the PS4 Pro. it takes around 15 seconds with every death, followed by a major texture pop-in.
    Those one liners are ridiculous and repetitive and overall the game is very frustrating with difficulty spikes at time (E.g. Spongebob's dream, Flying Dutchman's shipyard, the ball's challenge and the slopes at Sand Mountain).
    The game is uninspiring, sometimes the missions feels like a chore and it's just simply isn't fun. Maybe I remembered this game better as a kid, but it doesn't live up to other platformers such as Jak & Daxter or Ratchet & Clank (which I believe this game was heavily inspired by).
    They also changed Mr. Krab's shiny things requirements so if you're going for the platinum, you're bound to a lot of grind.
    I have also encountered a game-breaking glitch with one of the Spatulas not registering even though I picked it up, and luckily I had a save that was only missing a few hours so I did not need to replay the entire game (contrary of what some players did).
    This game is extremely glitchy at times.
    Switching to other players is not made by pressing a button, but finding a bus station (which leads to some unnecessary backtracking) unlike the Spongebob the movie game which had easier character switching method.
    I can say that the game looks better than the original one, and is pretty stable in frame rate (unless you destroy a lot of tikis at the same time and then it struggles for a bit).

    Overall the game is forgettable and even though it looks good and performs well in most of the time, I cannot recommend it, unless you want some nostalgia or just like the franchise.

    Prepare to be frustrated!    … Expand
  10. FreeTheTaint
    Jul 12, 2020
    6
    Original is one of my all time favorites, however the Switch port is currently an un-optimized mess.

    It looks and runs very poorly. No anti-aliasing, pop-in of textures, frame drops and all around sluggish performance. I even played the Original Xbox version in tandem and have concluded it is much better to play with its stabler 60fps and consistent visuals. It seems not much time or    Original is one of my all time favorites, however the Switch port is currently an un-optimized mess.

    It looks and runs very poorly. No anti-aliasing, pop-in of textures, frame drops and all around sluggish performance. I even played the Original Xbox version in tandem and have concluded it is much better to play with its stabler 60fps and consistent visuals. It seems not much time or effort went into making this look and run the best it can for Switch.

    Very much hope that future patches fix what would otherwise be a must own for the Switch.    … Expand
  11. bymanabat15
    Jun 27, 2020
    5
    It's a great remastered game and my kids definitely love this game. The story is so fun and amusing.
  12. carsmiley
    Nov 25, 2020
    5
    It's honestly a fun game, so bear with me through my rant. It's a fun game, but by God is the Switch version terrible. I haven't played much of it on other platforms but I can still say with much confidence that the Switch version is by far the worst looking one.
    But okay, the Nintendo Switch isn't that powerful, I can deal with that. Sadly the fact that textures are scaled WAY down or    It's honestly a fun game, so bear with me through my rant. It's a fun game, but by God is the Switch version terrible. I haven't played much of it on other platforms but I can still say with much confidence that the Switch version is by far the worst looking one.
    But okay, the Nintendo Switch isn't that powerful, I can deal with that. Sadly the fact that textures are scaled WAY down or just sometimes take literal minutes to load aren't the worst part. On top of that, the framerate is just so horrendous at times. Oh, you destroyed 5 crates right after eachother, better give the system some time to calculate the shinies that spawned. It just gets annoying when the frame rate drops so substantionally. At times it felt more like I was battling not the game or the controls but the Nintendo Switch itself.

    I also wish that where the problems stopped. I, as many others, bought the game because I played the original back on ps2. So I wanted to get the most out of the game, to relive my childhood for as long as I possibly could. Therefore I really wanted to gather all collectibles (all golden spatulas and all socks). Only one problem, it's bugged. Couple of the golden spatulas never spawned (and I watched YouTube-videos of people collecting them to make sure I wasn't just doing something wrong). Thank God that at least you don't need all of them to be able to finish the game. They will still however forever remain a greyed out, uncollected silhouette in the menu.

    On top of that, there's just sometimes these various other bugs and glitches. I got respawned a couple of times when I definitely shouldn't have been, a couple of sound effects kept repeating after performing a certain action until I left the level, I got trapped behind a couple of invisible walls and needed to respawn through the menu in order to escape (you aren't supposed to walk the staircase-esque hill beside the Chum Bucket?) among many others.

    Moving on to something different entirely.
    WHY. does. the multiplayer. in this game. exist? It's so bad, it might even be worse than all the bugs combined. It must've been some kind of inside joke between the developers. (it will most likely have been a requirement the publisher gave the developers that they just crammed in because they could't have time to do it properly) The idea itself really isn't that bad. It's a bunch of islands, (one more uninspiring than the other (with some exceptions)) where you and a friend have to defeat enemies until you get to the boss fight where you then defeat said boss. That alone could've been improved, but not too bad. The reason I dislike it so much is because there isn't any music. Why isn't there any music. Well there is, you can be forgiven for not noticing. I don't know much about music, hardly anything to be honest. But by God, just why? Why did they choose the slowest, quietest, uninspired ~tune~ ever? It makes it even more noticeable that also, the characters make no sounds whatsoever. None. Well, if you're not counting the sound of the characters jumping at least. Ofcourse, this mode can entertain you and a friend for a couple of minutes. Yes, I used the word "entertain" generously.

    Now that I've got all of that of my chest, I can list what's good about this game.
    - It includes Spongebob
    - It's a better-looking version of the classic
    - The singleplayer-campaign can entertain you (unironic) for hours
    - The singleplayer-campaign DOES have sound effects

    TL;DR:
    - Poor performance on Nintendo Switch
    - Tons of bugs and glitches
    - Multiplayer mode is absolute garbage
    + Spongebob
    + Remake of a classic
    + Singleplayer is fun    … Expand
  13. LukeCaputo
    Mar 9, 2021
    5
    Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is a game that was re-released for Switch in the summer of last year. The original game was released on GameCube in 2004, along with another game for the movie that also came out that year, and that was supposed to be the only game to go with the franchise. However, with the tragic passing of Stephen Hillenburg a couple yearsSpongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is a game that was re-released for Switch in the summer of last year. The original game was released on GameCube in 2004, along with another game for the movie that also came out that year, and that was supposed to be the only game to go with the franchise. However, with the tragic passing of Stephen Hillenburg a couple years ago, that went for naught.

    Nickelodeon has been dancing all over Hillenburg's grave ever since, denying his wishes of more Spongebob movies, spin-offs, and new video games. This alone doesn't make the game not good, however; the game is still very enjoyable to play. But I cannot give this game a good review with that knowledge in mind.

    Other people may feel differently, and that's perfectly fine. The game is fun to play, and I beat it, and I'm sure many people derived enjoyment from this game. As they should; it's a video game. But I cannot and will not give this game a good review with the knowledge I have about this entire situation.

    My rating: 5/10    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

12
#12 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2020

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
66

Mixed or average reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 14 out of 21
  3. Negative: 1 out of 21
  1. Universo Nintendo
    Dec 16, 2020
    80
    SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is a faithful remake of the game originally released in 2003. The game has great graphics, multiplayer mode, extensive levels and collectible items. However, it is worth noting the low level of difficulty in the story mode and considerable falls in frame rate at sometimes. Still, it is a great choice for lovers of 3D platform games.
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  2. Cubed3
    Aug 12, 2020
    50
    A perfect example of nostalgia glasses. In short, this may be a hidden gem, but it is completely representative of its time. 2D Platformers have long moved on, and this deserved some overhaul to the core gameplay, instead of just a graphical improvement and a tacked-on multiplayer experience. The soundtrack is a perfect encapsulation of the game as a whole. Utterly charming for the first few moments, but then each track repeats again. And again. And again. One note. Those who enjoyed the first may find themselves questioning why they did, should they dive into the murky waters here.
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  3. Switch Player
    Aug 3, 2020
    40
    Battle for Bikini Bottom felt as much a battle to play at times as it did to defeat those robots. It’s great to see a cult classic get a fresh lick of paint, but style over substance just isn’t enough.
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