SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated Reviews
Nostalgia and a new paint job aren't enough to save you from the dull, frustrating, and wonky experience that is SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated.
Normally, licensed video games have a hard time being good, however, Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom hit it out of the park and the game gained a following for being so good. So when Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated was announced, you can understand the excitement that fans of that title must have felt. For me, someone who loves the original, my expectations and hype were sky-rocketed, and I couldn’t wait to play this title. Now that I have played it, did the game hit those expectations? The simple answer is… No. No, it didn’t. Keep reading to find out why.
Despite the renewed presentation, SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated drops the ball...
SpongeBob SquarePants is a household name in entertainment today, not only due to the television series but also due to the associated video games, with Battle for Bikini Bottom being the most illustrious title of the bunch. Released initially nearly seventeen years ago at the end of 2003 for Playstation 2, Xbox, GameCube, PC, and Game Boy Advance, the game has long-lived love lingering around to this day; therefore, publishers THQ Nordic and developers Purple Lamp Studios decided it would be keen to reinvent the game and bring it to modern consoles.
Perfectly serviceable, yet equally devoid of justification to have been remade, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated does little to captivate on the amazing opportunity it's been given and evolve with the times.
A fresh coat of paint can't disguise the fact that SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is just a remake of an unremarkable platformer that hasn't exactly aged well.
This remake of good old yet still flawed Spongebob game is a big disappointment. Not only it doesn't improve on any of the issues from the original game but it also adds new ones such as bugs and boring multiplayer. The title suffers from an obsolete game design that developers failed to address. On the other hand, the graphics are nice and the characters are just as enjoyable as they were in the original.
Review in Czech | Read full review
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.
Rehydrated doesn’t offer up more than a few hours-worth of content to distract from the doldrum. It took me roughly 8 hours to beat the story, but it would probably take up to 12 to collect everything. If you’re looking for a new game to play in quarantine, this isn’t it. Despite the nostalgia, I honestly can’t recommend this game to anyone except for families with small children. There’s no penalty for dying, except for having to backtrack through areas, and the combat is simplistic enough that any kid will be able to pick it up easily.
A clunky adventure that will only appeal to hardcore fans thanks to its antiquated gameplay and ho-hum additions.
If you're completely, absolutely sure that you'd enjoy Battle for Bikini Bottom as much today as you did as a kid if not for the outdated platform and visuals, Rehydrated serves the same experience in a cleaner package. However, if you, like me, have fond memories of the game as a kid, muddied by the passage of time, be warned that this remaster might take your rose-tinted glasses and break them in two.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated gives the original a nice paint job but fails to do much more than that.
SpongeBob: SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated sinks under its reverence to nostalgia.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated is a fun enough game in its own right, but it's encumbered with the weight of near-ancient game design practices. It's new bright visuals bring Bikini Bottom to life in a whole new way, with character animations now better portraying the classic cartoon than ever before, but its gameplay is still firmly anchored to 2003, some of which has been negatively impacted by its updated visuals. At its core, Rehydrated is a repetitive and cumbersome 2003 platformer. A bit of water in 2020 isn't enough to soak new life into this old dried up sponge.
Hones in on my nostalgia goggles while never quite satiating me like the original.
Sure, there is the nostalgia factor here, it had to be said, but sometimes it takes a bit more than that to make a game with spending your hard-earned money and time on.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated isn't a good remake, but it certainly has its charms. There is no denying its general appeal as an adaptation of one of the best TV series, but if we go through the filters of an entertaining platformer game, it has many weaknesses.
Review in Persian | Read full review
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated does what it sets out to do. It's a loyal remake of an unremarkable PS2-era title.
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated is an unfortunately rough package.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is not the best remake you can get these days. The animations, character models and gameplay mechanisms seem odd and outdated. That being said, if you are a dedicated fan of the original animation, you'll still enjoy the story and the great voice acting.
Review in Persian | Read full review