SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide Review

Ever since the porous yellow sponge came back into the modern gaming scene with SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated, developer Purple Lamp and publisher THQ Nordic have been working hard to ensure that kids and older fans alike can go on adventures with everyone’s favourite fry cook and friends, with the latest title being SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide.

I'm going ghos– no, wrong show.

It has been quite a while since I last saw a SpongeBob episode, really only consuming the cartoon through its many memes and having never played a single SpongeBob game (the closest thing being Battle for Volcano Island), which obviously makes me the perfect person to review this game. I’m ready… to attack the titans!

And the story is straight out of a SpongeBob special episode or movie. The Flying Dutchman and King Neptune are clashing with each other and causing all sorts of mayhem, with Bikini Bottom caught in the middle and turning the residents into ghosts. Now it’s up to SpongeBob and Patrick to combine their skills to stop these two titans and save their town… again. Man, these two Goofy Goobers end up doing that a lot.

Heroes can come in all shapes and sizes... and intelligence.

I liked the narrative. Every character is voiced by their actor from the show; there were a few jokes I liked and laughed at, and the story wraps up at an appropriate time. Also, I appreciated that Patrick wasn’t short of brain-dead. He makes some surprisingly intelligent and wise remarks.

Along with the bright and colourful graphics that do well to translate the show from 2D to 3D gameplay, the animations are wonderfully done. I loved how stretchy characters can be, and their facial animations just breathe so much life into each one. I can't get enough of Patrick riding a surfboard backwards, obviously scared out of his mind as he blindly makes jumps. Also, the music changes depending on who you're playing as and whether you're in combat, which is a really nice touch. Guitars for the sponge, tubas for the seastar.

Mr. Krabs is voiced by Clancy Brown this time around.

Of course, it features a bunch of past references to the show, games, and its biggest memes,; from their idle animations and costumes to display items and easter eggs. Heck, David Hasselhoff makes a cameo and it is pretty great. However, it doesn't overwhelm the entire game; when it does make a callback, I didn't feel as though it was for nostalgia bait.

Onto the gameplay, and it's what you’d expect if you’ve played Rehydrated or SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake. You’ll be platforming through semi-open levels and fighting all the ghosts the Flying Dutchman created. You can also go off the main path to hunt down treasure chests and collectibles or help out one of SpongeBob’s friends, like Mrs. Puff, Larry the Lobster, and Fred the “My Leg!” Guy (He really became a major supporting character, huh?). But for an adventure that will involve taking down gods, SpongeBob needs his best friend to help him on his journey.

Best Friends Forever!

Unlike the previous entries, you can freely switch between SpongeBob and Patrick at the press of a button. These two dorks possess unique abilities to help get through levels, having uses for when you're jumping around and busting ghosts. For example, Patrick can burrow underground to dig up coins or avoid attacks, while SpongeBob can perform a homing karate kick to reach new places and close the distance to a ghost. It’s honestly very fun to use these powers together and can make for some satisfying sections and crafty platforming.

Although these ghosts can put up a fight when push comes to shove, there isn't much variety to them (there are only five types). Still, it does offer some creativity when it comes to dispatching them quickly. Nothing beats taking out a big guy by throwing all the smaller dudes at them.

"You're going down, Tubby!

There are some fairly decent challenges found here, especially when you tackle Plankton’s Portal stages. They will task you with getting to the end of the level through skilful platforming (like in Super Mario Sunshine), taking out all enemies, or catching all the jellyfish. It won't make a kid toss their controller, but they can actually give you a hard time if you're looking to speedrun them. They’re still very fun to do in between the main story levels.

However, I found a problem with the economy. If you're diligent with money-collecting, you’ll run out of things to buy very quickly, which is not helped by all the tiki crates and coins respawning after a restart. I only ran out of money once early on, then never again, as I easily had thousands of coins while most of the prices were only in the hundreds. I still collected everything for the simple enjoyment of earning money, but I feel like it should be a little more expensive.

"Now that we're men...!"

Finding all the chests can be a pain to deal with, too, and they have some very good things in them. Costumes, items, scrap metal to unlock more Plankton stages, even underpants parts that are needed to increase your max HP (which you then need to buy from the shop). The map will tell you how many chests you’re missing, but not where the chests exactly are. It's just the overall world map. These levels can be very big with tons of secrets, so you will need a guide to find them all from the start to save yourself future frustrations.

I'm also a little disappointed that Patrick has fewer costumes than SpongeBob. He's a deuteragonist in this game; why didn't they include just as many for him? He’s been around long enough to have them. And speaking of, I tend to use SpongeBob more often, because his homing attack is a lot more useful than Patrick’s grapples and throws in a fight. Still, I liked the gameplay, with the developers showing off the improvements and lessons learned from the previous games.

AH! Put on some pants, man!

Onto technical aspects, I had a consistent 70–90 FPS throughout my playthrough; however it did tend to drop when there were a few too many things happening on screen. Along with that, I did suffer a few audio issues and a cutscene not playing quite right. They’re not bad, though, in comparison to a problem I faced during the final boss, where I got stuck behind an invisible wall, fell into the void, then respawned at the very start when I already had the checkpoints to begin at the final phase! That was a kick in the squarepants!

Hey, Sand– OHSWEETNEPTUNE

With that being said, I think the biggest issue with the game was… the unskippable credits. It's really long, and no matter how many buttons I pushed, nothing happened. I wanted to play more to go after some post-game content, but I decided to end it for the day when it dragged on long enough for me to finish writing up this review. I don’t think a kid would have the patience to wait until they were over.

He's also not Rick, either.

I highly recommend fans to play SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide. It's a pretty good time that even someone who hasn't watched the show in a while can appreciate. I beat the game (while also grabbing every collectible I can across) in about nine hours, so 100% completion shouldn't be that far off (especially since you get a special item that makes backtracking a whole lot easier). It might feel a little short (I did beat it in one sitting), but I still wanted to play more afterwards. If nautical nonsense is something you wish, go play this game!