SpongeBob SquarePants The Cosmic Shake (PlayStation 4)
Official GBAtemp Review
Product Information:
- Release Date (NA): January 31, 2023
- Release Date (EU): January 31, 2023
- Publisher: THQ Nordic
- Developer: Purple Lamp
- Genres: Platformer
- Also For: Nintendo Switch, Xbox One
Game Features:
Unless you have been living under a rock--under the sea--you will be fully aware that the titular protagonist's newest romp "The Cosmic Shake" is due out by the end of the month. SpongeBob, Patrick, Mr Krabbs, Plankton and more embark on the craziest of quests across seven distinct worlds, with moves galore in this adventure collect-a-thon.
Built with the now-mature Unreal 4 engine, the simplistic and heavily stylised graphics lend themselves well to keeping the game looking bright, colourful, and well-paced, with framerates looking incredibly fluid, whilst played on the PS5 at least. Running around and exploring has never been so thrilling thanks to the many fresh skills to learn and deploy, along with over 30 costumes to mess about with and 40+ trophies to pop!
Let's get to the grittiest of grits: yes it's a kid's game, yes it's rated 7; but yes, it's full of humour that honestly even the most straight-laced will frequently chortle at. As predominantly a children's title at heart, is there more to this than meets the eye or is it strictly here to entertain your offspring?
Cosmic Shake Captures The Feeling of PS2 Era Platforming
Starting out with the game, it feels a little like a PlayStation 2 game. It's a 3D platformer with serious DNA ties to the humble Emotion Engine-driven titles of yore. Beginning with the standard tutorial-esque basics of jumping over objects, hitting something, pressing switches and battling foes: when you get going the game just keeps giving with more and more techniques to unlock and use in your surroundings.
Moves and tools such as bubble surfing, fish hook swing, karate kick, reef blower, and burrower are systematically added to your repertoire at steady drip-fed intervals giving you the instruments you need to complete your tasks but also keeping you wanting for the next one, and the next one! Whilst exploring you frequently find buttons or signs that suggest you need certain skills to overcome them and progress that way, but these are merely breadcrumbs to entice you back to that level for a replay once you have that skill unlocked in the future. It is definitely worth going back though, for 100% completion.
Controlling the game is a pretty standard affair, with Cross controlling jumping and double jumping, Triangle operating the action button, Square controlling your attacks and Circle allowing you to dodge when cornered. One of the first abilities you adopt is that of gliding, so holding Cross to glide across chasms with a pizza box hang glider, which expands your reach in the world. Later on, you learn the butt-smash ability too, by hitting the Square button mid-jump, which lets you stomp enemies and switches from above.
While the sticks control your movement and the camera, my experience of this game suffered a little from a few tiny camera issues in the environmental climbing sections, whereby the camera was following me perfectly, then changed orientation mid-parkour-style-free-running causing me to inadvertently run off an edge, falling into water, and dying.... spoiler alert: SpongeBob can fall in water... under the sea...
Fetch Quests Punctuated by Enjoyable Larger-than-life Moments
The game centres around simple fetch quests and graduates to action-packed cinematic set-pieces that kick off huge blockbuster boss fights. I really enjoyed the adventurous aspect of the game whereby you are hunting for a certain set of objects or need to obtain several pieces of something in order to progress, but the level of handholding really left me feeling like I wanted to discover it myself, or wanted to feel a little taxed at what to do next.
The entire game has location markers, directional queues and obvious routes that you can never truly deviate from, and the game points you in the right direction every second of the game, which is both a blessing and a curse.
In frolicking around the 7 Wishworld environments (Halloween, Prehistoric, Wild West, Karate, Pirate, Medieval, Jelly Glove) you have to destroy tikis and collect jellies to fill your pockets. One interesting aspect of this is that the Tikis can also be used to climb to higher points of interest and discover more secrets, so if you go in gung-ho: you can be sure you just ruined any chance of getting up to that out-of-reach area until you restart the level, or come back for another playthrough. Clever really.
Boss fights were a breeze too, which is a little underwhelming given the build-up to each section: the presentation and cinematic quality of each area are astoundingly good, and the beefy boss characters are also well-designed, well-animated, and visually interesting when you encounter them.
Quips, whips and slips
Replay value is guaranteed with Cosmic Shake thanks to the vast number of collectables. Throughout my initial jaunt I discovered plenty of coins, jellies, and costumes however I realised that I had missed plenty of coins that would buy me more of the funky-fresh costumes available. Though they are merely cosmetic, there is something rewarding about going back and collecting enough to open the next levels of unlockables, and because there are 30 to unlock: there is plenty to do!
There are mini-games-a-plenty here too, with, amongst others: seahorse racing, drinking games, and a Streets of Rage style beat em up section that I really broke the game up a bit when you thought you had seen it all. The game constantly surprises with nice little witty quips here and there, and even the loading screen features the French narrator stating "A few moments laterrrrrrrrrr".
While I would recommend this title to anyone who loves Little Bobby and Baloon Patrick's briney show (how cute is balloon Patrick BTW?!), I would say that for £34.99, children are going to absolutely love it whereas more mature players may find it a little too "Sticky Sweet" for comfort and a little jarring to forge all the way through.
Verdict
- Plenty to collect throughout
- Heaps of costumes to unlock
- Masses of dialogue and funny quips
- Rather linear in places
- very simple to complete
- Hand-holding overload
