4/5 ★ – CrippledAvenger_02's review of SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated.

I didn’t grow up playing the original Battle for Bikini Bottom, so whatever nostalgic baggage or preconceived notions I would’ve had don’t apply here. My playtime with Rehydrated was an entirely new experience and by those standards, I had a ton of fun with it. This being a 100 percent faithful remake of a 3D platformer from 2003, Rehydrated is an unabashed collectathon. As the fun-loving sponge himself, you explore several iconic locations from the series as you combat the robots that have taken over Bikini Bottom, solve simple puzzles, and acquire trinkets to progress by accomplishing platform challenges. These are all elements you’d expect from a game of this kind, and while Rehydrated isn’t exceptional, it does copy down the formula with enough personality to keep you hooked. SpongeBob’s movement feels tight and precise, making the adventure control like a dream and ensure that it never feels like the games fault whenever you take a tumble or miss a platform Combat gets a bit repetitive, but Rehydrated paces it’s introduction of new enemies and abilities for SpongeBob well enough to where you don’t feel any staleness set in until the final stretch. Patrick and Sandy are also along for the ride as more assist characters rather than co-protagonists. They each come with their own strengths and weaknesses, but are necessary to acquiring Golden Spatulas (this games version of the stars from Mario 64, to name an example) and Patrick’s dirty socks which can be traded for said spatulas. Sandy was probably my favorite character to play as, due to her lasso ability creating dynamic vertical platforming while also serving as a great combo starter during enemy encounters. Either way, both characters to a good job of spicing up the moment to moment gameplay. Rehydrated definitely has a slightly younger audience in mind, even compared to your Nintendo tentpoles. This means that collectibles aren’t extraordinarily hard to find, and if you’re like me and want to complete everything in a level in one sitting, you’ll have to do minimal backtracking. Plus you’ll be hard pressed to find truly difficult platform challenges. Having said that, I always felt a sense of accomplishment after earning a golden spatula and the difficulty spikes during the dream levels were a welcome addition by giving me the sense of exhilaration I was missing. Where Rehydrated really shines is in the writing and voice acting (sans Mr. Krabs) department. The disarming sense of humor to the character interactions felt like it was ripped straight from the earlier seasons of the show and was often genuinely funny. The music and environments really pop as well, with faithful design choices taken from the source material. Battle For Bikini Bottom really feels like it was made to be the SpongeBob game to end all SpongeBob games with the amount of fan service wrapped around a genuinely great platform game.