SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake (Switch) Review 

I’ve consumed a lot of SpongeBob media in my time. As a kid I’d record the show onto VHS tapes every school morning and grab any SpongeBob game my pocket money would allow, and even now I enjoy the odd episode on telly or online – I’ve been a fan for a majority of my life now. And along with my love of 3D platformers, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake definitely seemed dressed to impress.

After tackling SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated in 2020, Austrian studio Purple Lamp GmbH is back with some more SpongeBob goodness. Not dissimilar from what Toys With Bob did with the newest Crash Bandicoot game after they ported the N. Sane Trilogy, Purple Lamp GmbH got warmed up with the remaster then really leant into things with an all-new title. Enter the Cosmic Shake!

After SpongeBob and Patrick have a hand in causing a castrophe of cosmic proportions, they’ve got to make things right. With the help of the fortune-telling new character Kassandra, SponegeBob is able to don new costumes which allow him to jump into alternate universes to hopefully undo the multi-dimensional mess.

As SpongeBob, with the aide of balloon-Patrick, you’ll be frolicking around the hub world of Bikini Bottom, and diving into seven alternate dimensional levels, including a dusty cowboy town and spooky halloween village. Like your classic 3D platformers you’ll run, jump and kick butt, all while picking up new abilities to open new paths and grab previously unobtainable goodies. The gold doubloons are the number one collectible here, as they’ll help unlock more secret costumes, aside from the main story ones, almost all of which reference a classic SpongeBob episode!

And the game is just chock-a-block with all sorts of references to the classic Spongebob episodes – this is fan-service turned up to 11! I’m talking Pizza Delivery, Graveyard Shift, Chocolate With Nuts, Rock Bottom and I Was A Teenage Gary, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. If you grew up watching Spongebob you’ll be picking up a reference a minute. And my favourite bits were the handful of cutscenes which cutaway to those grotesque single-frame close-ups that Spongebob was famous for – you know the ones I’m talkng about.

There’s been a few bugs on release but nothing that a quick patch can’t fix. I’m talking a bit of audio overlap or missing audio, graphic pop-in, clipping, etc. Nothing that really hampers the experience too much, and if anything makes you feel like you’re playing an old, unpatchable GameCube game. As a kid I used to have a SpongeBob game disc that was scratched as heck, and it glitched out and crashed all the time, so if anything I’m just getting even more nostalgia. And compared to that this is a dream.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is great! If you like the sponge-meister and pals there’s no way you won’t have fun with this gut-busting romp. Old-heads and sponge-newbies alike – get shaking!

Rating: 4.5/5