izigame.me

SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, one of the cornerstone video games for me growing up. Despite the sea of licensed game slop back in the day, this game defied all odds and it hit perfectly on every level, beating out even landmark titles.
I want to say, first and foremost: Thank you Purple Lamp, for believing so strongly in this beloved cult classic. Thank you THQ Nordic and Nickelodeon, for giving Purple Lamp a shot at remaking this masterpiece of a game. I truly appreciate everyone who had a hand in this and the original.
With that out of the way, I will proceed to be very very nitpicky to the point where it will sound ridiculous. I am coming from a place of love and of disappointment.
This game feels WAY too unpolished compared to the original game. Far beyond what can be ignored, or looked past:
Voice lines are unsynced from their animations, one specific example is when a character collects a Golden Spatula, which happens a LOT during the course of the game.
Far too many objects placed in the world are not connected to the ground or the surrounding environment, one example being that several Teleport Boxes were floating above the ground.
Cutscenes suck. The animations in cutscenes are stiff and weird, and the audio mixing is abysmal in The Industrial Park cutscene in particular.
Animations in general, such as jumping with Sandy's lasso causing your animations to default, or being pulled away by The Hand when out-of-bounds.
Even a -lack- of proper animation. When you shoot out a cruise missile, it's instant and feels clunky. When you use a teleport box, you're just standing beside it instead of popping out of it. Patrick's walking animation feels so slow.
SpongeBob's footsteps don't make ANY sound, which might have been annoying for some, but the effect this change has on you is not knowing if your movement is doing anything. Any kind of feedback would have been nice.
All of these issues are obvious to those of us who have played the original. Even if you haven't most of these are so frequent that you'll feel the jank. There are so many, so often, and to such severity that I cannot recommend this game over the original. Playing through the original will be the best player experience.