♫...And it’s sweet, sweet, sweet victory, yeah…♫
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake is a 2023 licensed 3D action Platform Game based on the Nicktoon of the same name. It functions as a spiritual sequel to SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, with Purple Lamp Studios and THQ Nordic, the team behind the Rehydrated remake, returning as developer and publisher, respectively.
When visiting Glove World one day, SpongeBob and Patrick cross paths with the mermaid fortune teller Kassandra, who gives them a bottle of King Neptune’s bath soap, made from genuine Mermaid Tears — which, according to legend, can grant wishes for those pure of heart. Being the goofy goobers that they are, the duo make multiple bubble-based wishes at once with the soap, ripping a hole in the fabric of space and time. Not only does this unleash a plague of monsters made of sentient Cosmic Jelly onto Bikini Bottom, but it causes their friends to get lost in fantastical "Wishworlds" full of cowboys, ghosts, and cavemen (among many other things).
Thus, the task of rescuing their missing buddies and fending off the monsters spawned from the Cosmic Jelly falls onto SpongeBob — with the help of Patrick, now turned into a balloon after their wishing misadventure. Donning a variety of cosmic costumes along the way, the duo must traverse the Wishworlds and hopefully bring things back to normal.
The game was released on January 31, 2023, for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows (via Steam). A next-gen version for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 was released on October 5th of that year.
The Cosmic Shake notably uses music licensed from the Associated Production Music library, the same library that provides much of the show's background music. This is a first for games based on the series, which have traditionally used songs originally composed for the show or entirely new music. According to its Steam page, 101 songs from the show will appear in the game — as demonstrated by the reveal trailer, which prominently features APM's "Sweet Victory" from the episode "Band Geeks".
Previews: Announcement teaser
, Gameplay reveal, Gamescom gameplay, Pre-order trailer, Languages trailer
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake includes examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Both the announcement trailer and the game's BFF Edition drew particular attention towards SpongeBob's marching band outfit from "Band Geeks". Come the game's release, it's solely obtained via the Costume DLC, has no plot significance, and therefore doesn't even count towards the achievement for getting all the costumes.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Several side quests that SpongeBob completes have him being rewarded with different costumes that he can wear at any point in the game.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- When searching for Spot's hiding spots, Spongebob will verbally call out something along the lines of "this seems like a spot where Spot might go" whenever you're close.
- Courtesy of Balloon Patrick:
- If SpongeBob gets reduced to one hit point, Patrick will bring him another pair of underwear after a few seconds to ensure he can take another hit without dying.
- If you're unsure of where to go next, Patrick will turn into an arrow and point to the relevant item, location or NPC.
- Falling into a hazardous surface like goo or jelly while SpongeBob has more than one hit point will have Patrick fly him to safety without needing to return to the last checkpoint.
- If you ever go after a side-mission that brings you away from the beaten path, Patrick will automatically fly you back to the main road when you've completed it so that you don't have to backtrack.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: At the start of the plot, SpongeBob acquires bath soap made from Mermaid Tears, which have wish-granting properties. However, as a result of the bubble collision caused from excessive wishing, the effects all occurred at once with unexpected results. For instance, the wish meant for Patrick was "the biggest, ballooniest adventure he'll ever have", and was turned into a balloon as a result of the disaster.
- Big Bad: A mermaid fortune-teller, Madame Kassandra gives SpongeBob King Neptune's bath soap in order to open up rifts to other dimensions, which can only be accomplished by those with a pure heart, in order to obtain cosmic jelly. She needs this cosmic jelly in order to overthrow King Neptune and become the sea's new ruler.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Rock Bottom returns, this time with a prominent Halloween theme.
- Big Fancy Castle: One level, the Medieval Sulfur Fields, largely takes place in a huge castle where Princess Pearl is planning to throw a big party.
- Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: If SpongeBob falls into goo, jelly, or a bottomless pit, Patrick will fly him back to safety, provided he has more than one health available.
- Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Patrick does this in Wild West Jellyfish Fields.Patrick: Soda? Water? Soda water?
- Circus of Fear: The final level takes place in Glove World after being corrupted by the Cosmic Jelly and completely cut off from the rest of Bikini Bottom. The theme park's mascot, Glovey Glove, has gone mad, and serves as the level's boss fight.
- Continuity Nod:
- The announcement trailer is set to the song "Sweet Victory" from the episode "Band Geeks".
- The caveman level, as well as the appearances of the characters in the level, is a call back to the episode "Ugh" and a segment of "SB-129", each of which portrayed the characters as cave people in prehistoric times.
- One level is designed after the Wild West themed episode "Pest of the West", and has SpongeBob riding a seahorse resembling Mystery from "My Pretty Seahorse".
- SpongeBob's glide move has him use a box of Krusty Krab pizza from the episode "Pizza Delivery" to catch the wind.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: In SpongeBob's previous home console platformer, the main antagonistic race were Killer Robots who quickly invaded and ransacked Bikini Bottom, forcing a small La Résistance consisting of SpongeBob and his closest friends to retake their home. The threat in this game is an army of sentient cosmic jelly that splits Bikini Bottom into several different wishworlds and forces SpongeBob to rescue his friends from said wishworlds. Their leaders were also outed at different points in their respective games, with SpongeBob and the Bikini Bottom news suspecting Plankton halfway into Battle for Bikini Bottom while no one supected Madame Kassandra until the end of this game.
- Demoted to Extra:
- After being playable in Battle for Bikini Bottom, Patrick is relegated to a Non-Player Companion (albeit one who's by SpongeBob's side for most of the game), while Sandy is a boss and recurring NPC.
- Plankton goes from being the usual Big Bad of SpongeBob games to an NPC, and has no bearing on the plot besides a comment about somebody else possibly causing trouble.
- Denser and Wackier: Compared to SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. While that game was largely grounded (at least, by SpongeBob standards), with the main threats being robots, the gameplay trailer shows SpongeBob and a balloon-ifyed Patrick traversing through far more wacky and fantastical locations and facing off enemies made out of cosmic jelly.
- Diving Kick: SpongeBob can perform a diving kick that also acts as a homing attack of sorts.
- Edible Ammunition: Admiral Prawn uses pies as cannon fire.
- Eldritch Abomination: The sentient Cosmic Jelly monsters that invade Bikini Bottom and the Wishworlds. It is not known how these sentient blobs of jelly are alive and almost none of them (barring the regular Jellies and the Big Jellies) resemble any known characters in the series. No two Cosmic Jelly creature types look remotely similar to each other barring the color and eye type, and thus can be seen as different species. Their language (if they even have one) is composed of incomprehensible gibberish.
- Final Boss: A Dual Boss with Kassandra, and a Cosmic Jelly-infused Squidward.
- Game-Breaking Bug: There's an infrequent bug that can occur towards the beginning of the game: During a section where you're supposed to learn the bubble tossing move to hit a target that moves a floating platform, the tutorial slide doesn't appear. And since the slide is what triggers your ability to use the move, you're unable to progress. This can be fixed by deleting the autosaves and restarting the game with a fresh save; luckily this is early on in the game so it doesn't take long to get back to it.
- Gangplank Galleon: Pirate Goo Lagoon.
- "Get Back Here!" Boss: The boss fight with Mr. Krabs involves chasing down the train he's on, then traversing the Cosmic Jelly-filled wagons until he gets cornered in the engine room.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Glovey Glove, the mascot of Glove World, is driven insane from being trapped at Glove World after the cosmic disruption. He kidnaps Patrick at the beginning of the level, forcing SpongeBob to track him down and defeat him as the level's boss.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: Several cutscenes feature this.
- Halloween Episode: One of the worlds is Rock Bottom set during Halloween.
- Here We Go Again!: At the game's end, King Neptune rewards SpongeBob for defeating Kassandra by allowing him one wish with his bath soap... which Patrick bungles by wishing they could go through everything again.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: One of the last enemy types encountered in the game is a giant squid made of jelly that spits miniature squids at you. To defeat it, you use the Reef Blower to suck up the smaller squids and shoot them right back at the big one.
- Hub Under Attack: As you complete more levels, some sections in the hub world of Bikini Bottom become invaded by various enemies from those levels.
- I Got a Rock: An NPC says this in Halloween Rock Bottom.
- Ice-Cream Koan: The cowbones in Wild West Jellyfish Fields mostly spout out pseudo-spiritual advice that isn't especially useful or relevant to the actual gameplay.Cowbone: You don't live longer in the city, it just seems that way.
- Informed Species: Prehistoric Kelp Forest features a giant prehistoric whale-like creature, seen in the episode "Ugh", that is identified as a Dorudon. However, the real-life Dorudon resembled more of a dolphin and did not have a row of fins running down its back or small spines on the forehead, plus the creature in the game is missing the vestigial hind-flippers of Dorudon.
- Internal Reveal: It is quite clear as day that Kassandra is the Big Bad of the game, but SpongeBob and Patrick don’t realize it until the end of the game.
- Jump Scare: Invoked Trope. The only way to defeat a Spooky Jelly is to sneak up behind it and scare it.
- Kung Fu-Proof Mook: Some species of Cosmic Jelly possess resistances or outright immunities towards certain attacks that SpongeBob uses and forces him to use unconventional tactics to defeat them.
- Big Jelly can't be bubbled or karate kicked and can't be hit unless their attacks miss, which can only be done if you dodge at the last minute and stomp on them while they try to lift their tub off the ground. This has to be done three times.
- Spooky Jelly can't be attacked at all and will freeze you once it catches you in its gaze. The only way to defeat them is to sneak up behind them and scare them.
- Burrower is a giant worm that burrows underground and the only way to defeat them is by stomping around the cracks on the ground which will stun them and leave them vulnerable for attack. This has to be done three times.
- Squid Jelly can't be attacked at all and can only be defeated using the Reef Blower
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- One female NPC SpongeBob can come across early on asks him if he ever feels like he's being controlled by a higher power (or some kid). SpongeBob himself occasionally feels like someone is controlling him.
- One NPC in Bikini Bottom reminisces on when the city was only two dimensions.
- Madame Fortune: Madame Kassandra, the mermaid Fortune Teller.
- Mirror World: Several of the levels in this game take levels from Battle for Bikini Bottom and apply new themes to them, changing their layouts quite drastically, such as Jellyfish Fields taking place in The Wild West.
- The Multiverse: …well, technically the Jellyverse, as it involves King Neptune's royal jelly, which rips a hole or two into time and space, creating portals to other versions of worlds.
- Named by the Adaptation: The Prehistoric Kelp Forest features a giant prehistoric whale-like creature, seen in the episode "Ugh", that is identified as a Dorudon. This name was never mentioned in its original appearance in the episode "Ugh".
- Non-Player Companion: A tiny balloon-ifyed Patrick accompanies SpongeBob on his adventure.
- No Ontological Inertia: The usual result of SpongeBob clearing a Wishworld is for the affected areas of Bikini Bottom to be restored of their damage, mostly when their missing buildings are brought back. After the giant-sized Gary's defeat, Patrick invokes this when he assumes that it will apply to Gary as well (it didn't).
- Not What It Looks Like: When SpongeBob reaches the Krusty Krab to save Patrick from Glovey Glove, he finds Patrick taking friendship selfies with Glovey Glove. SpongeBob is displeased until Patrick says this quote.
- Pirate Episode: The world Pirate Goo Lagoon centers on SpongeBob and Patrick helping the Flying Dutchman by becoming pirates.
- Precision F-Strike: Squidward's Karate counterpart uses the dolphin chirp censor when complaining about the agency hiring SpongeBob as the starring role.
- Prehistoria: One of the worlds is based on the prehistoric Bikini Bottom featured in "SB-129" and "Ugh".
- Production Throwback:
- One of the 7 pre-order DLC costumes is SpongeBot SteelPants, the final boss in Battle for Bikini Bottom. What makes this relevant is that it's specifically based on its Rehydrated design.
- Similarly, Prawn shows up as one of the game's bosses, much like he did in Battle for Bikini Bottom.
- Reality-Breaking Paradox: At the start of the game, when SpongeBob's wish bubbles collide, they end up tearing a hole into the space-time continuum and all of Bikini Bottom is sucked up into it.
- Removed from the Picture: All over Glove World, there are pictures of SpongeBob and Patrick, except Glovey Glove has taped over SpongeBob's face with a picture of himself.
- Seahorse Steed: In Wild West Jellyfish Fields and Medieval Sulfur Fields, SpongeBob can ride seahorses.
- Selfless Wish: SpongeBob uses all the magic bubble soap to make wishes for his friends: giving Patrick “the biggest, ballooniest adventure of his life”, Squidward being appreciated for his art and for the whole world to see how amazing Sandy is.
- Ship Tease:
- In Pirate Goo Lagoon, Patrick’s thing for pretty mermaids returns full swing, as he quickly falls for one they meet there and is then on determined to become a real life pirate so that he can score a date with her. Even sweeter, the mermaid actually blows him a kiss goodbye before he and SpongeBob return to Bikini Bottom.
- Whenever SpongeBob encounters Sandy or one of her alternate selves in another world or dimension, he will excitedly say, "Look, it's Sandy!" before clearing his throat and saying "I mean... Look, it's Sandy!" in a much deeper sounding voice, likely in an attempt to sound cooler in front of her.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: When SpongeBob and Patrick return to Glove World near the end of the game, the latter is almost immediately kidnapped by Glovey Glove, forcing SpongeBob to brave the creepy theme park by himself.
- Shout-Out: The supervillain Prawn returns as Admiral Prawn. Yes, they managed to change him from a Star Trek reference into a Star Wars reference.
- Stealth-Based Mission: The boss fight against Gary has SpongeBob trying to cut the monster snail's candy supply, all without being caught in Gary's crazed field of sight.
- Studiopolis: Has Karate Downtown Bikini Bottom, as a movie studio with a version of Squidward as its director.
- Super Drowning Skills: As in Battle for Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob can't swim in goo or jelly. Falling in will result in either Patrick pulling him out or SpongeBob drowning on the spot.
- The Bus Came Back: After almost 20 years of being absent since his debut in Battle for Bikini Bottom, Prawn finally makes a return in this game, this time as an admiral in the pirate-themed Goo Lagoon.
- Universal-Adaptor Cast: As a result of being flung to the Wishworlds, any Bikini Bottomites save for SpongeBob and Patrick end up with new identities that fit the theme of wherever they are.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The game allows you to hit NPCs you encounter, which will make them either yell out in irritation or pain. Doing this enough times awards you an achievement.
- Video Game Flight: SpongeBob is now able to glide using a box of Krusty Krab Pizza to catch the wind. In some levels, he also has access to a floating bubble surfboard to ride towards very large gaps.
- Virtual Paper Doll: You can dress SpongeBob up in various outfits, most of which are ones that he has worn previously in the series.
- What the Hell, Hero?: King Neptune shows up just before the final boss fight against Kassandra to show just how bad SpongeBob messed things up for Bikini Bottom.King Neptune: SpongeBob SquarePants, this time you've took things too far!
- Where It All Began: The story starts off with SpongeBob and Patrick going to Glove World in the opening cutscene, where they meet Kassandra and the story kicks off. Later on, a cosmically-corrupted version of Glove World acts as the game's final main level.
- The Wild West: One of the worlds is Jellyfish Fields in the Wild West.
