As someone who LOVES BFBB, TMG and to a lesser extend Rehydrated, I love Cosmic Shake!
But holy moly, it has some serious padding, during my first playthrough, there would be paths that would either lead to nothing, or a giant yellow lock icon.
Why? It's because every level in the game, has around SEVERAL collectables that requires backtracking, the game gives you a new ability every level, and what about the paths that lead nowhere? Oh, they actually lead to items you need for missions, like in BFBB! Like hot objects, or good noodle stars, but they dont appear until AFTER you beat the game!
They clearly want the player to do a second playthrough in the levels after the game, and yeah, there are differences in dialogue, but it's so draining to have to play the game a second time basically to 100% the game, it just feels like huge padding even compared to the Movie Game which spammed ring and time challenges on those shitty race levels.
And this is a nitpick, but I'm not too big on the new characters or enemies, they have this modern Spongebob stink that I am not a fan of, I like how edgy and wonky older video game Spongebob characters looked.
The game also heavily has a thing for references and call backs, why not try something new?
The game's worlds also feels upscaled, and it doesnt help that spongebob's model makes him look like he moves slower than he should, just a ton of space for no reason with slow movement
Cosmic Shake isn't a bad game, but it's built off padding for a full completion, I'd say it's at a close 3rd, higher than Rehydrated, but behind BFBB in 2nd and TMG in 1st.
It just tries too hard to appeal to older fans, while the parts that do something new are just lame, it was fun, but I'd see myself coming back less than the other Spongebob Platformers.
The game is also pretty buggy at times, and combine that with the fact that even normal obstacles look upscaled, the game obviously screams "Crunch! Crunch!" the devs didnt have enough time to polish it up, which sucks, it's something that plague most good video games, and especially platformers...
As a side note, it being for kids doesn't exempt it from criticisms, not to mention it tries hard to pick at your nostalgia so really they tried to real in more older audiences anyways.
The worlds shouldn't be so upscaled and big, the collectathon aspect shouldn't be padded out by a second entire playthrough, and half the game's personality shouldn't be piggy backing on references, other wise it was a fun game.
THQ revealed a teaser for a new Spongebob Platformer, I'm excited for it, but I hope they at least improve the stuff that was wrong with Cosmic Shake, and to a lesser extend BFBB:R.
