SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated (2020)

“Golden spatulas? More like golden migraines.”

Let’s start off with the trailers shall we…

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🍿 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

This remake of the 2003 SpongeBob classic kicks off with SpongeBob and Patrick innocently playing with robot toys, wishing out loud how fun it would be if they could fight real ones. Bad timing, because Plankton is secretly building his own army of robots to steal the Krabby Patty formula. The only problem? He forgets to flip the “obey switch,” which means instead of listening to him, the robots go haywire and start wreaking havoc all over Bikini Bottom.

So it’s up to SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy to clean up the mess, defeat wave after wave of robots, and save Bikini Bottom. Pretty simple setup, but hey—it’s SpongeBob.


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🧽 Character Rundown

SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny) – Your main guy. Equipped with bubble-based powers, goofy charm, and enough determination to carry you through Bikini Bottom.

Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke) – Your secondary playable character. Strong but dim-witted, with his signature belly flop and throwable melons.

Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence) – The third playable hero, rocking karate chops, lassos, and the ability to swing across gaps. Honestly, she’s the most fun to use.

Plankton (Mr. Lawrence) – Still scheming, still failing, but at least responsible for this chaos… indirectly.

Mr. Krabs (NOT Clancy Brown) – And here’s where things fall apart. Whoever they hired to voice him sounds uncanny, like someone doing a karaoke impression of Mr. Krabs. Sorry, but hashtag NotMyMrKrabs.

🌎 The Maps of Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated (2020)

This remake takes you across a bunch of iconic SpongeBob locations, each acting as its own explorable hub full of platforming challenges, golden spatulas, and shiny object collecting. Here’s the lineup:

Jellyfish Fields – The first main stage, wide green hills, rivers, and of course, King Jellyfish at the end.

Downtown Bikini Bottom – Rooftops, construction sites, and a sliding section, ending with a lighthouse defense challenge.

Goo Lagoon – A sunny beach area with lifeguard towers, surfboards, and water-based platforming.

Poseidome – Technically an arena stage, home to big boss battles like Robo-Sandy and Robo-Patrick.

Rock Bottom – The creepy “dark” town, neon signs everywhere, with moving platforms and sneaky glove-wielding enemies.

Mermalair – Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy’s secret lair full of tilting pinball puzzles and laser platforming.

Sand Mountain – A snowy sliding level where SpongeBob races down ski slopes to earn spatulas.

Kelp Forest – Foggy, confusing woods full of hidden areas, puzzles, and tricky platforming.

Flying Dutchman’s Graveyard – Ghost ships, cannons, and lots of precarious jumps over green goo.

SpongeBob’s Dream – The surreal final platforming gauntlet, each character’s dream world acting as a challenging finale.


🎮 Gameplay – SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated (2020)

Battle for Bikini Bottom is a more traditional collect-a-thon platformer. Think Mario 64 with Krabby Patties. You move between levels like Jellyfish Fields, Goo Lagoon, Downtown Bikini Bottom, and Sand Mountain, each containing eight Golden Spatulas that act as the main progression currency. To unlock new areas, you have to meet specific spatula quotas.

You alternate between SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy, each with unique abilities:

SpongeBob can bubble-blow moves and wall-jump.

Patrick can throw objects and belly-flop.

Sandy uses her lasso to glide and grapple.


Levels are built around swapping characters at bus stops to use their strengths. Combat is straightforward — smack robots, dodge hazards — with light puzzles and platforming challenges mixed in.

Here’s the catch: progression can get frustratingly grindy. If you can’t find enough spatulas, you’re stuck backtracking and scouring for secrets. Some spatulas require abilities you don’t have until later, forcing replays. It leans hard on completionist habits, which can kill pacing for more casual players.

That said, the variety of environments, boss fights (like Robot Sandy and Robot Patrick), and nostalgic atmosphere are what made this game beloved in the first place. It’s just not as smooth or player-friendly as The Cosmic Shake.

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⏱️ Pacing / Episode Flow

The story is split across large hub worlds connected by golden spatula requirements. On the surface, it’s a straightforward collect-a-thon: beat enemies, solve puzzles, earn spatulas, and unlock the next area. But the progression system isn’t balanced well. You often slam into walls where you’re locked out until you grind for more collectibles, and that brings the pacing to a screeching halt.

For kids or casual fans, this is frustrating. For completionists, it’s fine—but it’s clear the game assumes everyone plays that way.


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✅ Pros

Gorgeous visuals – The remake is undeniably pretty, with bright colors and Bikini Bottom brought to life in a way the PS2 version could only dream of.

Faithful to the show – Iconic characters, locations, and humor are all intact. If you love SpongeBob, you’ll appreciate how much love went into keeping the spirit of the original.

Fun gameplay variety – Switching between SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy keeps combat and platforming from feeling too repetitive.

Nostalgia factor – If you played the original, this is a fun trip down memory lane.



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❌ Cons

Completionist Lock-Outs – Progression is tied to collecting golden spatulas, which means if you miss too many, you’re stuck. I hit a wall in the second location, spent hours hunting, got frustrated, and quit. It kills the pacing and punishes non-completionists.

Cheap Level Design Near the End – Case in point: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy’s lair. There’s a segment where you roll a giant pinball across tilting floors. If the ball falls off? Congrats, you restart the entire section. “Charming.”

Robotic Squidward Boss (Cut Content) – The original planned a Squidward boss fight but cut it. Rehydrated adds it back in multiplayer. Sounds cool, right? Wrong. The execution is awful—uninspired map design, props just slapped together, too many enemies at once, and the characters all play the same. When you finally beat Squidward, he just blows up and the game dumps you back to the menu. No rewards. No unlocks. Nothing.

Mr. Krabs Voice Actor – The stand-in for Clancy Brown is rough. It sounds like a knockoff Krabs you’d hear in a bootleg SpongeBob game. It’s distracting every single time.



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💭 Final Thoughts

I’ll be honest: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated is a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s gorgeous, nostalgic, and genuinely fun in stretches. On the other hand, it punishes players with frustrating progression locks, has questionable late-game design choices, and the added multiplayer is abysmal. For die-hard SpongeBob fans, it’s still worth playing just to see Bikini Bottom polished up so nicely. But for casual players, the charm wears thin when you’re stuck hunting golden spatulas for hours.

Still, the heart of SpongeBob is there, and that’s enough to keep it afloat.

Rating: 7/10


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning


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🕵️ Spoilers

The adventure takes SpongeBob and his friends across classic locations like Jellyfish Fields, Goo Lagoon, Rock Bottom, and the Flying Dutchman’s Graveyard. Each level ends with SpongeBob collecting golden spatulas to unlock more of Bikini Bottom. Along the way, you fight bosses like a robotic Sandy, Patrick, and SpongeBob—all giant robot versions built by Plankton’s machines.

The most infamous challenge? That Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy lair pinball section, where you carefully tilt platforms to roll a ball along a track. It’s tedious, rage-inducing, and if you mess up once, you redo the whole thing.

As for the “big addition” of Rehydrated—the robotic Squidward fight—it’s only playable in multiplayer. You and a friend take on waves of robots before fighting Robo-Squidward, but it’s such a letdown. He just explodes, and then a loading screen asks if you want to replay or quit. That’s it. No payoff, no story tie-in.

The finale pits SpongeBob against Robo-SpongeBob in the Chum Bucket lab. Once you defeat him, the robots are shut down, Plankton fails again, and Bikini Bottom is saved. It’s a cute wrap-up, but nothing groundbreaking.