SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide Preview – Spectral starfish and sponge

There’s at all times a keenness for the video games and the franchises that we grew up with, and whereas the SpongeBob SquarePants video games of the early 2000s weren’t precisely gaming high fashion, the underwater denizens of Bikini Backside have loved a resurgence of recognition in current occasions, helped alongside by web memes and new seasons of the present. After the Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated remake in 2020, and The Cosmic Shake in 2023, we now have SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide coming in a couple of months time.

A Paddy Shack tussle between King Neptune and the Flying Dutchman goes awry, with SpongeBob and Patrick caught within the crossfire and… effectively, they get completely deadified, simply as ghosts are unleashed throughout the realms. Nonetheless, it’s as much as them to avoid wasting Bikini Backside, and as they journey throughout the ocean’s many areas and attempt to get these two grumpy outdated males to make up. Fortunately, there’s simply sufficient life between them to have considered one of Patrick or SpongeBob saved in corporeal kind at a time, with the power of their friendship and their BFF rings permitting them to swap forwards and backwards in a flash.

That’s proper, Patrick is a playable character on this recreation and is now just about an equal to SpongeBob. They each have their very own particular talents, with Patrick in a position to make use of a grapple to seize enemies or objects after which throw them, in addition to to dive beneath the bottom and rapidly burrow round. SpongeBob, in the meantime, has a traditional butt stomp and a splash kick.

This provides them some fairly distinct variations and makes use of when exploring the degrees and stepping into scuffles with enemies. When dealing with off towards an enemy that launches explosives, SpongeBob has to time a splash kick to show these explosives again at an enemy, whereas Patrick can grapple to seize, after which simply chuck them again. After all, it’s also possible to simply keep away from the explosives and go and whale on the enemy to ultimately batter them into submission!

However actually, this switching mechanic might be nice for elevating the talent ceiling of the sport, doubtlessly making this a speedrunner’s dream. A number of the recreation challenges, just like the extra summary ranges of the Plankton Portal Challenges, and trickiest paths in common ranges will want you to change forwards and backwards, making use of each their talents in fast succession to get by them. That is nonetheless a youngsters recreation, although, so you’ll nonetheless be capable of full it and get a full expertise with out mastering technical button timings, but it surely’s nonetheless nice to see this.

Talking of the degrees, the journey will take you to locations like Neptune’s Palace, Atlantic Metropolis, Mount Bikini and past, and there might be some shocking transformations alongside the best way. Jellyfish Fields, for instance, is now all snowed by which… effectively, it doesn’t make a lot sense for beneath the water, however let’s simply go along with it?

Ranges are designed to be extra open this time round and actually encourage exploration and making an attempt out each units of talents. There’s extra of a collectathon vibe to the sport with hidden chests that may include foreign money, costumes, and memorabilia from the journey that may return to fill out elements of The Floating Patty, a brand new restaurant that floats above the ocean floor.

After The Cosmic Shake performed it a bit too protected as a observe as much as Rehydrated, increasing the gameplay with Patrick as a foil to SpongeBob is a good way to inject new life into the collection. All of this ought to be sea shanties to the ears of followers of SpongeBob video video games, each younger and not-so-young.