SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans of the Tide

I went in cautiously optimistic, because Purple Lamp's track record with this franchise is exactly that: fine work that never quite escapes the shadow of Battle for Bikini Bottom. Titans of the Tide is their most mechanically ambitious entry yet, and for most of the runtime it actually earns that description. The headline addition is character switching: you swap between SpongeBob and Patrick on the fly with a shoulder button, and the character sitting out floats alongside you as a translucent ghost. It sounds like a gimmick but the level design genuinely builds around it. SpongeBob handles karate kicks to break obstacles and red balloons, and later gets a Bubble Wand that can trigger distant switches. Patrick brings grappling hooks and the ability to burrow underground and heave heavy objects. A Magic Lantern mechanic introduced partway through shifts platforms between a ghostly plane and the living one, and some of the puzzle rooms that combine all of these tools together hit a genuinely satisfying rhythm. There is also a surfboard traversal mechanic across water sections that replaces the old instant-death-on-contact rule, which is a quiet but welcome quality-of-life upgrade. The story drops SpongeBob and Patrick into a feud between King Neptune and the Flying Dutchman, whose bickering has flooded Bikini Bottom with ghost enemies. It is completely, sincerely silly in the way only SpongeBob can be, and the full original voice cast sells every line. Worlds include Bikini Bottom Restaurants, Goldfish Island with its jungle and lighthouse, and Neptune's Palace, each with collectibles, side quests, costumes to unlock, and Plankton Challenge rooms scattered throughout. David Hasselhoff shows up as a hidden collectible through over ten TVs, and if you track them all down there is a secret room payoff in Neptune's Palace that will make longtime fans grin. The cracks are real, though, and they are the same cracks that critics have been poking at since The Cosmic Shake. The back half of the game gets noticeably shorter and thinner as the worlds progress. Side quests are largely basic fetch tasks with standing dialogue rather than anything that uses the character-swap mechanics creatively. There is no in-level collectible tracker and no minimap, so chasing the last few gold balloons or treasure chests becomes genuine busywork. Some players have also reported trophy and quest bugs on the PS5 version specifically, though the PC version landed generally favorable reviews. Steam user scores sit at 93% positive from over a thousand reviews, suggesting the audience for this kind of game is very happy, even if the game is shorter than its predecessors. For 3D platformer fans with any affection for the cartoon, Titans of the Tide is a comfortable, charming, and mechanically improved ride. For anyone who found Cosmic Shake too safe or too brief, this will not fix those complaints entirely, though the dual-character system is a genuine step up. The boss fights are the high point, the first half of the game is its best half, and the whole thing runs clean on PC.

Alex · Scout Team

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