SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom

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Part of a series on SpongeBob SquarePants. [View Related Entries]

About

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom is a video game based on the Spongebob Squarepants animated TV series. The game initially released to middling critical reviews but was a commercial hit. In the years since its initial release, the game managed to gain a sizable speedrunning community and positive critical reappraisal, leading to an official remake released on June 23rd, 2020.

Initial Release

Battle For Bikini Bottom was first released on October 31st, 2003.^[1] The console version of the game is a 3D platformer collect-a-thon developed by Heavy Iron Studios, while the Game Boy Advance version was a 2D platformer developed by Vicarious Visions, though all published by THQ. In the game, Bikini Bottom is besieged by an army of robots created by Plankton to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula (gameplay shown below).

Speedrunning

One of the first major mentions of the game in relation to speedrunning was a thread in 2006 on SpeedDemosArchive by user Groudon199 titled "Spongebob Squarepants Battle for Bikini Bottom" in which Groudon requested speedruns of the game. That thread went nowhere, as there was only one reply suggesting that OP themselves speedrun the game.

The first actual speedrun of the game happened 4 years later, and was posted to the same site by user KT1JDDD on

Remake

A remake of the game, titled SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated was announced on June 5th, 2019, and was released June 23rd, 2020 (trailer shown below). The game was developed by Purple Lamp Studios and published by THQ Nordic

Reception

Battle for Bikini Bottom was a commercial hit, with the GBA version selling 710,000 copies and the PS2 version selling 880,000 copies.^[2]^[3] Critically, initial reviews were middling, with critical averages on Metacritic for the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube being 71, 70, and 71 respectively.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Remake Reception

Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrate received mixed to generally positive critic reviews, maintaining a 66 to 70 average critic score for its different platform on Metacritic^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14] with 28 reviews as of June 25th. At the same time, the game received very positive user reviews, maintaining a 9.1 to 9.2 average score, largely due to positive review bombing by the fan community of Ukranian streamer and blogger Alexey Shevtsov (aka itpedia). On June 23rd, VK^[15] user Kolya Belov posted a screenshot comparing the Metacritic user scores of The Last of Us II and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom – Rehydrated for PlayStation 4, with the post gaining over 30,000 likes in the community.

On Steam,^[16] the game achieved "Overwhelmingly Postive" score with over 2,100 reviews.

Online Presence

The original game mostly faded from the public eye in the 2010s, though it was played by the Game Grumps in 2016 (shown below, left). However, the speedrunning community for the game began developing in 2010.^[7] On May 2nd, 2020, YouTuber SHIFT, a prominent Battle for Bikini Bottom speedrunner, uploaded an exhaustive history of the game's speedrunning community (Part 1 shown below, right).

The growth of the speedrunning community coincided with a critical reappraisal of the game. PC Gamer^[8] and SHIFT^[7] both theorized that the game was forgotten due to the notoriously poor quality of cartoon video game adaptations, but argued that Battle for Bikini Bottom was decent for a game in the genre. SHIFT speedran Battle For Bikini Bottom at AGDQ in 2017, which helped bring the speedrunning community for the game to the spotlight (shown below, left).^[9]^[10] According to SHIFT, the game's mechanics and glitches allow for a high-quality speedrun, and states that the game has little downtime, which is an issue with other popularly speedrun games like Super Mario Sunshine. As of May 12th, 2020, SHIFT holds the game's world record, having beaten the game in 48:58 (shown below, right).