The SpongeBob SquarePants franchise is one of contemporary pop culture’s greatest success stories. Born out of an animator’s passion for marine biology, the show inherited the strengths of artistic predecessors like The Ren & Stimpy Show and Rocko’s Modern Life to become an animated juggernaut. The show quickly became Nickelodeon’s biggest cash cow and shows no signs of slowing down even after 20 years. Having first come out at the turn of the 20th Century, SpongeBob SquarePants has plenty of tie-in games, with the series even dominating Nicktoons crossovers.
Although SpongeBob was licensed for a plethora of cheap cash grabs, there are plenty of games based on the show that were competently made, leading to SpongeBob having a reputation for better games than most in the 2000s. Battle for Bikini Bottom is probably the strongest example, managing to appeal to a broad demographic rather than just SpongeBob fans or platformer fans. Now that Battle for Bikini Bottom has gotten a well-received remake, it may be time for developers to approach other SpongeBob games released around the same time.
SpongeBob's Sixth-Gen Games Reflect the Brand
SpongeBob SquarePants is doing great to this day from a commercial standpoint. The series currently has three movie adaptations with more on the way, two spin-offs that air alongside the original show, and a multitude of merchandise. To top it all off, unlike several of its animated contemporaries such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and The Fairly Odd Parents, SpongeBob recovered from its infamous “dark age” and puts out modern episodes that even old-school fans can appreciate.
While the era of consistent SpongeBob games is long gone, that does not mean that people’s memories are. The people who grew up with these games, and classic SpongeBob as a whole, are adults now. The current cultural environment is one of excessive nostalgic, hence the overwhelming amount of plans for remakes, reboots, and revivals in all mediums. There is also a modern Internet culture that turns many SpongeBob frames into potential memes. Thus, there is still a demand for SpongeBob-related content, and the nostalgic audience is big enough for companies to risk bringing back more games.
Aside from the potential financial gains, there is also a genuine passionate for this. SpongeBob is not just a cultural phenomenon that came and went, its best episodes are fondly remembered and quoted to this day. SpongeBob at its best is timeless, and Battle for Bikini BottomRehydrated shows that the old-school format for platformers can still be enjoyed in the modern era. That means titles like The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Game or SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants! could also be potentially remade.
The Movie Game was a good licensed title at the time, and with more developers striving to make faithful licensed games nowadays, a remake has plenty of potential. Lights, Camera, Pants!, as SpongeBob’s answer to Mario Party, would be a bit trickier to bring back. Yet Mario Party itself recently had a successful new release, so cartoonish party games are still capable of attracting an audience.
Battle for Bikini Bottom was made by passionate developers who cared about adapting the SpongeBob world to a different medium. This also applies to its remake. As the adult crowd that grew up with SpongeBob’s golden age gets bigger, so does the potential for more SpongeBob remakes being successful. While there is no need to reintroduce older SpongeBob games to nostalgic fans and newcomers necessarily, the idea is still a solid one to consider.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, Stadia, Switch, and Xbox One.