SpongeBob Squarepants: Titans of the Tide

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Fast Facts

I want to put this out there first, I am not a huge SpongeBob Squarepants fan, or avid watcher of the show…like ever. I am however a fan of the basic puzzle solving, action platform games that typically garner a smile out of me with the humor, voice acting, and overall gameplay. SpongeBob Squarepants: Titans of the Tide is similar to past SpongeBob Squarepants game though ups the ante with great visuals and an overall awesome cast of voice actors with quippy dialogue throughout.

Titans of the Tide starts off with a massive feud between the Flying Dutchman and King Neptune which sends a wave of ghostly chaos sweeping across Bikini Bottom. Early on in the game, you are given the ability to swap between SpongeBob and Patrick. The character you aren’t playing as floats around as a smaller ghostly form of themselves and sometimes will help you out in showing you the way. On the Switch version you can tap a button on the D-Pad to give route to your next main objective, but due to the way the levels are made, some of them have branching paths and side quests to uncover.

To restore order, SpongeBob and Patrick team up on a supernatural adventure that takes them through iconic locations like Neptune’s Palace and Mount Bikini. Switching between the duo, players use their combined skills to battle corrupted bosses—including the Dutchman, Neptune, and even a haunted Hibernation Sandy. With bravery, teamwork, and just a bit of questionable wit, SpongeBob and Patrick set out to bring their undersea home back to “normal”… or at least as normal as Bikini Bottom ever gets.

The tone stays true to the show: goofy, joke-packed, and filled with familiar faces who never miss a chance to poke fun at the chaos. The voice work helps carry the comedy, and the sound design adds punch to jumps, hits, and environmental gags. It really does feel like playing through an extended, high-energy episode of the cartoon that has been turned full 3D and looks good to boot.

Gameplay is where the adventure works well—most of the time. Switching between SpongeBob and Patrick on the fly is fun, especially when levels ask you to chain abilities mid-jump or swap characters to solve puzzles. These jumping sections that have you swapping between characters might be difficult for some younger players. Since the game is single-player only, mom or dad might need to jump in to help.

I found myself getting stuck in some endless death spawn loops on some of the slide portions. I would fall off a ledge and respawn on the edge of the slide pointing at my inevitable doom until I ran out of underpants (life bar/hearts) and then redoing a section of the game from a previous save point. Respawn death loops happened enough times to me that it was frustrating.

The level design stays fresh across the five hub-connected areas, mixing platforming, simple battles, and light puzzle-solving. There’s plenty to do beyond the story too, including hidden chests, races, and costumes that reward exploration. However, the controls can feel awkward during precision jumps, and the camera has a habit of spinning out at the worst possible moments, making some sections more frustrating than they should be. Fighting with the camera seems like an early N64 era problem in terms of landing precision jumps, so it did surprise me with how much I dealt with it in SpongeBob Squarepants: Titans of the Tide.

Visually, the game pops with bright colors and smooth animation powered by Unreal Engine 5. Each area—from Neptune’s Palace to the more open outdoor zones—feels lively and distinct. It’s a great-looking platformer that nails the SpongeBob vibe. If not for some wild camera angles and inputs that never quite feel as tight as the best 3D platformers, the whole package would really shine.

In the end, Titans of the Tide delivers a fun, funny, and surprisingly varied adventure. Even with technical hiccups holding it back, I enjoyed most of my time exploring Bikini Bottom’s ghostly makeover. Fans of SpongeBob will love the humor, and platformer fans will find plenty to latch onto—just be ready to wrangle that camera and denizens of the underwater world more than you’d like.

You can purchase SpongeBob Squarepants: Titans of the Tide for Nintendo Switch 2 on the Nintendo eShop here. Thank you for reading this review!