OK I’ll admit it: I’m a grown man and I picked up SpongeBob SquarePants: Titans Of The Tide on the day it was released.
BUT!
I bought it mostly because my son is a big SpongeBob fan, and I figured this would be a fun father-son session. Mostly. I kinda liked SpongeBob when it first came out – even though I was 15 at the time.
Anyway, the game immediately delivers on that intent. This is a bright, colourful platform-adventure that leans hard into the nostalgia of the show. The game faithfully captures the whimsical essence” of Bikini Bottom.
From booting it up alongside my nine-year-old, there was laughter in the first minutes: the voice-cast is mostly original, the writing throws in sight gags, and the environments felt familiar (the Krusty Krab, Jellyfish Fields, etc).
Here’s what I thought in more detail.
Visiting Bikini Bottom
One of the biggest strengths of Titans Of The Tide is how instantly familiar it feels if you’ve ever watched the show — willingly or otherwise. The characters look right, the tone is silly in the correct way, and the environments feel like slightly exaggerated versions of places I’ve seen in countless episodes my son has forced upon me. The Krusty Krab, Jellyfish Fields, the streets of Bikini Bottom — he recognised everything straight away. Every few minutes we had to pause because he’d spotted something in the background that “proved” the developers had made the game “for real SpongeBob fans.”
The game itself does a good job of creating a world that kids can navigate without getting lost or overwhelmed. Objectives are clear, characters explain things in straightforward language, and even the busier levels are structured so younger players can poke around without missing anything crucial.
It’s an incredibly easy game to get comfortable with, especially if you’re sharing play with someone who prefers exploring every corner instead of following the path like a normal human being. I spent a good ten minutes watching him chase a jellyfish into a dead end while Patrick babbled nonsense, and I honestly didn’t mind.
What I Ended Up Enjoying More Than Expected
Once we settled into the flow of it, I started appreciating just how varied the game actually is. It’s not just running and jumping through colourful obstacle courses. Different levels introduce new activities — sliding down ridiculous underwater chutes, swapping between SpongeBob and Patrick depending on the task, doing light platforming challenges, bash-and-smash combat bits, and little exploration areas that let kids poke around for collectibles.
Those sliding sections deserve a mention. My son loved them. He treated them like high-stakes races, shouting instructions at me and whooping every time we hit a speed boost. They might go on a bit, but seeing his excitement made them some of the highlights of the evening.
The general tone of the gameplay is relaxed — almost soothing. There’s no real pressure, no harsh punishments for messing up, and no moment where you feel like the game expects too much of younger players. That made it perfect for us to swap the controller back and forth mid-level without derailing anything. He could take the reins during the easier bits and hand it to me when the game asked for a bit more precision. There’s something genuinely nice about a game that feels designed around shared play instead of assuming every player is sitting alone with headphones on and a competitive streak.
A Few Rough Edges
It’s not all smooth sailing. Once you’ve played for a bit, a few flaws become more obvious — especially if you’re an adult who’s also played a lot of more refined platformers. The difficulty level is incredibly forgiving, to the point where I sometimes felt like I was just being ushered gently along a conveyor belt of bubbly colours. My son didn’t mind, but I occasionally wished for something that pushed back just a little, or at least surprised me with a twist.
There’s also a noticeable rhythm to how levels are structured. After a while, you can almost pinpoint exactly when the game will throw in a slide, when it’ll ask you to swap characters, and when a small wave of enemies is going to appear. It’s not a dealbreaker — this is a game aimed at younger players — but you definitely start to see the seams if you’re playing for more than an hour at a time.
We also ran into a few technical wobbles. The camera can be slightly awkward in tighter spaces, and once in a while SpongeBob would get stuck on a bit of scenery long enough for my son to yell “Dad it’s broken!” before I nudged him free. Completely minor stuff, but noticeable nonetheless. The visuals are bright and inviting, but every so often the art style drifts away from the clean look of the show and ends up somewhere slightly uncanny. Again, nothing serious, but enough that my son, surprisingly observant as always, asked why some characters “look a bit weird.”
The Father–Son Experience
Honestly, this is where the game shone brightest for me. Sharing a game with a child who is absolutely absorbed in what’s happening on screen is a completely different experience from reviewing a game as a seasoned player. We laughed at silly dialogue, pointed out Easter eggs, spent ages exploring random side paths, and took turns tackling small challenges. It’s been a long time since I’ve played something where the enjoyment came as much from who I was playing with as from the game itself.
My son’s favourite activity was simply running around environments looking for hidden items. He’d stop every few seconds to ask “Dad, what do you think is over here?” even though I had no idea and usually doubted there was anything at all. But he loved the sense of discovery, and that made me appreciate how the game gently rewards curiosity, even if most of the rewards are small or cosmetic.
Final Verdict
Titans Of The Tide isn’t trying to reinvent platformers, and it doesn’t need to. It’s a colourful, cheerful, uncomplicated adventure that understands exactly who it’s made for. If you’re a parent with a SpongeBob fan in the house, this is a great one to share. If you’re a more seasoned platformer fan playing alone, the simplicity might wear thin — but that’s hardly the point.
For me, the real value came from the experience of playing it with my son. His joy carried me through the repetition, and the two of us had an evening of proper, silly fun together. And at the end of the day, that’s worth more to me than any clever mechanic or technical flourish.
