One of the games I really enjoyed as a kid was the original SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom platformer that released in 2003. A few years back, THQ Nordic fully remade the game and slapped "Rehydrated" on the title. I played the remake myself and love the playful nature of it that stays true to the original.
Right now, the Xbox Shiny Edition of this remake (playable on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One) is a whopping 80% off during a clearance sale. That brings the price down from $149.99 to just $29.99 at Best Buy. This is only $3 more than simply buying the base game, which is $26.99 at Amazon. In addition to the base game, The Shiny Edition gives you a fun 8-inch SpongeBob figurine, six lithographs, some stickers, and a pair of socks designed to look like SpongeBob's.
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A fun adventure near a pineapple under the sea
In Battle for Bikini Bottom, Plankton sets off an evil plan that involves filling the underwater world with attacking robots, and so it's up to SpongeBob, Patrick Star, and Sandy Cheeks to set things right. This involves platforming around familiar locations from the TV show, collecting silly items, interacting with iconic characters, and using each of the three hero character's special skills to reach different areas. You'll unlock more places to explore as you keep going.
As you can tell from that description, this title plays like many of the classic 3D item-collecting platformers from the 90s and early 2000s (Banjo-Kazooie, Spyro, etc). I had a blast playing this remake when it first launched in 2020, and I highly recommend it to any platforming fans or SpongeBob fans out there.
Our own Brendan Lowry, wrote a SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated review at our sister site, Android Central. He scored the game very highly at 4.5 out of 5 stars, talking about how good the remastered visuals look and praising the new "fleshed out" multiplayer mode.
But what exactly comes in the Shiny Edition of this SpongeBob game? For starters, you get the base game that can be played on either Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S. In addition to that, you get a fun 8-inch (20cm) figurine that features SpongeBob wielding a Golden Spatula and sticking out his tongue in a very animated way. Our square friend stands atop a robot's head with his pet, Gary the snail, at his feet. This edition also nets you some fun stickers and six lithographs depicting scenes from the game. To top it all off, there's also a pair of socks that are designed to look like SpongeBob's iconic ones.
Considering that this Shiny Edition has an MSRP of $149.99, dropping the price down to a mere $29.99 is an enormous clearance discount. In fact, that's 80% off the price. I already own this game on both Xbox and Nintendo Switch, but even I am tempted to buy it again so I can get my hands on those fun images and SpongeBob figurine.
It turns out that only the Xbox version of the Shiny Edition is discounted this low. The PlayStation 4/PlayStation 5 version is selling for a much higher $89.99 at Best Buy while the Nintendo Switch version is selling for $99.99 at Best Buy.
In case you're wondering, there was also a F.U.N. Collector's Edition of Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated that came with everything in the Shiny Edition as well as a figurine of Sandy Cheeks with a lasso and Patrick Star holding a watermelon with underwear wrapped around it. This far more expensive edition also came with a set of five keychains. It's nearly impossible to find this F.U.N. Collector's Edition in-person these days, but the Xbox version can be purchased for $148.20 at Amazon, which is reduced from its original $299.99 MSRP.