10 Recent Video Games Critics Hated (But Players LOVED)

SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom received mixed-positive reviews when it originally released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube back in 2003, but when the "Rehydrated" remake came out in 2020, critics weren't quite so thrilled.

The new version landed an unremarkable 68 Metascore on PS4, with many reviewers noting that little effort had been made to update the original platformer for modern audiences.

As a result, much of the gameplay felt unpolished and unreasonably frustrating to contemporary players, who may reasonably have been expecting some quality-of-life refinements.

Incredibly, though, the user score from over 2,000 players sits at a stonking 8.9, and on Steam it holds an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating from 9,000+ user reviews.

It's not much of a secret that jaded critics are considerably less-susceptible to nostalgia than players, especially players who would ever consider buying a remake of an almost 20-year-old SpongeBob SquarePants game, which likely accounts for the divide.

Players, with their warm, fuzzy memories of the original and more forgiving attitude towards its more dated mechanics, simply relished in the dopamine boost this nostalgic treat gave them, complete with some shiny new graphics to match. The definition of comfort food.