I feel very fortunate to have grown up alongside Nickelodeon, watching cartoons like SpongeBob SquarePants and Avatar: The Last Airbender. The wide variety of different cartoons, or Nicktoons as they called them, created many an iconic character and played a crucial part during my formative years.
These characters have become integral parts of both our popular culture and the nostalgic memories of adults everywhere. And while they’ve all appeared in multiple different video games over the years, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is a unique case.
As multiverse shenanigans continue to dominate the land of movies and television, the fine folks at Nickelodeon are not immune to that. Like me, they clearly have wondered just precisely what would happen if SpongeBob and Timmy Turner shared a room with Karara from Avatar and Jenny Wakeman from My Life As A Teenage Robot.
Brought together by both magic and fate, these characters find themselves stuck in a tabletop fantasy RPG thanks to a reckless wish by Timmy Turner. Go figure. Their quest to escape becomes the crux of the game, and powers a cute story that’s both fan service and compelling in its own right.
If you ever grew up watching Nickelodeon during the 1990s and early 2000s, I’m sure Dice of Destiny is already on your wishlist. And while there’s a lot here to appease you, I think you should also enter this game knowing exactly what’s in store for you, for better or for worse.
What A Tangled Web We Weave
Thanks to callbacks to an ongoing joke that revolves around Timmy Turner’s questionable use of his Fairy Godparents, the heroes are stranded in a real-life tabletop RPG inspired by the likes of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a fun, quirky little premise that allows you to bring characters from across the Nick universe together with very little exposition requirements.
It truly does feel like they are attempting to appease all eras of Nick kids.
These events lead them to the Tangle, a hub world that allows you to take on quests. Each area in the Tangle is modeled after a particular Nick world, from the Fire Nation featured in Avatar: The Last Airbender to a fantasy-themed version of Bikini Bottom.
It truly does feel like they are attempting to appease all eras of Nick kids. It’s not just targeted at 90s kids, but also has something for 2000s babies.
The Tangle is a great place to just hang out, too. It starts out fairly empty, but your quest invites new NPCs that have quests and stories of their own.
And while a majority of these NPC quests revolve around you finding an item in the very next area you’re going to, it still ties into the theme in a fun way that makes it more interesting.
Quests like finding the Crimson Chin’s lost comic books or finding some herbs so that Sokka can make potions aren’t breaking new ground, but they’re fun little diversions.
The world map itself is fairly big, but it suffers from what negatively affects the rest of the game. While the fantasy setting is cool and fits the tropes they’re exploiting, it does leave very little room for expansion.
It leads to each area kind of looking the same aside from some light flourishes from that particular Nick cartoon. The Fire Nation just looks like the Fire Nation, but medieval-themed versions of famous Nick locations tend to get a touch dry after eight hours of playtime.
I’m Ready! I’m Ready!
In terms of childhood cartoons, I know we all have our preferences, but Nick always seemed like the place to go for my favorite shows. I found myself watching so many marathons of Fairly OddParents and SpongeBob that I could probably perform them all as a one-woman show.
While you could levy some criticism of this game being nostalgia bait, a point that is well-founded in some regards, I appreciate the genuine love that the developers have for them.
Diving into Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny made me realize just how much I loved and adored those shows. While you could levy some criticism of this game being nostalgia bait, a point that is well-founded in some regards, I appreciate the genuine love that the developers have for them.
It would probably be very tempting for a developer to just cook up a mediocre story, pop in some speech bubbles, and call it a day. But due to just how recognizable these characters are, I was pleasantly surprised at how committed they were to that.
Every line is voiced, and there’s not a dialogue box going by that doesn’t have an on-point line delivery. If SpongeBob is in this game, he had better either be Tom Kenny or sound close. And they clearly paid close attention to what makes these characters so beloved.
But for all of its commitment to nailing the personalities and voices of the characters, it does feel like a few important ones have been left in the dust. While it’s cool that my girl Jenny Wakeman is finally getting the star treatment she deserves, I do wish we could have gotten some under-utilized characters like Invader Zim or Helga Pataki.
Overall, the roster is good, but it feels like it’s missing some key icons from Nick’s history. And when characters do show up, sometimes it feels a little uneventful.
Sometimes, when you show up to the Tangle, Pearl will just tell you a new character has arrived, and they join your party. It does rob that character of a potentially cool introduction, leaving them feeling less important than the more famous ones.
Git Gud, Nick Kids
When Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny was revealed at Summer Game Fest 2025, I anticipated it to be a fairly easy experience. After all, this is a game with kids as its target audience.
And while that’s partially true, there’s some genuinely challenging boss battles and enemies in the last half of the game that are rather spongy. And not in the adorable SquarePants kind of way.
At some point during mid-game, the bosses go from pushovers into a couple that feel like Soulslike bosses. Patterns feel completely random, and it does force you to rely on different characters.
While these bosses and enemies start to get more challenging, though, the way the game is designed ends up working against the player.
While you have a large party, you can only choose one character to play a level with. It’s a bit disappointing, as being able to hear them bounce quips off each other would have been hilarious. Worse yet, it’s outright frustrating on a game design level.
Drops and loot are associated with your chosen hero, meaning that while Sandy gets a devastating purple-colored hammer, a new character that has just randomly shown up at the Tangle has to either grind an earlier level for a weapon to compete or simply buy one from Carl.
Money feels entirely useless, as the game encourages you to buy potions from Sokka, but when these drop so freely in the levels, it doesn’t seem that important. It feels more like money, which is also a frequent drop, and is designed to buy the most powerful weapons instead of getting them as lucky acquisitions.
Repetitive Combat, But Some Fun Special Attacks
When it comes to games like this, it’s of the utmost importance that the combat is fun. You’re going to be doing a lot of it, after all, so it had better be able to keep you entertained for a while.
And while the combat in Dice of Destiny is decent, its fun factor relies on how often you will remember your special attacks.
Basic attacks will defeat most enemies pretty quickly, which leads to some monotonous button mashing. Thankfully, the special attacks that you can map to the face and shoulder buttons add some much-needed variety.
When it comes to games like this, it’s of the utmost importance that the combat is fun.
The best part about these attacks is how personalized they are. They tie perfectly into that character’s world and history.
Jimmy Neutron positions multiple canons as an overload attack, Jenny unleashes complete chaos from her robotic arsenal, and so on. It’s the best part of a combat system that seems to only rely on the bare minimum to shuffle you to the next quest.
It’s a game that’s so painfully easy on one hand that it feels like you’re on autopilot, but then throws a nasty boss at you that requires you to strategize on what character will work best, like it’s a real, true blue old-school RPG.
It’s a baffling experience in many ways, barely held together by its vocal performances and whimsical aesthetic.
Closing Comments:
Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is loaded with nostalgia, callbacks to famous scenes and lines, but ultimately isn’t as good as it could be. The limited fantasy setting, monotonous combat and underwhelming world map are helped slightly by its wonderfully authentic voices and fun story. If you grew up watching these cartoons, chances are you’ll be charmed by the respect paid to them like I was, but find that the quest itself is not quite as good as just watching your favorite episodes again.
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- Released
- September 30, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Petit Fabrik, Fair Play Labs
- Multiplayer
- Local Co-Op
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- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- September 30, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- September 30, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- September 30, 2025
- Nintendo Switch Release Date
- September 30, 2025
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- Nostalgiac trip through classic Nickelodeon cartoons
- Cute story, complete with authentic voice overs
- Surprisingly complex inventory and loot system
- Music is dry and uninspired
- Combat is serviceable, but could be better
- World map is big, but feels a bit bland after a while
- Character introductions can feel underwhelming
- Fantasy setting is cool, but perhaps too limiting
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Author: 360 Technology Group
