Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny (Switch) Review

Smash Bros., Avengers: End Game, The Arrowverse crossovers, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law. These are all classic examples of crossovers done extremely well. The idea of SpongeBob SquarePants fighting alongside Suzie from Rugrats and Leonardo sounds like a 2000s kid’s dream. Unfortunately, Nicktoons and the Dice of Destiny, is marred with uninspired, boring gameplay and narrative design everywhere you look.

Timmy Turner, playing a game similar to Dungeons and Dragons with his fairy godparents Cosmo and Wanda, gets bored of winning all the time and wishes to be in a fantasy world for real. With natural Nickelodeon shenanigans occurring, the wish sucks heroes in from across the world of Nickelodeon, including SpongeBob SquarePants, Rugrats, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more.

Timmy then teams up with the variety of characters to seek out the dice from Timmy’s game as they are the key to returning everyone to their own worlds. It is not much of a narrative, and despite bringing in so many original voice actors like Tom Kenny, Seth Green, and Daran Norris to reprise their roles, a lot of the effort put into their roles feels flatter than if they were recording for the television show. Cree Summer and Rob Paulsen’s efforts are outstanding, however, so the voice acting is not lacking across the whole game at least.

The visuals of Dice of Destiny are a mixed bag. In an attempt to make sure the characters look like they belong together in the one world, the art style takes on a cutesy, almost infantile aesthetic. SpongeBob and Sandy, who arguably already looked childish, look slightly off as a result. Leonardo and Katara change the most to try and make them look the part. It is a bit weird as almost all the characters look like there is something a bit wrong with them, and I could not shake the feeling that I was playing a game I bought from Paddy’s Markets in Sydney.

The gameplay is somewhat of a mixed bag as well. Every character is set from a different class such as warrior, barbarian, wizard, and samurai. Ensuring they try and match personalities to the class, SpongeBob wields a spatula, while Leonardo uses his signature katanas. Matching the personalities to whacky weapons is at least done well here, and you can find better weapons and armour as loot throughout the game. It is unfortunate that finding these weapons and armour do not change your look cosmetically, however there are enough stats to compare between weapons to make it deep and engaging.

Unfortunately, everything beyond the weapons and loot system feels half-baked. Attacks do not feel like they land properly as they lack any kind of feedback. Almost every enemy in the game can be defeated via button mashing, and bosses often resort to cheap tactics to remove your health, rather than proper strategy.

The levels all feel uninspired as well. With various levels based on the different TV shows represented, most areas fail to capture the magic of those environments. The first number of levels are supposed to be set in a similar setting to Bikini Bottom but lack the charm the underwater world of SpongeBob SquarePants. Similarly, Old York feels nothing like going through the world of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and is a problem that plagues the whole game.

The layouts of the dungeons are all pedestrian stuff. Created solely for the purpose of exploring the level and completing the missions, there is nothing really on offer that makes for an exciting foray into dungeon exploring. Some levels repeat elements from previous levels, leaving me on multiple occasions wondering if I have picked the wrong level as it felt too familiar to previous levels. Occasionally there will be a path off to the side that may lead to a chest, but even then, they do not offer much in the way of exciting prizes.

It feels like the overall mission of the game is to make sure everything in the game works and functions as intended, but unfortunately, it is all just so bland and boring. Even the central hub area, called The Tangle, is meant to be an amalgamation of all the different worlds locked together in one place. The result of The Tangle is just a mess of a place that fails to capture the essence of any Nickelodeon property.

All these issues add together and make me wonder what the developers could have done with a few extra months. There are some definite moments where it looks like the developers tried to take care in designing the characters and making sure they fit in the world together and pairing them up with certain classes was a nice touch. It is just unfortunate that there really is not much else going for it.

While I can’t speak for how the game performs on other consoles or on PC, I can say that my experience playing on the Nintendo Switch version of the game was marred with frame drops not only in regular gameplay, but in video cutscenes as well for some reason. Playing the game on Switch 2 hardware does not do anything to alleviate these problems. There were also multiple times during cooperative play where our characters kept getting stuck on environmental elements or stuck on each other, having to exit the game and jump back in again.

What we are left with is a game that tries somewhat to be a Nickelodeon game for kids growing up in the 2000s. Unfortunately, it is the Nickelodeon branding that is the only real selling point of the game, as I cannot imagine a game that has been shipped like this to draw in any crowds without the license. What I hoped for was a game that was much like DeathSpank in terms of quality gameplay and humour, and what we got was a half-baked dungeon crawler that is hardly worth the time or effort. Even if you are a Nickelodeon fan, I do not think the shallow combat, performance issues and uninspired level design would see you to the end.

Rating: 2.5/5