Game review: Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny (PS5)

I think comic books were the first medium to think of crossover superteams. Marvel has The Avengers, while DC has the Justice League. Thanks to the popularity of the MCU series of movies, superteams are more popular than ever now. 

Nickelodeon has been running since 1977, and the company has produced a ton of popular children's cartoons for decades. Some of the cartoons I grew up watching included Rugrats, Rocko's Modern Life, CatDog, and more. 

With such an impressive lineup of memorable cartoons, Nickelodeon has decided to make its own game featuring many of its most iconic characters. The end result is a game called Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny, which is available now on most modern gaming platforms. 

The game starts off with a cool cutscene centering on the character of Timmy Turner from the cartoon 'The Fairly Oddparents'. He is playing his favourite board game called 'Creatures and Chasms'. 

With his fairy godparents, Cosmo and Wanda, Timmy makes a reckless wish to be inside the board game for real. Things go bad when the three characters are sucked into a portal, and they are now inside the board game, for real. 

Little do they know, Timmy's wish also made lots of other cartoon characters get stuck inside the board game, too. The first few characters Timmy and the fairies meet include SpongeBob, Sandy, Leonardo, and Katara. Their goal now is to find the missing dice from the board game and find a way back to their respective homes. 

What I like most about Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is the generous number of playable characters. If you are playing the game solo, only one character is playable at a time. However, there is a co-op mode available where up to four players can play the game at the same time. 

At the beginning of the game, only five characters are playable. These include SpongeBob as a Knight, Sandy as a Viking, Katara as a Healer, Leonardo as a Swordsman, and Timmy as a Wizard. As you progress further in the game, Susie Carmichael, Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, and Jenny Wakeman are unlocked. 

If your favourite Nickelodeon character isn't playable, you don't have to worry too much because many other characters are still in the game in a supporting role. For example, Leonardo still gets to meet his turtle brothers, while Plankton appears as a boss character. 

Speaking of villains, you will also encounter an evil team of girls consisting of Azula, Ember McLain, and Angelica Pickles. This trio calls themselves the 'Flame Fatale', and they are here to collect the remaining dice for their own nefarious plans. 

In terms of gameplay, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is a basic action-RPG with real-time combat. You don't have to worry about turn-based combat or anything like that because the action happens spontaneously. 

Since I have been watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since the early '90s, I decided to play as Leonardo for most of the game. He has a cool basic attack that you can spam many times by pressing the X button on PS5. There is no stamina system, but you can press Circle to evade enemy attacks. 

Aside from basic melee attacks, each character also has four special attacks mapped to the Square, Triangle, R2, and L2 buttons on PS5. The blue meter on the left side of the screen shows how much juice you have to use these special abilities, but thankfully, the meter fills up when it's not in use. 

Leonardo has cool abilities like a tornado attack and even a flying kick, for example. I also tried SpongeBob and Sandy in this game too. SpongeBob has a spatula as a weapon, while Sandy has a hammer. As you progress further in the game, you can unlock better weapons and armour for the characters to use. 

The level design is mostly linear, and there are tons of different enemies to defeat. The only alternate paths to take are if you need to take a detour to activate a switch to a locked gate, or something like that. 

While most of the enemies are easy to beat, I was surprised that the boss fights are quite long for a kid's game. The bosses aren't hard to defeat because the UI shows where they're about to attack, but they can be quite lengthy. Thankfully, every character can store up to five health potions to replenish their life bar during these long encounters. 

Presentation-wise, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny has great 2D graphics with levels based on the cartoons featured in the game. Not to mention, most of the original voice actors return to give life to the characters. I still cannot believe SpongeBob, Sandy and Plankton still have their original voice actors since 1999!

While I enjoyed most of what this game offers, I have to admit the gameplay loop can get repetitive at times. The combat isn't engaging because I was using the same moves over and over again. You cannot even change characters at any time because characters are only chosen before you start a mission. 

I'm also a little disappointed that Sandy is a Viking in this game. She should have been a Karate Master with a big foam hand. Everyone who has watched the earlier episodes knows Sandy and SpongeBob are huge fans of karate!

Aside from a few minor flaws, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is still a fun game for fans both young and old. It's like The Avengers of Nickelodeon characters. This game is worth picking up for fans of these cartoons. 

Verdict: 7.5/10