Creating an RPG aimed at the younger generation must be a tricky task. There’s the obvious need to implement RPG-like features so that it falls within the genre, but at the same time, there’s the requisite to keep things relatively simple so that children can wrap their heads around it.
As a licensed product, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny also likely came with a bunch of stipulations on how characters should behave and interact. We were never in for a 70+ hour RPG with a final boss battle involving biblically accurate angels ascending from a demonic abyss while orchestrated music plays. A shame that may be, The Dice of Destiny instead plays it pleasingly casual, offering an action-oriented experience that can be wrapped up in 7-8 hours.
The storyline focuses on The Fairly OddParents, who foolishly agree to transport Timmy into a fantasy board game known as Creatures and Chasms. Upon arriving in this otherworldly realm, Timmy is met by a bunch of heroes (Katara, Susie, SpongeBob, and Leonardo) desperate to find a way home. It so transpires that Timmy’s magical dice hold the answer, but as they’re now scattered across the realm and in the hands of evil-doers – including Angelica from the Rugrats – they have a trek on their hands to get them back.
Character designs adopt a uniform yet recognisable ‘chibi’ art style. Animation is a little floaty and their facial expressions are more gormless than usual, but this make over isn’t bad overall, with animated cut-scenes appearing during key moments. Dialogue is fully voiced and there are some fun exchanges between characters, including the occasional reference to past Nicktoons games. Over time the cast of characters grows, adding more playable characters and a larger range of NPCs to interact with in the woodland hub, most of which have an optional fetch quest – such as finding Pearl Krab’s prized ‘Boys Who Cry’ CD.
The action is viewed from a top-down perspective and is of the real-time hack ‘n slash variety, not entirely dissimilar to Skylanders (RIP) and Diablo 3 & 4 with attacks mapped to the face buttons, each on a short cooldown. Characters level up and unlock new attacks, with some favouring ranged over melee. Susie attacks using a Reptar toy, Leonardo sticks to his swords, SpongeBob is armed with a magical spatula, while Katara has her water weaving.
The RPG features extend to a small inventory to manage. Every character has a weapon unique to them, while armour and trinkets can be shared, all of which increase damage and defences along with movement speed, life steal, health regen, and more. Although loot chests feature within the stages, often found in dead ends or as a reward for defeating a boss, it’s the hub’s armoury – manned by Carl Wheezer, amusingly – that always has the best weapons and armour available. Donatello fills the role of blacksmith and can upgrade items, but only once per hub visit – and infuriatingly, upgrading an item unequips it. This oversight led to us taking on a boss with our bare hands before realising what had happened.
Carrying on the fantasy theme, stages are alternative takes on worlds seen in Nickelodeon shows, such as Spongebob’s Jellyfish Fields becoming a medieval town, and the Ninja Turtles’ sewer relocated to underneath a castle – where The Kraang resemble Beholders and Mousers are literal mice. Worlds based around Avatar’s Fire Nation, Danny Phantom’s Ghost Zone and the OddParent’s Fairy World are largely unchanged, mind, apart from being home to more fantastical creatures than usual.
Keeping the pace swift, worlds only have 3-4 quests to complete, each taking around ten minutes. That’s to say, within the space of an hour you’ll have another dice back in the collection and will be well into the next chapter of the storyline. Stage layouts are often repeated, and unique set-pieces are seldom seen. More detrimental, and easily the game’s biggest downfall, is that mission objectives are mostly feeble variations on ‘progress through a stage and find the item to unlock the next’. One early quest mentions a puzzle…which turned out to involve nothing more than finding and flicking two switches to open a gate. Sometimes there’s the need to defeat 50 enemies before the level exit will unlock, but that’s about it for variety – with an exception being from a late quest to carry Zuko’s extremely fragile teacup through a stage without it breaking. Which, coincidentally, was the first time we saw the ‘Mission Failed’ screen.
Incidentally, there are no checkpoints, so on the rare occasion where no health potions are available, you’re looking at starting a stage from the beginning. Its fortunate quests are brief.
Boss battles are more comical than challenging, featuring fantasy creatures and familiar faces spewing projectiles and dashing around the circular battle arenas. They go down easily if you spam your most powerful attacks available, and should the need for a helping hand ever arise, potions granting temporary defence and attack boosts are commonly found. Missions have recommended party levels, but due to investing in upgrades, I was delightfully overpowered and found they can largely be ignored. If you switch out a character, their level will be matched to your own, and as mentioned armour can be shared, but you’ll have to visit Carl Wheezer to purchase a stronger weapon to get them up to spec. Gold flows freely, found in almost every breakable object, so there’s no need to worry about coffers running dry.
Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is reasonably polished and very easy to get into, let down mostly by its peculiar design choices – such as the majority of loot found during stages being worthless – and quests that don’t evolve beyond following a path while flicking switches, or in the rarest of cases, locating keys. Not exactly the most epic of pursuits. It was always a given that The Dice of Destiny had to be simple enough for younger gamers to understand, and I can’t fault it for that, but it does come with the caveat that combat doesn’t involve anything more than attacking, dodging and healing. By including lots of characters to experiment with, it does at least manage to avoid being repetitive – and that’s despite the final world dragging.
This is a decent enough effort at creating a family friendly RPG, with plenty of Nicktoons references and a large cast of favourites to please long-time fans. It whisks players from one colourful world to the next in a whirlwind fashion, faltering only towards the end. Once that final boss is defeated, chances are attention will soon be turned elsewhere – with its younger audience especially susceptible to not wanting to revisit its fantasy realms. If the almighty Avatar hadn’t been reduced to NPC status, maybe it would have had more wind in its sails…
Game Mill’s Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is out now on all formats. Developed by Petit Fabrik and Fair Play Labs.