dice

So Timmy Turner from Fairly OddParents, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Leonardo from TMNT are all in a game together, and no, I’m talking about Fortnite. Not this time. Instead, these and other Nickelodeon cartoon characters are part of Dice of Destiny, a newly released action RPG that plays a lot like Baby’s First Diablo, which might be the perfect game for parents and kids to enjoy together. Just don’t go in expecting something deep, difficult, or long.

Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny, out now on consoles and PC, is very much a Diablo-like ARPG that removes all the blood and demons and replaces them with famous cartoon characters and family-friendly enemies to smack around over the course of the game’s six- to eight-hour campaign. Like Blizzard’s popular ARPG, Dice of Destiny is played from a top-down isometric perspective and features lots of gold to collect, loot to find, and new skills to unlock to better kill all the hundreds and hundreds of fish men, robots, evil books, jellyfish, and even big bosses who want to stop our heroes from collecting powerful dice that will let them escape this fantasy world they are trapped in.

Dice of Destiny doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to ARPGs. You’ll feel right at home with the combat, movement, and progression if you’ve played a Diablo, or a Titan Quest, or even a Path of Exile. You enter areas filled with enemies to kill, find some loot and gold, perhaps stumble upon a side challenge or hidden chest, level up, and then return to a hub area to sell loot and tinker with your character and inventory. Yeah, you’ve played this game before. You know how this goes.

And to Dice of Destiny’s credit, it plays very well and runs like a dream on my Xbox Series X. Sadly, combat isn’t challenging, even when I turn the difficulty up before entering a mission. At least the different biomes you visit, each inspired by Nickelodeon shows like SpongeBob, look wonderful, with a vibrant art style that pops on a big 4K TV. You might get a bit bored fighting the same enemies and getting little loot for it, but at least it all looks nice and runs well, which is not something I can say for other Gamemill-published titles.

Sadly, where Dice of Destiny sort of falls apart is that all the playable characters lack skill trees. Combine that with a lack of loot drops and you start to wonder why you’re grinding away through all the missions. Characters also level up so fast that after a few missions, I was well beyond the level of later missions and felt nearly invincible outside of boss fights. It leads to the game lacking any meaningful RPG progression, and I went from a weakling to a powerful murderer in no time. While I found this to be disappointing, as it meant an already easy game became even easier, I can see how kids would appreciate the ability to level up quickly and acquire new powers to use.

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I think for most people who regularly read Kotaku, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny will be a boring and somewhat shallow ARPG adventure through some gorgeous cartoon worlds that will make you want to reinstall Diablo IV.  But if you have a young kid who’s getting into video games and wants to play an RPG, this is probably a perfect choice. It’s very likely they will know at least some of the characters in Dice of Destiny, and the lack of a skill tree and the game’s reluctance to drop loot or flood the screen with baddies makes it a relatively kid-friendly experience, especially if this is one of their first “big” games. And there’s just enough depth and action here that parents playing with their kids in co-op, which the game supports locally, won’t be bored to tears.

Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is out now on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, and PC. I’d recommend waiting for it to drop in price during a sale, as the $50 sticker slapped on this thing is a bit too high for what’s on offer here. But hey, maybe your kid (or you) really wants to kill 200 jellyfish as Jimmy Neutron? If so, run, don’t walk, to Dice of Destiny.

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