Timmy, SpongeBob, Danny, and Jimmy are all back in a chaotic Nickelodeon crossover that is Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny.
Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny is the crossover event we didn’t know we needed until 2025, but now that it’s here, wow, it really delivers. SpongeBob, Danny Phantom, Jimmy Neutron, and Timmy Turner all in one game—pressure? What pressure? It’s an adventure that feels like a proper continuation of the classic Nicktoons Unite formula.
For Nickelodeon lovers since childhood, this is monumental. It’s been over 15 years since a crossover like this was attempted, and with the main characters from the Nicktoons universe returning for the first time since their original series ended, the excitement was through the roof. Previous crossovers like Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis managed to get Timmy Turner in the mix, but they never truly captured the magic of a real unified adventure.
The story kicks off with Timmy playing a version of Dungeons and Dragons, wishing he could experience a real adventure inside the game. Naturally, Cosmo and Wanda muck things up, as they always do, using a set of mysterious Dice of Power that cause a multiverse collision. Suddenly, eight Nicktoons universes collide, throwing all our favorite characters into a chaotic Dungeons & Dragons-style world.
As expected, Cosmo and Wanda’s wish powers immediately stop working, leaving you stranded in this Nicktoons-flavored fantasy land. It’s classic Unite series energy, but also Nickelodeon nostalgia to the max. Your mission? Collect all the dice of power and find your way back home.
To do that, you’ll dive headfirst into dungeon crawling mixed with RPG elements—a gameplay style that feels reminiscent of Hades while still keeping the cartoon charm of Nickelodeon alive. The original Nicktoons Unite game drew inspiration from X-Men Legends, and it’s fascinating to see Dice of Destiny take cues from a popular game of its era.
Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny can be played solo or in local co-op with up to 4 players, a welcome nod to the original Unite games. I tackled the game solo, which was a great experience, though I can see how a co-op session with friends would make the adventure even more fun as y’all “jellyfish”, playing as SpongeBob.
Unfortunately, there’s no online co-op, which feels like a missed opportunity when connecting with friends virtually is almost a given in big old 2025. Upon entering your first dungeon, you can select from nine playable characters, which are SpongeBob, Sandy, Danny Phantom, Jimmy, Timmy, Leonardo, Katara, Susie Carmichael, and Jenny Wakeman. Everyone starts with just a basic attack and a dodge roll—hold the dodge button, and you can run.
Some NPCs and villains influence the story and reflect the style of their original series. Familiar locations are adapted into Dungeons & Dragons-themed dungeons. While some shows—like Rugrats, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Jimmy Neutron—don’t get their own fully themed worlds, the integration is still there.
True to Dungeons and Dragons form, each character comes with a staggering array of stats: health, mana, damage, defense, evasion, agility, dexterity, intelligence, strength, and critical hit chance. It’s comprehensive, though the game doesn’t do the best job explaining what some of these stats actually do, leaving dexterity and intelligence a little mysterious at first.
As you hack, slash, shoot, or spellcast your way through dungeons, you’ll pick up a wide variety of items to upgrade and customize your character. Weapons boost offensive stats, armor improves defense, talismans enhance just about anything, consumables like potions give temporary buffs, and skins (currently only available as paid DLC) offer cosmetic changes. Any item you find or buy can be upgraded to higher tiers.
Each dungeon generally has you defeating enemies and occasionally solving minor puzzles, like activating switches to unlock doors and progress. To mix things up, many levels feature challenge statues that trap you in an arena with unique conditions while you clear a set number of enemies before a timer expires.
Completing these challenges can grant modifiers that increase item drops and even offer rare loot.
Defeating enemies earns experience points, levels up your character, and unlocks new skills. Each character can equip abilities on the face buttons and triggers, which consume mana but regenerate over time, letting you experiment with various combinations. Once you start leveling, you’ll gain more skills than can be equipped at once, so you’ll have to choose what works best. Each character also gets an ultimate ability that can deal insane damage and usually references a memorable moment from that character’s show.
As expected, gold is a constant presence, fueling your journey as you defeat enemies and complete dungeons. Gold can be spent in the hub world, the Tangle, which contains several shops run by beloved characters. Pearl’s Hero Boutique, Carl’s weapon shop, Soccer’s potion shop, and Donatello’s upgrade shop all offer unique items and gear.
Some shops use gem shards as currency, which are rarer than gold and require you to do side quests. Side quests are plentiful and offer rewards that make detouring from the main story worthwhile. NPCs like Tommy Pickles and Plankton hand out quests and even appear in cutscenes.
Your character level is shared across all unlocked characters.
This makes it easier for you, as you do not have to grind for each character, and allows for free swapping between characters as you see fit. I found myself genuinely enjoying all the characters and regularly switching them out for different dungeons, which is a rare accomplishment for a Nicktoons game.
Combat feels solid across every character, and Fair Play Labs (the devs) have smartly allowed all items, except consumables, to be used across all characters. The dungeon-to-Tangle loop is smooth and satisfying: clear enemies, grab loot, solve puzzles, defeat a boss, return to the Tangle, upgrade items, pick up side quests, and rinse and repeat.
It’s addictive, even for someone like me who isn’t typically drawn to dungeon-crawling RPGs. However, the game is not without flaws. Difficulty is a major issue. Dungeons offer easy, normal, and hard settings, but even hard isn’t hard… I suppose. The game’s leveling system and generous gold economy make it nearly impossible to feel challenged after the first few hours.
Level 16 is a major milestone, after which you stop learning new attacks, which happens roughly three hours into the campaign. The level cap goes up to 40, but progression feels less meaningful, and gold is so abundant that you can constantly buy top-tier gear. These factors combined result in a game that’s fun but almost embarrassingly easy.
Character unlocking is another minor disappointment. After the first boss, you unlock Susie with almost no narrative justification. Jimmy and Timmy’s first interaction is awkward, as they behave like strangers despite the crossover canon, and Danny’s unlock feels like a nod to older references rather than standing out on its own.
Jenny randomly appears post-boss fight in a group shot before being properly introduced later, hinting at some oversight in pacing or storytelling. By the time all characters are unlocked, the main progression drivers are boss battles and new locations, though some areas, like a generic prehistoric volcanic zone, feel uninspired.
The Fire Nation and Fairy World stages are more enjoyable, but Fairy World is revisited so you get quite bored by the end of the game. Some levels even include invincible cannons, turning segments into mini bullet-hell challenges.
Despite these hiccups, the boss battles themselves are enjoyable, though the difficulty drops significantly after the early encounters. Plankton is a fun first boss, and Angelica provides a real challenge with her spider minion, Cynthia, but subsequent bosses, including Snake Karai, Ember, the Dirty Bubble, Azula, and Jorgen, offer little challenge.
The final boss with the Dungeon Master (details I won’t spoil) also falls into this category. Okay, the creativity behind the boss concepts—I appreciated that. With a better difficulty curve, these fights could have been genuinely excellent. Overall, the main campaign takes around eight hours to complete, though side quests can extend gameplay.
For graphics, the shift to a 2D art style works surprisingly well for the D&D aesthetic they were trying out. Cutscenes may appear basic at first, but they grow on you as the story progresses. In-game visuals, especially in the Tangle, are excellent, and the soundtrack cleverly fuses familiar show themes with medieval tones. Voice acting is also a standout feature, with nearly all dialogue fully voiced, almost like in these shows.
There are some issues, though, particularly with the HUD clutter. Maps, stats, abilities, quest markers, and potion effects all occupy screen space. Turning off quest markers helps declutter, but then navigation becomes tricky.
All things considered, Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny nails almost every aspect of a crossover adventure. It delivers a trip down memory lane that respects both the original Nicktoons and the Unite series. The biggest flaw is the rushed feeling of the final world and the difficulty, but these are minor complaints in an otherwise great game that I personally enjoyed a hell of a lot. Kudos to the devs at Fair Play Labs —they know how to respect these iconic characters.
If they had branded this as Nicktoons Unite: Dice of Destiny, it would have been a perfect revival of the series. Even without that label, this game stands as the best Nicktoons title to date. Every aspect, from character design to voice acting to gameplay mechanics, feels carefully crafted to take you back to the time when you were binging Nickelodeon in the early 2000s.
Nickelodeon still knows how to create memorable crossover experiences.
Nicktoons & The Dice of Destiny isn’t perfect, but it’s the pinnacle of Nicktoons gaming. If you’ve ever wanted to see SpongeBob, Jimmy Neutron, Timmy Turner, and Danny Phantom team up and basically be the Avengers, but for Nickelodeon instead of Marvel, then play this game. It’s a reminder of why we loved these shows in the first place.
