Infinity Nikki review

What happens when you take a long-running mobile game series all about dress-up, wrangle it away from its cellular origins, shove the concept into a Genshin Impact mold and unleash it onto PC and console? You get Infinity Nikki, Infold Games' fifth entry in the series, but the first one many will have likely ever heard of.

Don't worry though, you don't need any knowledge of the previous games to jump in. Infinity Nikki doesn't directly follow on from any of its predecessors, but it does retain their main themes: A human stylist named Nikki and her sassy talking cat Momo end up getting sucked into Miraland, a fantasy realm stuffed with all kinds of fashion-related lore and a history that implies some sort of war among eight garment wizards.

At least, I'm pretty sure that's what's going on, from what I've gleaned. My history with the series lies almost entirely with Love Nikki, the third game in the series, one which I remember having a heap of translation issues and an oft-confusing narrative. Huge improvements have been made for the former, but the latter still remains. Dialogue was occasionally entirely unnecessary—one moment where I had to listen to Nikki back-and-forth with a character over the fact they repeated a sentence had me questioning my sanity—and concepts are either over-explained or under-explained.

I went through a good chunk of my time not really getting anything, narratively. There are a ton of lore books knocking around though, which I found helped to add a ton of much-needed background history to Miraland, giving me more insight into what was actually going on around me. I often preferred these flavour texts to the main narrative, and as I read more I was having a much easier time piecing together the story I'd largely been thrown into the thick of.

Sew far, sew good

To be fair, part of my half-baked understanding definitely came from the huge time-gaps between completing quests, which happened entirely on account of me repeatedly venturing off the beaten path. Infinity Nikki is the first time the series has gone open world, and it's bloody gorgeous to look at. Every blade of grass, stone fence, and babbling brook is stunning, and I regularly found myself stopping in my tracks to make use of the game's excellent photo mode.

I spent far too many hours clicking through every pose—each of which has their own subtle animations you can cycle through for a frame-perfect shot—fiddling with the lighting and the framing to capture Miraland's stunning sunsets or the reflection of the moon off a large lake. I could even leave behind a 'snapshot' which allows friends to come along to my photo spot and take a snap alongside me.

There's no better pairing for a pretty landscape than some beautiful threads to go with it, and I had a hard time finding an item of clothing that I didn't like. There's a huge variety available, from giant princess dresses to pyjamas and sneakers. While I did have the occasional clipping issue between items that definitely should be able to be worn in harmony, I had a great time mixing and matching all the different pieces I had crafted, collected, and pulled from its gacha banner.

When I wasn't busy turning into a professional photographer, I was putting a whole load of other fits to use: Infinity Nikki's ability outfits. They're really just a way to show off loads of different pretty clothes in a variety of scenarios—there's an outfit for fishing, bug catching, animal cleaning (yes, it's adorable), floating, combat, and story-specific fits that have more niche uses like electrical repair and one for playing the violin. Additional outfit options for these can be unlocked through rolling on the gacha banners, but thankfully they're merely a cosmetic change rather than offering anything different on a mechanical level.

I regularly found myself getting lost in simply collecting everything I could. Picking every flower, catching every bug, or sneaking up on skittish birds to wipe their wings or scrubbing away at a cat's paw, with every animal receiving their own adorable cleaning animation. Making full use of the ability outfits let me get my hands on all manner of materials to craft clothing items, so it's well worth doing. They also come in handy for collecting Whimstars, which are a sort of skill-tree currency, allowing me to unlock new outfits, small stat boosts and extra rewards.

Whimstars are one of the many ways Infinity Nikki stuffs small puzzles into the world—there are your standard platform puzzlers where I have to nab a star off a roof somewhere, but there are also ones that have me finding a hidden star shape in a certain area, or even hopping into another domain to try and puzzle out a path with blocks, balls, and using the ability outfits I've picked up along the way.

I was a particular fan of the latter, especially as I gained more ability outfits such as one that lets me shrink down and hop on Momo's back, using him to navigate small crawl spaces or make use of weight-based puzzling. It was one of the rare occasions I had to actually use my brain or implement any real level of problem solving, something which I desperately wish Infinity Nikki made more use of.

Yeah, the game's biggest issue right now is its lack of any real challenge. Despite movement feeling really great, it's never used for any particularly tight or complex platforming. While the game's dungeons are a highlight in world design, creating fantastical areas like frog-filled sewer systems or bright-white rooms with floating bookcases to hop along, they have perfectly laid out paths that rarely branch out. Almost all of Miraland's mysteries are easily solvable in a way that feels infantilising at times.

The lack of challenge is felt most in its combat, however. It's incredibly primitive, with Nikki throwing out an orb and being able to one-shot the vast majority of enemies, called esselings, in the game. Most of them will stay stationary, maybe firing out the odd projectile. Nikki's own orb can be a pain to wield sometimes too, and I found myself in situations where it was shooting straight over an enemy's head because the game couldn't comprehend that I was slightly uphill.

The only relief is that thanks to the one-shotting, encounters are over incredibly fast. That's even true of its bosses, which offer Infold Games a better opportunity to show off that it can make engaging battles. The boss battle in chapter seven was a particular highlight for me, giving me vibes of an MMO crossed with something like Super Mario Odyssey. Even then, I was able to fell my foe in a mere 90 seconds, which left me a tad gutted.

I only wish the mini-Nikki ability outfit came hours sooner, because it really does open up the world design and puzzles in a way I would've preferred to have from the start. The final zone I visited had tons of verticality, requiring me to regularly shrink down and hop on Momo's back to be fired through a cannon, crawl through a tunnel or hop up a rope with my big ol' cat claws.

Superstylin'

I do think Infold Games is perhaps finding its feet with all these new experimental open-world activities, so I'm glad to see its still retaining some of its classic Nikki gameplay with styling battles. They're simple enough: Every item of clothing has a handful of tags attached to it—playful, cool, retro, ballroom, elegant, you get it—along with a score in each category attached to each piece. One dress might have an S-rank fresh rating, while another will specialise in elegance.

Styling battles basically put these numbers and tags to use, with NPCs dotted around Miraland giving some kind of theme to meet. Ultimately the theme doesn't matter, rather the tags attached to each item of clothing. It means I ended up presenting some downright ugly fits to my opponent, but that's the way it's always been in Nikki. I've always had a soft spot for how the actual number-crunching fashion battle aspect of the series has you throwing together some right atrocities, and I'm glad to see it's still present.

It does take more of a backseat than in previous games though, and I'm kind of glad about it. Getting hold of clothes that were able to hit some ludicrously high scores was difficult at times, as the game expects you to funnel a bunch of materials into levelling up individual garments.

What materials, you may ask? Well, a little bit of everything. Even for a gacha, Infinity Nikki is a bit oversaturated in the currency and growth mats department, having a staggering array of systems and items and even different methods of doing the same thing—for example, getting a palette-swapped version of an outfit is totally different depending on how you obtained the outfit. A 5-star outfit you pulled in the banner? You'll need one material for that. A 4-star outfit you crafted? You need something completely different. Oh, and sometimes you'll need a duplicate set of the outfit, too.

It's the classic gacha obfuscation, and I did find myself getting dizzy trying to figure it all out at times, even as a battle-hardened veteran of the genre. That was before I even had to deal with any real-life money, which of course wasn't offered to me in the review build.

I did take time to peruse the shop though, and it seems largely on par with what you'd expect from other gacha offerings. There's a battle pass, which appears to be a carbon copy of the one Hoyoverse offers, and premium currency which can be used to buy shop-exclusive outfits, ranging anywhere from a $1 offer to a $50 outfit.

When it comes to free-to-play generosity, that's something I'm still feeling out. Right now, I'd wager it's somewhere in the middle: It's not ultra-generous, but not robbing me blind either. Something I did appreciate was that, on the permanent banner at least (there was no limited banner so I'm not sure if it works the same way), you're guaranteed a 4-star item every 10 pulls, and a 5-star item every 20 pulls. The game also won't feed you any duplicates until you've completed every outfit the banner has to offer which, on the one hand, is a bummer if you're jonesing for a palette-swapped version, but it also means that for a long time you'll be getting something new. I'm sure more glaring monetisation woes and wins will reveal themselves in the weeks post-release—it's a free-to-play gacha, it's gotta make money somewhere—but right now it seems fairly reasonable.

Whatever the grind may be, I'll most definitely be taking part. Despite its over-easygoing nature—which I think may have come from Infold overcorrecting itself in wanting to make an inclusive experience—I found myself falling in love with Infinity Nikki. I can't wait to continue to soak in its picturesque landscapes and dress up Nikki to match the vibes of wherever I am. Ultimately, that's what it's about, really. Dressing up, having fun, and sharing the views with pals. I do sincerely hope Infold Games stops being scared of making things hard, because Infinity Nikki already has the groundwork laid to stand up there with the gacha greats.