Are you looking for a cosy, dress-up, adventure? Do you want a game with low-stakes action and endless crafting and exploring? Do you want all the cosy collectables in an infusion of magic and wonder? If so, look no further than Infinity Nikki, the open-world RPG from Papergames and InFold Pte. Ltd.
If you’ve been around the Internet for a while, you may already be familiar with the bubblegum-pink-haired protagonist of this adorable series. This is the fifth instalment and a sequel to Shining Nikki which was released for mobile and closed in 2020. The series features Nikki and her cat-like friend Momo as they meet new people and challenge them to style contests.
Newcomers will be happy to know that no previous knowledge of the franchise is needed as we start this adventure in Nikki’s home. She and Momo decide to climb into the attic and take a look at the dresses hidden up there, when they find a beautiful dress in the wardrobe. Nikki and Momo are then sucked into a magical portal that drops them into another world. We are then introduced to Miraland and the main plot where Nikki strives to find the magical miracle outfits scattered across the lands, in hopes of finding her way home.
The story takes place across four areas as Nikki finds herself wrapped up in an investigation for the Stylists Guild. People are beginning to fall into mysterious comas after making wishes and the guild tasks upcoming stylist Nikki to get to the bottom of it. This investigation takes Nikki through vast forests and treacherous dungeons filled with dangerous “esslings”, all the while collecting inspiration and items to craft her next creation.
I know four areas doesn’t sound like a lot, but each of the main maps contains multiple villages, dungeons and new Whimstars to gain. It also introduces four totally unique cultures based around clothing including the Pieces, who are born from clothes imbued with a powerful wish, and the Faewish Spirtes who collect and protect the wishes made in Miraland.
Whimstars are used to unlock sketches and range drastically in difficulty. Some are out in the open for you to simply collect, while others require a level of problem-solving. The most challenging for me personally were the doors, which opened a passage into a platforming or “get the ball to point B” challenge. Between the Whimstars, Corrupted Inspiration Drops, random encounters and resources, simply crossing an area could take hours.
The graphics are next-level gorgeous with a wonderful anime-realism to the magical environment. Each area is fleshed out with unique characters and a rich, yet somewhat sinister history. I would say most of the quest lines are fully voice-acted with lip-synced 3D cut-scenes which reflect your style choices, and the musical scores gave me serious Nier vibes in places. The only thing I could really fault it on is the uncanniness of Nikki and Momo’s eyes. Few of the other characters had it to the same degree and it was likely a style choice, but it took some time for me to get accustomed too.
To make it in Miraland, Nikki needs to craft many outfits for many different reasons. Early unlocks include the animal grooming outfit and fishing outfit, which allow you to switch outfits and perform an action at the touch of a button. Some resources are harder to collect, such as bugs you need to sneak up on and animals who will run away, but switching between them is super easy as you can bring up a pre-set wheel of all your favourite skills. I also came across the vast majority of the collectables pretty naturally by doing side-quests.
There are several types of side-quests ranging from simple collector and fetch quests, to looking for things in photos and beating up esslings. I particularly enjoyed the perspective photo challenges as some of them were really tricky. Other quests will require you to talk to the person while wearing a particular article of clothing where figuring out what they wanted and actually finding said item were often two separate challenges, and often completing one challenge would lead nicely into another.
Although the lion’s share of the quests are considered “random” and often just require you to go to the place and do the thing, they did take me all over the map. As such, I naturally stumbled into more quests and challenges dotted along my path and the teleport crystals made reaching them pretty easy.
This goes doubly for the “Faction” sub-plot as Nikki travels the lands in search of stylists to challenge them to a styling competition in hopes of facing the local Sovereign. If you’ve played previous Nikki games, the dress-up mechanics will be very familiar to you as you pick items to match the theme and aim for high scores.
I wouldn’t say these were especially difficult, but they were mainly reliant on your overall scores which can be levelled up through “Glow-Ups”. Essentially, if your outfit isn’t good enough, you can go back and try again with levelled up clothes and “Whims” which are essentially bonus poses that level up too. The Faction sub-plot also contains some of the most beautiful cut-scenes as Nikki faces off against the bosses.
I won’t lie, the platforming and exploration aspects were something I was worried about when downloading Infinity Nikki. Sure the trailers looked good, but the last time I got stuck into a Nikki game it was still a Visual Novel and Dress-Up mechanic and this game is on both mobile and console. Was it going to make the transition to console well?
I am happy to report that my concerns were quite unwarranted. The platforming is an absolute delight and as someone with mobility/hand issues, I found it really comfortable to play. And I played Infinity Nikki—a lot. I spent literal hours running around the maps in search of stars and corrupted inspiration orbs and even more hours still searching for materials to craft into clothes. That’s before we start getting into the bonus/event content dropping.
I did have some trouble with aiming, and a lock-on mechanic would not go amiss when facing multiple enemies. I wouldn’t say there is a huge variation in the esslings, but they have a very definite style to them which separates them from Piecies and Faewish Sprites while still fitting in with the environment. There is a boss battle at the end of each area too, each with a unique battle mechanic that will challenge without being too difficult.
Nikki has an EXP bar and levels, but whatever you would consider to be a skill tree has been replaced with the “Heart of Infinity”. Here you unlock different outfits and buffs to help you on your adventure. While most of them are locked behind the story and side-quest progression, others require you to build up “Insight” which can be traded for or gained naturally by using a specific dress skill. You don’t instantly unlock these items though, this is step one.
Having unlocked clothing sketches, you then need to craft them. I suspect this is where many people will become divided on Infinity Nikki. The grind to get all these items is pretty steep and some of the resources are locked behind limited-real-time in-game events. For example, one of the resources is only available through the teleport-crystal “Realm Challenge” menu which gives you access to five options to spend stamina in exchange for rewards. You only get 350 of these a day and you can spend them in one go if you want to.
Naturally, as this is a F2P game, there are ways to use premium currency to speed up these processes, but I generally didn’t need them unless gunning for a limited-time event. You’re also gifted a lot of premium tokens and bits for completing quests and daily bonuses to collect without signing up for the premium pass (yes you can do both). I actually grabbed one of the premium packs to see if there was anything I wanted to use it on and just ended up buying myself a few dresses. While one of these did give me an outfit with very good “cool” stats, it wasn’t necessary.
You also have two types of “Resonance”, the permanent pool and the event pool, where you can spend crystals to draw random chance items in hopes of getting a specific outfit. The events so far have come with a bunch of special limited-time events which gift you lots of premium currency to achieve these without spending, provided you’re willing to put the time in.
There have been two resonance events since I started playing, and I managed to complete them both. And, while I still have twenty days on the current event, I did miss out on one of the previous outfits. This doesn’t bother me too much, but it does mean completing the compendium is locked behind a paywall, at least for now.
As I wrote this, there were three active challenges; a platforming course race, a fishing event and the wishing ceremony. There is also an active styling competition which runs alongside a permanent one in the stylist guild. The rewards included premium currency, crafting materials and clothing, alongside cute stories that worked well to develop the world.
Then, 10 days before the end of the event, they added another two resonance pools with two new dresses and six new consolation prizes to collect. Just to get these would be 50 pulls between the two events in 10 days, which is going to be pretty difficult to maintain without premium currency. It wouldn’t be too bad if they simply overlapped to allow people to move onto the next dresses if they want to, but they also ended in 10 days.
There are many other mechanics and characters I could explain such as “Digging” for items, the camera and the Flappy Bird clone used to fast-forward time, but everything essentially boils down to “Do the thing to get the other thing faster”. I did have a small gripe about the animal grooming skip button only skipping about three seconds of a thirty-second clip, but this was soon patched out. Also, why were all the coma patients just left in chairs? One of them is outside on the porch even!
This aside, anything else is grinding and gacha mechanics, which are largely… I wouldn’t say pointless, but very much optional. (I still have 120 crystals sitting there hoping for a mega sale or something as most dresses start at 300). There also seems to be some issues with menus glitching and being difficult to navigate. The UIs are beautiful and cram in a lot of detail between heaps of information, but the highlighter colour wasn’t always clear, which I suppose isn’t a problem on a touch screen.
For as much as I have used words such as cosy and adorable throughout this review, the story does take a dark turn as we uncover the truth behind the comas, but this is a known thing with Nikki’s stories, despite their outward nature. Completing this story will return you to the beginning, where your good friend Dada tells you all about the world you are in and the foreign lands in your future, but you will have to wait for that to happen.
Infinity Nikki has a live-service game model intended to keep you logging in to claim your rewards and complete the events. While the game doesn’t punish you for not logging in, there are limited-time quests and a monthly “Mira Level” rewards system you can purchase a premium pass for.
If we were to consider this story the first “arc” of the Infinity Nikki game, I would say it was an incredible success. The story was gripping and emotional; the characters and world were compelling and magical; and I simply could not put it down. For a F2P game, my expectations were low and what I got was something that is going to be tough to tear me away from.
I for one will be rounding up the last of the items I need to finish off my clothing collection, while eagerly awaiting the continuation of Nikki’s story.
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Android, iOS, Microsoft Windows
Developers: Papergames, InFold Pte. Ltd.
Publishers: Papergames, InFold Pte. Ltd.
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