Hey all. I’m back with a review for a visually appealing title that you may not have ever heard of before, and one that I would probably never have thought to play if I were not reviewing it. But it’s one that I think a lot of people will enjoy. It’s my Infinity Nikki review.
Plot: The plot of Infinity Nikki is a little weird. It revolves around the story of a girl named Nikki and her companion who is a talking cat named Momo. They both get transported to a magical new world called Miraland and promptly start adventuring around an area known as Wishfield.
The really weird part is how very nonchalant and unconcerned they are about the situation after being taken away from their loved ones and all of their friends, not to mention their home world. Nikki and Momo are just very calm about it as if this odd occurrence is nothing to them. Instead of worrying, they just start to enjoy the new world to the fullest. That’s not to say that the plot is bad. Infinity Nikki’s story does have its tension from other sources, but it’s a little odd to just start into the gameplay without mentioning anything much about being transported to a new world.
The new environment they find themselves in is very different from their home. Frankly, the world of Miraland is bizarre in that everything is focused on fashion or wishes. For example, Nikki is almost immediately encouraged to dress up in numerous pretty and beautiful dresses in order to wow detractors and purify the baddies in the game. Doing that helps people fulfill their wishes, making Nikki almost like some weird teenage version of a fairy godmother.
Gameplay: Infinity Nikki is very much an open world game that is focused on having players dress up Nikki in various styles and themes. You do that by gathering items during activities like picking flowers or brushing down animals to collect some fine fur.
There is almost no violence in Infinity Nikki. In fact, the most violent action you can take involves purifying sentient objects with a ball of wind magic. Otherwise, you can just explore the extremely pretty world and not really worry about giant monsters or anything like that, which really helps the title to stand out from the pack. It really works hard to ensure that the game world has nothing violent or scary in it despite the fact that it has a T for teen ESRB rating. Also, everything in Miraland is either pretty or cute, or both.
There is also a gacha game type of mechanic in Infinity Nikki, which is how you can earn special outfits. For those who may not be familiar with them, gacha games generally have players spending money (either in-game or with real currency) to buy spins so that they can earn things like outfits, gear, or other items. With Infinity Nikki, you don’t really need to use real money for the most part to earn spins or pulls. In fact, I haven’t spent a dime myself and have been able to gather up quite a bit of the free currencies scattered about to fuel the hundred or so pulls I made to try and win more outfits and gear. That isn’t to say that you can avoid being careful if you want to earn more spins without spending anything. This is very much a typical gacha game, and the gambling aspect is something to keep a careful eye on.
That said, the base game is free to play, so you won’t spend anything to jump in. Just know that Infinity Nikki really encourages you to spend real money after that. However, you can still have lots of fun even without spending a dime. In fact, one of the activities you’ll spend the most time on outside of pursuing the main story or gathering resources is collecting the hundreds of bright Whimstars scattered around the world. If you think that sounds similar to the Power Stars collected in Mario 64, you’d be correct and it’s a very apt analogy. Honestly, just doing that was loads of fun, and I spent hours finding and collecting those stars while exploring the various highly picturesque locales all around Wishfield. I had a really good time exploring everything.
There is also an odd “dueling” mechanic that involves wearing better fashions than an opponent. This, however, is pretty much just a numbers game, having enough outfits to compete while the actual fashion itself, like whether or not an outfit combination looks good does not matter that much. Although, that said, I will admit that none of the clothes ever seem to look bad on Nikki. But you will be mixing and matching styles that clearly shouldn’t be combined if you want to compete in the higher level fashion duels and haven’t forked out real money, especially if you are very unlucky with your free gacha pulls.
Art: The art style in Infinity Nikki is not exactly anime, but it’s not far off it either. Regardless, the artistic style is amazing. Funny story, my aunt was looking at my TV while I was reviewing Infinity Nikki. I had left it running while I left the room for a bit and when I got back, she was really studying the screen. She thought it was some kind of really nice piece of digital art I had acquired.
Music and Sound: The music is good, and Infinity Nikki also lets players set all of the spoken voices to Japanese, Chinese, or English. That was a great feature because its voice acting in English was not the best, but the Japanese and Chinese dialogue sounded great.
Overall: Infinity Nikki is a really fun title. Players can spend dozens of hours just having fun exploring its very colorful and beautiful world. The developers are also already planning for and adding new content, like an upcoming fireworks festival that should make the world even more stunning.
For those who like: Peaceful gaming and exploring, picturesque open worlds, fashion, exploration-heavy adventuring, or collecting stars.
Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above or titles with a heavy emphasis on gacha mechanics.
Developers: Papergames
Platforms: Andriod, Epic Games Store, iOS, PlayStation 5