Infinity Nikki (PC, 2024)

A surprisingly fun F2P adventure game, which you may enjoy even if you're not into fashion.

Nostalgia Factor: None.
Difficulty: Easy.

I really did not expect to enjoy this game as much as I did. I heard about Infinity Nikki on a gaming podcast I listen to regularly. Their initial description of the game didn’t really appeal to me. It’s a fashion focused fantasy game where customizing outfits forms the core of the gameplay, but they gave such high praise for the game’s visuals, I figured I’d give it a try. Heck, it’s free. Why not?

As soon as I booted up the game for the first time, I was stunned by graphics. It’s clear this game is meant to be accessible to a wide audience on a variety of devices, so of course it’s not going to compete with recent graphical showcases like Alan Wake 2 or Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. But, for a multi-platform F2P game that needs to run on iOS and Android devices, this game looks incredible.

The lighting looks fantastic. I remember getting distracted for a full minute or more just taking in the sight of the sunset’s reflection off the river. I sometimes just can’t believe how far games have come, that even a F2P gacha pseudo-mobile game can look this good. Even if you only have the faintest curiosity about this game, at least give yourself 15 minutes to explore and take in the town of Florawish. It is such a well designed village. It’s pure serenity – sooo cozy and chill. It’s like something out of a dream.

I tend to be a task oriented gamer. I need engaging quests and gameplay, or else I eventually lose interest in a game, but I was completely content to just wander around and explore the gorgeous and surreal 3D fantasy environments they’ve crafted in this game. When you boot up Infinity Nikki for the first time, you may need to play the new tutorial intro, “Sea of Stars,” but it’s relatively short, and it does a great job of showcasing the game’s visuals.

In addition to the well designed 3D environments, this game has a massive collection of customizable clothing items. Last I checked, there were over 40 outfits and over 2000 customizable clothing items. I haven’t acquired even a small fraction of these items, and to be honest, this is not a game feature that appeals to me, but the clothing items I have seen are impressive and fun to sort through. I’m not usually one to spend much time in character customization tools. I rarely get invested in choosing outfits and clothing items, but I will say, this game brought this out of me more than any other game I’ve played. I actually did spend a little time dabbling in my wardrobe, putting together an outfit I liked for Nikki. My daughters, on the other hand, have just started playing this game, and they’ve already spent more time browsing their wardrobe options than doing anything else in the game.

Like two peas in a pod, the game’s cozy aesthetic is perfectly complimented by a super chill and just downright lovely soundtrack. I have a weak spot for calming and atmospheric game scores. Inon Zur’s Fallout 4 is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time for this reason. The Elder Scrolls series and the Final Fantasy series also feature some great soundtracks that are right up my alley. After only a few minutes of exploring Florawish, I knew that I would be adding many of these tracks to my gaming music Spotify playlist. The music really helps to reinforce the relaxing vibes of the game.

I wasn’t as impressed with the story of Infinity Nikki, but I wouldn’t say it’s a bad story necessarily. It’s fine. The game’s story is reminiscent of a fantasy slice-of-life anime. The fashion “stylist with magic powers” premise is a bit odd, but it works. I wouldn’t say it’s for me, but I can appreciate the originality. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this fashion wizard concept used in games or movies or TV before.

There’s quite a bit of dialogue in the game. The English voice acting is solid, but I ended up switching to the Japanese audio with subtitles, which tends to be my preference. Some of the story and dialogue could be a little bland, but there were still some surprises and some good moments here and there. Later in the game the story and the dialogue can get pretty… abstract and weird, which is also very “anime”, if you know what I mean. If you’re not sure what I mean, I’ve noticed in some anime that the dialogue (especially towards the end of a series) tends to push more into lofty and poetic concepts. Conversations tend to be filled more with dramatic sounding prose than practical and clear speech. There are times I’m just like, “what?” What are you saying? Anime fans may be able to relate.

The main quest took me about 20 hours. Honestly, after a few hours I just kinda rushed through the rest of the main quest. The game was losing me pretty quickly after the thrill of exploring Miraland faded a bit. I wanted to finish all of the main quest so I could preview the game before setting my younger daughters loose to play the game for themselves. But, if you’re having a great time with the game and want to keep going, there are loads of side quests and collectables and additional content, over 60 hours worth of total content. Most of the content I played was well developed and well executed. There were only a few moments that tickled the cringe meter a little, though there was one notable scene towards the end with some baby Faewish sprites that just seemed very underdeveloped. It was an odd scene to say the least. It felt off.

The gameplay is a notable weak point of the game. There are lots of 3D platforming challenges. They’re not great. It’s not Nintendo quality Mario platforming, but it’s fine. The floating ability is fun to use. Nikki has some kind of magical orb projectile attack, but combat is a little cumbersome. She always fires the orb in whatever direction she’s facing, and getting her positioned just right is a little wonky. I often found myself having to run towards enemies just to aim properly, which is not ideal. I later settled on kiting much farther back away from enemies in order to give myself room to run forward and aim without getting hit. You can also hold the attack button and strafe left and right before releasing your attack, which is nice. Later in the game you unlock the ability to control your little cat companion, Momo. I thought controlling Momo was much more fun than controlling Nikki. Really, the most enjoyable part of the gameplay is simply exploring the world and tracking down resources or whim stars. There are over 360 whim stars scattered throughout Miraland.

I found myself repeatedly frustrated with the menus. The game’s menus are honestly just insane. F2P gacha games tend to have crazy menus in general for some reason, but Infinity Nikki is on a whole new level. There are so many different currencies, resources, collectables, tutorials, quests, challenges, and about 500 menu tabs for all of this, with menus inside of menus, inside of menus. Just about every menu option will torture you with those little red dots. Each time I booted up the game I would spend much more time than any person should have to spend clicking on all the menu items in order to make the red dots go away. This is even more obnoxious if you play with a controller. I tend to be a bit of an OCD gamer so red dots drive me nuts. I have to make them all go away.

Even though Infinity Nikki is a gacha game, the gacha mechanics weren’t really a problem for me at all. I had no interest in collecting all of the extra outfits and clothing items, and I easily made it through almost all of the main quest without having to even think about using some kind of premium currency. If you have enough practice ignoring gacha mechanics, and you just want to complete the main story, you’ll be fine. They give you a fairly healthy amount of free items. I didn’t spend a dime on this game. I never spend money on F2P games. It’s a point of pride for me actually. Although, I did once let my friends pressure me into buying a battle pass for Fortnite.

I did repeatedly run into server connection issues while playing. Even though I almost always had a healthy ping of ~40ms, I’d see that “Reconnecting” screen pop up at least once or twice each gameplay session. The Infinity Nikki servers must be held together with shoe string and duct tape or something. I got used to it, but this drives my daughters nuts for some reason. “Dad, what’s happening?”

I should clarify, I technically didn’t finish the entire main questline. There’s a miracle outfit that you have to craft in order to fully conclude the main quest, but the needed materials for that outfit require much more time than I’m willing to commit to this game, so I decided to call it quits at that point. There are some special required materials that can only be gathered by defeating the sovereign stylists of each region. While this seems simple enough, even getting access to the sovereign stylists requires you to defeat over 60 stylists in styling challenges. That is… a lot. Also, some of these styling challenges have very high style point requirements, which may or may not require tons of grinding or *gasp* spending real money on premium currency in order to unlock high value clothing items. No thanks.

I felt like I had enough closure with the pseudo-ending cutscene that I did get to see, so I decided to call it and wrap up my time with the game. Maybe someday I’ll head back to Miraland and grind out all of those styling challenges, but for now, I’m satisfied and ready to tie a bow on this very unique gaming experience.