Venturing across a gorgeous fantasy land, pink curls bouncing and elaborate skirts flowing in the wind on a magical quest to save the world sounds like a dream come true. The video game “Infinity Nikki” provides just that.
“Infinity Nikki” is a free-to-play, open-world game available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Apple and Android mobile devices. It was released in December 2024 by Infold Games, a subsidiary of Chinese developer Papergames, which is also the developer of “Love and Deepspace” and four other games in the “Nikki” franchise.
I played some of the previous iterations of the games when they were only available as mobile games, so I picked up “Infinity Nikki” out of pure nostalgia.
The game follows teenager Nikki after she gets teleported to the magical world of Miraland with her tiny cat-like companion, Momo. After meeting a goddess, Nikki is instructed to save this world by obtaining the “Miracle Outfit.” As the player ventures into the open-world, Nikki overhears conversations and reads excerpts of books that inform of a religious war that occurred in the distant past.
In the first questline, Nikki learns that citizens have fallen into mysterious comas. The main storyline centers around Nikki’s journey as she attempts to save the coma victims. The plot is a little predictable and always optimistic, but is rather endearing to watch as Nikki connects with likeable characters around the region. The game even has undertones of discussing religious prejudice, stereotyping and overcoming biases.
Of course, this game would not be as unique without its extensive fashion gameplay. Players get the opportunity to dress Nikki up in custom outfits, from hairstyles to dresses to elaborate accessories.
The game is so visually appealing, rendering the details of each individual sequin on some clothing pieces. The scenery in the open-world is also aesthetically pleasing, with gorgeous mountains and in-game sunsets. The world is also populated by adorable animals and magical creatures.
One main aspect of the game is something called styling challenges. These are battles against non-player characters where the player must create an outfit centered on a specific theme. In theory, this experience sounds great when someone is playing a dress-up game.
However, since judging something as subjective as fashion would be difficult for a video game program to do, each clothing piece is assigned point values in different themes. Because of this mechanic, often the outfit that has the highest point value is ugly as it’s just random high-value pieces thrown together. I recognize this is likely the only way to make the challenges objective enough, but it is still frustrating nonetheless that no creative process actually has to go into winning a styling challenge.
Clothes themselves can be obtained in a few ways. There are shops around the map where Nikki can purchase clothes with in-game currency, Occasionally, a clothing item will be rewarded by successfully completing a quest. Although, the main way of acquiring clothes is by crafting them with something called sketches.
Sketches are essentially recipes that provide a list of materials needed to create the fashion items. The materials have to be hunted for, with some materials only appearing in certain regions. Having to obtain clothes this way allows the player to pick and choose which ones to craft. It feels rewarding to finally get that last material needed to make an article of clothing.
“Infinity Nikki” is also considered a gacha game, which is a game that has a feature where you can spend in-game currency to receive random items, like a blind bag. These blind bags are called banners and each includes articles that make up a certain outfit, running for a limited time, which gives players usually around 30 days to “pull” every piece, meaning duplicate and unwanted items can be received.
Speaking from personal experience, it is nearly impossible to collect an entire outfit as a casual and free-to-play player. It seems the hardest pieces to pull are the most coveted, such as dresses, hairstyles and shoes. Once the diamonds are gone, it can be difficult to obtain enough to buy more pulls unless you engage in microtransactions.
It is important to note that none of these outfits are necessary to completing or enjoying the game. The gambling nature of the clothing banners can be tempting to keep coming back to, and I have deeply considered spending money on getting more pulls before, without any guarantee I would receive the item I was after.
“Infinity Nikki” is fairly friendly toward its free-to-play players regardless of the microtransactions. Whenever there’s server maintenance, all players are compensated with diamonds. Recently, the game even rewarded players with complete outfits for simply logging in for three days. Rewards like this make it clear the developers value all players whether money is spent or not.
The ultimate selling point of “Infinity Nikki” is the variety it provides to the player. It would truly be difficult to get bored of this game. Outside of the main storyline and the extensive side quests, there’s fishing, bug collecting and animal grooming, all of which are methods of collecting crafting materials. There are minigames and logic puzzles to be solved for reward as well.
“Infinity Nikki” even has a fighting mechanic. As Nikki encounters enemies on her journey, she must maneuver around them and eliminate them with the magic of her outfit. The fighting itself is definitely much easier than most games, but I can’t really complain about that.
A part of “Infinity Nikki” gameplay that I particularly enjoy is a feature called Momo’s camera. It is an in-game camera that allows you to take photos of Nikki in the outfits the player creates for her, allowing you to control aperture, exposure, focal length and what pose Nikki is in.
There is even a scrapbook questline that encourages the player to find different photo locations around the world and document them. As the player fills the scrapbook, more poses and lighting conditions can be unlocked, allowing full creativity as the player captures Nikki and her outfits.
Even though “Infinity Nikki” is just two months old, there has already been a major content update. This update added a new region, two new significant questlines that each have multiple side quests and new characters to interact with. For a free game only two months into its run, it is quite unexpected to see this level of commitment to creating a fresh gaming experience.
“Infinity Nikki” is so much more than simply a dress-up game. The character interactions are sweet, the story is all good feels and there is excellent variety. “Infinity Nikki” is the coziest game, with all the nostalgia of dress-up games from my childhood. I recommend this game to anyone who wants to play a game at their own pace, while also dressing up in pretty dresses and journeying through a world with a cat best friend.
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