Infinity Nikki - Review

 Genre: RPG.

Developer/publisher: Infold.
Platform: PS5,PC,Mobile.
Official Site: https://infinitynikki.infoldgames.com/en/home

Release date: 5-12-2024.

 

Ah where do I start with this game? from the world and exploration to the character design...

there was so much that appealed to me and I enjoyed my first few hours with it a lot

but sadly around the 30 hour mark the vibe changed and got very grindy for no reason.

This post is mostly spoiler free but there are screenshots with barely any context, if at all.

Pro's 

- Story is decent, relaxing game overall.

- Colourful cast of characters.

- Wonderfully detailed fantasy setting.

- F2P players have still a chance of putting together beautiful outfits.

Grey area

- Some bugs but things are very actively being fixed.

- Some conditions to craft the miracle dress are a bit much.

Con's

- Only four slots to save dresses in, at time of writing.

- Warp spires prior to activation aren't shown on the map.

- 10th ability dress is from a gacha banner..............

The game is mostly very light and fun, mostly everything is simply from collecting

whimstars to chests, sketches and ingredients nothing ever gave me

a headache except some of those domains that reward a whimstar

and crafting the miracle dress.💀 Which unfortunately turned the game into

micromanaging the daily allowance just to see the ending. **Thank god for fragile resin

sorry I am a genshin brainlet so its all the same to me really.

 

I'll be upfront Infinity Nikki is a gacha game but luckily the banners that were there

at launch didn't really interest me except butterfly dream and there was only 1 paid outfit

that I bought which can be gotten by paying only 1$ aka the cozy adventure set.

Also there were plenty of clothing and accessories and hairstyles

to get while simply playing the game which is a good thing!

There's three sets of costumes to be gotten from the depressed bear; Kilo, by collecting orbs

as well as the cinderella dress you can buy with bling's aka Infinity Nikki's ingame currency

like Mora from genshin. Sadly you need to buy everything else in the boutique first...

I don't recommend doing this unless you really like that dress or an outfit piece

as the requirements to craft the miracle dress also needs bling & threads. Both of those things

are a huge resource drain. As long as you do your daily tasks, explore and turn in materials

bling,threads or shiny orbs shouldn't be too much of a problem but it still doesn't change the fact

you may find yourself going broke in game along the way whether its because

of the cinderella dress or the miracle dress or in my case the fearless butterfly outfit.

Some people already crafted the dress but you never know if they bought the battlepass

or other packages... which gives plenty of bling along with other things. I don't think

Genshin ever made me grind that much to see the mainstory... but I guess its different here huh?

still I did get the fearless butterfly so i'm part of the problem. Anything can be done

in infinity Nikki F2P but in regards to the miracle dress it will require patience.

 

I don't think the dev's were that stingey though as the Nikki birthday costume

was free during the launch window along with the far and away set for pre-registration

both sets are very gorgeous you'd mistake them for a 5star outfit.

While I was playing the game I wondered how this game was even F2P

but at the end it all makes sense, I almost didn't feel bad to spend on it

so becareful I guess. Keep track of how much you spend on infinity nikki

and if necessary set a monthly limit to protect yourself.

The story... well it had a strong start but it turned into one thing after another

and you slowly got to uncover the mystery behind an incident which had the world in its grasp.

 Overall i'd say the story was decent, this still seems like a beginning

even though it took me like 30+ hours to finish... the initial release that is.

You get introduced to the world and get new abilitie, its pretty much laid out like an RPG

there's some platforming and very light combat but none of it was overly difficult.

Most of the story was paced well but I did think it dragged a little at times especially

in wishing woods but then again I liked the twist and turns so it wasn't that bad. 

Hello there...👀

The characters were a varied bunch, I liked most from the handsome Giovanni

to the pixie merchant Timis... not even the mascot companion

Momo was annoying and I found him to be actually helpful.

Also let's not forget about Giroda... or Raggy for that matter!

The dialogue was kind of funny at times too!

The protagonist Nikki seemed to have her wits about her... perhaps too well!

other than that she didn't seem to be too bothered by suddenly being in an unknown world

but I suppose its better than her being whiney, angsty or something like that.

Due that its hard to dislike this game cuz even the protagonist seemed

to be enjoying herself, so why shouldn't the player try to do so too?

The things I enjoyed the most were slowly progressing the story and collecting things

while exploring the world which looked really nice. I am amazed by how gorgeous

the graphics and characters models are in this game! the music was nice too.

Let's not forget about the photomode, the world is so detailed you could take pictures forever.

Other than that I think it was relatively smooth in terms of fps, switching dresses

to jump or attack or gather insects/fish/groom animals made me feel like some magical girl.

The gameplay was very fluid as well, I heard its only 30fps but it looked and felt fine to me.

 

More rambles after the jump, I am generally very positive

about this game since I think it is genuinely fun to play! but I did

have some gripes which causes me to worry about the future of the game.

 Collecting stuff was nice and easy, the plant and insect stuff feels like an atelier game

but animal grooming felt nice since you get to pet all sorts of animals for floof.

Fishing was more of the same as you see elsewhere but still comfy.

Honestly this was all too cute, its almost too much.

Have some exclusive view of a kitten's rear.

It was on to me, or just bewildered.

Just keep spinning the L stick and then mash square. Repeat if necessary.

 

As for the dress up part, I liked Nikki's original/default outfit like its so cute!

i've used the birthday outfit you got free for a good while, its very gorgeous and I hope

that it will be rerun for everyone who starts playing this after its initial run.

I also hope this is the case for any limited banner because it might not be fun

to look at incomplete sets because you didn't have enough currency at the time.

Still there's plenty of stuff to mix with but some things may still not go well with eachother.

I do wish we could dye outfits or change the colour of the hairstyles especially the latter.

I liked Nikki with her pink hair and everything else made her look like some stranger.

Nikki incognito...

Its nice if you want to create your own look but hmm... felt like there's some missed

potential here like imagine Nikki's default hair but in any colour you'd like.

Same as with the above hairstyle, currently everything is predetermined to what you get it as.

The biggest crime however still remains having only for outfits slots, like come on

in a glamour game like this it should be atleast 10.

 

During the stonewoods part of the story I just decided to wear whatever new outfit

the story gave me since they wanted me to specifically wear the floral memory

so it was just such a hassle to switch back and forth. Not soon after you also 

get a violinist outfit which looked really nice so that's my life now!

To be honest a lot of the ability outfits look really nice and some of the pieces

also work with others so its easy to mix them with rare pieces you find in the game as well.

Inbetween that and the next area, I unlocked an outfit through the infinity heart that I really liked

and it fit with all the pieces I had and thus I had created my first real masterpiece!

This pose reminds me of the one Rinoa Heartilly(FFVIII).

 

On the topic of bugs and such...

The UI took a while to get used to... this isn't necessarily a bad thing but yea...

I played the PS5 version but you can tell this was also with PC/mobile in mind

at times I struggled to select a separate box in a screen. Thank god for claim all.

I did see some stuff about the mobile version in that it struggled to run the game

like the PC/PS5 versions and that its only nice to just quickly do dailies or something.

Now to some bad things which was mostly some bugs like the cursor also sometimes

didn't move as smooth so navigating menu's felt clunky.  At times the audio might drop out

as well and then resume... and one time my game seemed to freeze for a minute before resuming

I am pretty sure that was because of too many inputs, it also didn't happen more than once

 which was good. I think they did fix a lot of bugs after the initial release since I kept

finding less and less, maybe that was why everytime i'd bootup the game

there would be an update or a hotfix. Its good to see they cared!

This was one of the more funny bugs... thanks Momo but not right now.

On another note it seemed the current 10th ability outfit was through a limited banner.

It doesn't seem like something you need since it adds very little to the gameplay unless

you like screenshotting a lot. Still it was tempting to roll on the butterfly dream banner.

I think I got like 10k diamonds just from playing through the game

so if you actively play the game and do your dailies you can definitely save up

enough to gaurantee a dress you might fancy on a future banner.

I'll admit some dailies do seem like a bother like playing a specific minigame...

speaking of minigames most are just lying around and it was not intrusive

when just doing the story which was nice.

As for my gacha adventures, seems certain currency this game's varient on intertwines can

 expire as the game notified me when I logged in, so I rolled them on the butterfly dream banner.

I was planning to do so anyways so I was like now's the time I guess? I got the 10th ability outfit

and I started using the diamonds 10kish that I had saved up by playing. Unfortunately fortunately?!

I only missed the dress piece from the other set, I don't feel too bad about spending money

at this game to get the remaining pulls as most of the 30 hours I played was fun

so I could justify spending 30-50$ on it but that is all, since I set my limit.

Still IMO currency shouldn't expire, if my intertwine fates in genshin can sit there for like forever

then if Infinite Nikki wants to be the coziest open world game it shouldn't let its

currency expire. Ultimately games like these are out for your money so its up

to the player to decide how to spend or not at all.

 

This is just one of many spots with a good view.

I think this was my best picture of the scenery...

  

Now let's get into my one and only gripe with this game it seems the requirements

to craft the miracle dress at the end of the game are a little much, ain't no way

I should go around to face off against random blokes just to earn medals.

The other materials are generally easy to find but the total bling cost is high

to unlock the sketches like I literally went broke from unlocking the last sketch.😱

NVM crafting it because the total amount was IIRC 80000.

I got most of that back when whimstar/dew hunting and finding chests which I enjoyed

a lot more. So atleast I was having fun while waiting for resin to refill.

Now I understand that this is probably the last thing of the current story arc

so its one last hurdle but if there's going to be expansions- god forbid multiple

then the current requirements for the miracle dress should be nerfed.

The stylists factions should not be a roadblock for the mainstory, like the story doesn't even

tell you directly in dialogue to face off against the sovereign of cool. Sure there were styling 

battles during the mainstory but honestly the faction npc's felt like side content. Not even voiced.

My story progress was basically stuck for days because I lacked bling and some other

currency to glow up dresses so I could beat the NPC's in wishing wood

as they had the highest score requirement and needed me to upgrade a lot.

Good thing is your score doesn't have to be perfect! yea thank god for that

since by the time of the 3rd &4th sovereign the score requirement inflated a lot.

I mean the rest of the story can be completed at a casual pace except right at

the end where it turns into a stat check because let's face it, all the outfit parts

need is a boost, you don't even need to put it together perfectly and the

outfit can be all over the place cuz at the end of the day all that matters is score.

I guess if I bought the battle pass and used all the blings etc from that most of

the above wouldn't be an issue but that turns it into P2W also I am not

sure how to complete the BP anyway since mid 30s progress was really difficult.

So while I had fun with Infinity Nikki it turned into a chore at the 30 hour mark when I had

to collect the medals for the dress but I completely understand why it might be like this.

I didn't complete the story till 50 hours in because of the grind for the dress.😔 

If you made this dress then you can say you really beat the game!

I remember someone once talking about how they couldn't proceed the story

anymore in a gacha game since it became grindy or more difficult. Its because there's

no more story so they have no choice... the whole medal part felt like padding.

I guess its my own fault for having bling problems at the end of the game

because I did get the fearless butterfly from the heart of infinity💀💀💀

So while it could be a me problem you still have to spend resin for bouldy mat's

and to be get essence mat's via gathering also requires you to turn in materials

with resin to unlock the ability to gather it nvm the fact that the best way to get shiny orbs

and bling also requires you to use resin. Yea suddenly its not so fun anymore

because it drains really fast. Thankfully I had some fragile resin so some of

the grind was eased... but it was really tough trying to manage resin. Its also sad

most of the faction dialogue wasn't interesting to me except the banshee stuff

and the wishing woods had a surprise lore dump at the end. Its funny to me how

the last faction also had twice the amount of opponents as if it wasn't taking long enough.😫

Unusual luck huh? yea that's probably what you need for the gacha outfits too...

 

Final thoughts?!

Its all fun and games till its time to craft the miracle dress.

Overall I think infinity nikki is a decent F2P game and its obvious it has taken inspiration

from the likes of genshin, I read that one of the dev's even worked on zelda&supermario

which probably says a lot about the fun factor. It stands out well enough

with the whole dress-up aspects but I do think its appeal will still be limited

as some may just not be interest in this at all or find it too girly etc.

Needless to say, anyone can play this game and as long as its fun

why does it matter if its some dressup game?😄

I mostly played this game when I didn't have much else to do but still want to focus on something

my priority was mostly the story and collecting things along the way which was pretty fun

but sadly all fun things had to come to an end, the last quest to craft the miracle dress

was grindy, I actually got a little bored during it, the dialogue of it wasn't as interesting

and most quests did better than the faction stuff.  I did have fun getting to that point and like

Zhong Li said:  Every journey has its final day, don't rush. I was hooked on the mainstory though

so I was a bit down when I reached the last part of it and it turned into a grind simulator.

Also I didn't put together too many outfits, its sad there's only four slots to save them to

which I think is too little, maybe 10 at the bare minimum? but for now 4 is an okay amount.

Also how is this game even F2P??? i'm confused.

TBH this game looks like you'd pay 60$ for because the world sure looked gorgeous to me.

Also I think the trap is not within the gacha system but the outfits you can buy upfront...

even those are limited but some sets just looked too good. Like with FFXIV it is hard

to resist buying an outfit set that appeals to me and I may have bought one or two outfits.😅

Those outfits sets are limited too so there's definitely a high fomo aspects

before we are even talking about the banners... good news is that the game

can be enjoyed without spending anything... there's plenty of outfits shops ingame

where you can buy individual pieces and sketches to be collected and made later.

Some outfits can be gotten through Kilo and let's not forget

the ability outfits gotten through the story. So yea the game can still

be F2P friendly as there's plenty to be found ingame! as long as you're willing

to take it one thing at a time and are patient to craft the miracle dress.

Despite some grumbles I still had fun even if the last goal for the story

is kind of a chore. Infinity Nikki is a wonderful game but there are some things

that need to be ironed out.  I think the developers did an outstanding job creating this game

and I hope it really does well! There's so much love and care put into this, despite some

early bugs and such. I'd give it a 9/10 if it wasn't such a hassle to craft the miracle dress

and the headache of managing the currency but and 8/10 seems fine for now.

 

Anyways there's no harm in just trying the game to see if its for you and I definitely do think its fun

but yea when I remember Zhong Li's line of ''Every journey has its final day, don't rush.''  the

last part of the game doesn't sound too bad, still I have my worries of the future of this game.

Remember to gacha responsible and watch what you spend on games like this to not

let it get out of hand! because the danger of spending to much is ever present.

15-1-24 Edit: Fixed some typos etc, reword  things and added screenshots