I’ve been a fan of the Nikki series for a very long time now, first playing Love Nikki on my very old phone all the way back in 2017 and absolutely loving it. It’s so easy to get sucked into the world of Miraland where every conflict is resolved with a styling contest and you can entirely transform your own appearance at the drop of the hat. Being mobile-only games for so long, I was only cautiously optimistic when the trailer for Infinity Nikki dropped in 2022 and showed a completely 3D, open-world game. The great news is that I was wrong to be concerned because Infinity Nikki knocks it right out of the park.
While Infinity Nikki is the fifth entry in the Nikki series, it has very little to do with the content in previous games and instead works to establish a new version of Miraland to explore. The previous were entirely 2D experiences, with dress-up games and a visual novel style story in between styling contests and outfit crafting to keep the plot moving. A change to the open-world style of Infinity Nikki facilitated a full rework of most systems, still keeping the dress-up game style menus, but the plot now takes place across the open world, with cutscenes and voice acting as one would expect from this sort of fully fleshed out experience.
The visuals of the new entry are utterly enthralling. It’s beautifully lit and incredibly soft, doing an amazing job of translating the static images and descriptions of both the beauty and splendour of Miraland into something far more real and tangible. Unlike so many other games, Infinity Nikki really does take the leap into the third dimension with a flourish and everything from the environments to the many many outfits looks vibrant and beautiful.
The story in the Nikki series has always been a bit overdramatic for the gameplay style. Still, while it tended to feel a bit outlandish, there was a lot of fun to have on the grand adventures that Nikki always finds herself swept up in and Infinity Nikki is no exception. The game begins with its two main characters, Nikki and her friend Momo, being transported to the world of Miraland and tasked with finding the Mircal Outfits, clothing sets that give the wearer new abilities and the series’ usual style of overdramatic writing rears its head almost immediately when Nikki learns that the nearby town of Florawish is having some problems. Folks in the town are falling into comas and nobody knows why.
It seems like a pretty intense plot beat for a dress-up game, but that’s something I’ve always loved about the series, they don’t want their adventures to just be fun, or cute, they want them to be dramatic and fantastical and it’s so good to see Infinity Nikki leaning into it just as hard. Infinity Nikki does a great job of keeping the plot moving either way; the main quests progress quickly and most sidequests found throughout your journey don’t take up too much time at all. It’s enough to make the world feel broader and to encourage searching around the world for new things to see and do, without making it feel bloated or intimidating like some other open-world games.
There isn’t any explicit combat; instead, Nikki has a purification ability that she can use to get rid of corrupted creatures through Miraland, but these encounters are always very brief and serve more as an obstacle than any sort of battle. Because of this, Miraland can be explored in pretty much any direction without there being the concern of running into high-level enemies or being stuck on a particular plot-relevant fight. Whether or not this style of game is enjoyable is entirely subjective, but Infinity Nikki is a game that really wants you to explore it and tries very hard to make that as easy as possible. It’s right to, especially given how much attention is paid to crafting the lush and colourful environments throughout. There’s plenty to find and it would be a shame for anyone to miss out on it.
“…there are so many different kinds of clothing pieces to be found in a great range of styles and all of them are gorgeous.”
One of the main things you’ll be finding in the world is outfits, crafting materials and sketches that can in turn be used to create more outfits. It’s still a dress-up game at heart, after all. While outfits can be used in styling contests, where Nikki will be pitted against another character in an attempt to make an outfit that hits the right theme, the main joy of it is just getting to see Nikki running around the outfit in the open world. The team clearly knew how important fashion would be to the game because there are so many different kinds of clothing pieces to be found in a great range of styles and all of them are gorgeous. The more detailed outfits have buttons, sequins, and delicate stitching, all of which are clearly displayed on Nikki’s model and don’t look an ounce of detail close up. There are socks adorned with pearls, and sweaters with a small gradient of frost growing around the cuffs, it’s all utterly gorgeous.
Infinity Nikki also comes with an outstanding photo mode that offers a whole plethora of poses, filters and lighting options that can be unlocked throughout the game and it incentivises putting on a fashion show with some of your favourite outfits. It’s not hard to imagine how many of these images we’ll see on social media as soon as the game goes live; there’s always great joy in sharing your creations with others and Infinity Nikki is going to be perfect for just that.
The only real caveat with Infinity Nikki is that despite all of its changes, at the core it is still a free-to-play-mobile game and there’s a wide number of very confusing currencies and different menus that are used to spend or obtain each of them. The previous Nikki games have been pretty good with microtransactions and I personally never felt the need to spend any money while playing, but even without doing so all the different currencies can be quite intimidating. It takes a long time to learn how everything works, even with the game doing its best to explain it to you. This is a pretty normal experience with this sort of setup; daunting menus nested inside other menus that take multiple hours to understand. While it’s certainly the worst part of the game, it is, unfortunately, expected within the genre and luckily it doesn’t intrude much at all on the open-world experience.
Infinity Nikki is so much better than it ever had any right to be. The previous games in the series were incredibly limited and the scope for the newest entry was so huge that it seemed impossible to achieve, but somehow everything has managed to coalesce perfectly. The open-world exploration ties directly back into the dress-up portion in such a neat little package that it manages to make two very different genres of feel like one complete product. I’m so excited to explore more of Miraland as soon as I can and I hope to see you there!
Infinity Nikki is available now on mobile, PC and PS5.
About the Author
Bree Maybe
she/they
Bree somehow managed to weasel her way into a game design degree, hasn't stopped playing Skyrim since it first came out and never shuts up about Nagito Komaeda.
