Infinity Nikki

Infinity Nikki is the ultimate evolution of the incredibly successful series that came before it. It is the peak free-to-play dress-up game, and while it’s still full of a few too many currencies and all the gacha pulls you’d expect from its mobile roots, it's all in service of building a gorgeous, gigantic wardrobe worth getting excited about. It features some of the most intricate, detailed outfits in any game I've seen, and while unlocking them can require a lot of grinding (or some real-world money) depending on the outfit, that just means time spent joyfully exploring its packed open world. There's always something new and either cute or bizarrely dark to discover, and even after dozens of hours I'm still unraveling its secrets. Infinity Nikki is perfectly girly positivity rolled up in a pink and sparkling package, and regardless of if that is something you've wanted, it might just be what you need.

With a tedious grip that clashes horribly with the relaxing nature in which Infinity Nikki excels, I wonder whether the choice to turn it into a Genshin Impact-style “gacha game” was a wise one. Fortunately, the sheer number of menus and the difficulty of mastering them, in addition to the annoying style contests, are the only major negative points to highlight. For the rest, the latest addition to the Nikki saga is probably one of the best cosy games I've played in recent years. Graphically very pleasing, with rich gameplay and a more than honest lifespan for a free game, I can't wait to discover what the next updates have in store.

Infinity Nikki is a genuinely enjoyable game about exploring, forging friends and making pretty dresses, let down by an abundance of predatory monetization and unnecessary mobile design choices.

Nikki caught my attention with its strong sense of identity, immediately standing out as something different than anything else it overlaps with on paper. Sure, you can easily connect some dots back to Genshin Impact or Zelda to name a few, but those elements are used to build a journey that has markedly different interests and goals. Infinity Nikki doesn’t reinvent any wheels, push boundaries, or offer a revelatory or novel gameplay experience. But it does offer a fresh perspective, a strange and captivating world to explore, bucketloads of silliness, and hours of breezy fun. If you can put up with the free-to-play trappings and some hopefully temporary technical instability at launch time, and if you can have a good time without needing to kill stuff, you can have a blast without needing to know a single thing about fashion. I still don’t trust the cat, though.

Infinity Nikki‘s vibrant world design, quirky mechanics, and engaging gameplay loop make a splash in the very crowded and highly competitive free-to-play market. Just beware of timegating and gacha systems that are likely to stymie your progress and enjoyment.