Published , by Lucas White
Published , by Lucas White
Infinity Nikki has been on my radar, almost entirely due to how charming and whimsical its trailers have been. I didn’t know anything about the series beforehand, and I imagine that’s a pretty similar situation for most folks approaching this one. The way the game’s been advertised seems to count on that as well, leaning way hard into the strange characters and open-world platformer hijinks over the more familiar gacha game elements. I got to spend some time with Infinity Nikki ahead of a closed beta, getting to know the actual Infinity Nikki for a few hours. Turns out there are so many more moving parts than I expected going in, and that sense of charm is present from the get-go.
The game starts with Nikki and her weird, little cat friend Momo coming across a magical dress in what looks like a ruin of some long-lost civilization. It’s unclear exactly what the dress can do at first, but then the tutorial kicks in and Nikki is able to do things like double jump, glide through the air, and shoot purifying energy blasts at evil critters roaming the area. And each time she uses a power, her outfit changes instantly to something completely different, then back to normal once it’s over. And when I say outfit change I mean everything, including her hair style and color. It’s impressive! There’s not even fanfare really, she just blinks into an entirely different look like it’s a normal thing that happens in this world.
What isn’t normal, however, is the extremely fashionable and extremely dying goddess the pair finds in the ruins. The goddess has so much rizz even her eyepatch looks like a fashion accessory, but unfortunately she’s in a bad way. She dumps some expository mumbo-jumbo on Nikki and Momo, gives Nikki some kind of curse-slash-superpower gimmick, then zaps the duo to the outskirts of a normal-looking village. Nikki’s powers seem to be gone now, but it isn’t long before we learn she has a whole new set of powers, which kind of also puts her on the road to getting those first powers back anyway. It’s a little hard to follow, but basically there’s a whole stylist community that acts in a similar fashion to an adventurers’ guild in other RPGs.
Nikki’s new job is to get in with the stylists, using her abilities to solve problems and gather ingredients to craft new clothing. While some items are purely cosmetic and for the love of the game, others give Nikki new abilities, such as the ones from the introduction. Other outfits bring other “cozy game” functions to her arsenal, such as catching bugs and brushing animals to acquire spare floof. Momo can help Nikki locate supernatural stars strewn throughout the world which help her unlock blueprints for the outfits she’s making.
The early hours of Infinity Nikki aren’t as wild and wacky as the stuff shown in the trailers, and feel a lot more like the average MMO-style gathering and crafting gameplay we see in a lot of mobile games that look like this. And by “look like this,” I mean the game’s whole UI looks exactly like what you’d see in a HoYoverse game and similar derivative works. Of course, rather than going out and getting into fights and collecting a growing roster of characters, Nikki is more about expanding her wardrobe and helping people solve problems. I spent more time hopping around on rooftops, collecting currency and stars, then running around picking flowers than I did getting involved in bigger issues.
I imagine the really bombastic stuff will kick in over time, but until then, between the stunning visuals, silly vibe, and slow unfurling of abilities, there’s still a fun and compelling gameplay loop that doesn’t feel concerned at all with gacha gimmicks. Although that stuff is still certainly present and will definitely account for the bulk of Infinity Nikki’s player self-expression. There’s a lot of “cozy” out there these days, and I’m still intrigued at the prospect of going out on adventures and running into a variety of weird challenges instead of the usual maintaining crops and gathering resources. I definitely plan on putting more time into seeing what Infinity Nikki has to offer to set itself apart from the competition.
Infinity Nikki is coming to PlayStation 5, mobile, and PC in 2024. Beta access on PC was provided by the publisher for this preview.