Infinity Nikki stays true to its fashion-forward roots

There’s darkness across the edges of Infinity Nikki’s idyllic townscapes and romantic attire, a traumatic scarring that’s left the pastoral fantasyland of Wishfield — the beginning area in Infinity Nikki’s bigger world of Miraland — on edge. For each lovely robe and pup with twee, cable-knit fur, Wishfield has a merciless, devastating actuality: Violence in a neighboring area has left Wishfield harboring warfare refugees, and mysterious trinkets that prey on folks’s hopes and desires have residents falling into incurable comas.

The warfare, mockingly, is the backdrop of Infinity Nikki, a desk setting for the determined world. As an alternative, Infinity Nikki’s story facilities on the coma incidents, which deliver Nikki throughout Wishfield’s a number of completely different places in the hunt for solutions. She’ll discover glimmering fish formed like luxurious purses, the ghosts of worn clothes, people imprisoned by cute fairies, and a stunningly complicated plan to use the residents of Wishfield’s needs.

Infinity Nikki is the fifth recreation in developer Infold Video games’ Nikki franchise, and the primary of the collection for consoles and PC: Every prior recreation — Nikki Up2U, Miracle Nikki, Love Nikki: Costume Up Queen, and Shining Nikki — was mobile-only. In follow, because of this Infinity Nikki goes past the franchise’s typical visible novel and vogue closet gameplay and pulls Nikki right into a three-dimensional open world that lives as much as the duality of the franchise — a mixing of lighthearted, playful vogue battles in a sturdy fantasy world beneath a shadow of darkness. Infinity Nikki presents it by means of the lens of Nikki herself, ever the one to show to hope.

Infinity Nikki isn’t an growth or sequel to any of the earlier video games and seemingly operates in an alternate timeline inside the similar world. The free-to-play, open-world recreation begins with Nikki being transported to Miraland and thrust into its society, particularly by means of a authorities group known as the Stylist’s Guild, which was fashioned to honor the stylist who sacrificed her life for Miraland in an historic warfare of the gods. You see, it’s not essentially weapons that give folks energy in Miraland (although Nikki lore does embrace weapons). It’s clothes, imbued with powers that can be utilized for good or evil. (Infinity Nikki doesn’t actually clarify why that is, however in different video games, stylists resort to vogue battles to resolve battle as a result of a blood curse severely punishes those that use violence.) Nikki shortly enlists within the Stylist’s Guild and turns into an vital determine in fixing the continued mysteries by gathering a number of completely different currencies and sources to construct out her closet to save lots of the world.

Whereas Nikki’s overarching purpose is to search out inspiration to create a Miracle Outfit that’ll save the world, her first order of enterprise is crafting Means Outfits vital for navigating Miraland and its risks. She has equally cute outfits for catching bugs, harvesting animal merchandise, double leaping, and light-weight fight, known as purification and used solely towards monsters. Then there’s her electrician outfit (self-explanatory), her violinist outfit (used to assuage nerves), and her shrinking outfit (which makes her sufficiently small to experience her companion cat Momo). These outfits are collected throughout Wishfield’s areas as a part of Infinity Nikki’s storyline. Whereas Infinity Nikki is an open-world recreation, you’re higher off following the principle storyline and finishing aspect quests together with it; a whole lot of areas are gated off till the story progresses. That stated, it’s value exploring the areas Infinity Nikki’s predominant quest takes you to; the corners and crevices are the place you’ll discover the main points of Nikki’s sophisticated lore.

For a franchise with such lovely clothes and a storied historical past with vogue, there are surprisingly few cases the place it comes critically into play within the story. It’s there, positive — however the considerably elective Stylist Duels are the place your closet is most vital. These are the normal vogue battles that the Nikki franchise is thought for, with few modifications: From a closet filled with attractive garments, you select probably the most highly effective, styling across the theme of the duel, to succeed in the very best rating attainable.

Just like the cell video games, successful comes right down to numbers greater than vogue sense — considered one of my greatest ongoing frustrations with the franchise. Largely, this meant I created tons of god-awful outfits just because they scored properly. My finest vogue was merely for enjoyable, and for Nikki to put on all through the journey (when she’s not in her Means Outfits, which change on routinely and all of a sudden when activated by a keyboard button push).

I say these Stylist Duels are considerably elective as a result of progress on the principle story isn’t contingent on finishing them, however you do want to complete all of them to create the Miracle Outfit and set off the endgame. I ended up utterly ignoring these battles till I’d accomplished the whole lot as much as the creation of the Miracle Outfit, after I was compelled to. However that was not by alternative: For fairly a while, the early construct of Infinity Nikki brought on the sport to basically crash anytime Nikki talked to a duelist. (The sport didn’t routinely crash out, nevertheless it principally locked the sport on a frozen display screen.) Even when I needed to — and I did! — I couldn’t entry this a part of the sport till Infold Video games up to date it with a pre-launch patch.

Fight is sort of nonexistent; Infinity Nikki isn’t the sport for you in the event you’re on the lookout for complexity on this space. You’ll largely use your purification outfit to shoot bursts of vitality at little, simply defeated monsters that guard rewards. There are a number of “boss” battles which might be arrange as in the event that they’re meant to be dramatic centerpiece battles, however they fall flat as a result of restricted fight programs. I didn’t come to Infinity Nikki to be wowed by fight, however even I felt upset with these few areas; the sport would, merely put, be higher with out them. There are a couple of moments that known as for extra emotional weight, and the lackluster fight left these consequential sequences feeling undersized. Infinity Nikki does have challenges in its platforming, which is discovered all through the world in small moments and elsewhere in elaborate dungeons that really feel like a mad sprint by means of a glittering pink make-up manufacturing facility that’s been overrun with horrible vines.

Infinity Nikki, for probably the most half, was an absurd pleasure to play, nevertheless it felt prefer it was preventing me each step of the best way. Taking part in an early construct forward of the sport’s launch, Infinity Nikki was filled with bugs, each inconsequential and game-breaking. On the smaller finish, these bugs had been the everyday kind of factor — floating animal fashions, lacking textures, and inconsistent clicking delays within the menus. However on the game-breaking aspect, the movement of the sport was severely tousled as a result of Stylist Duel points (which means I grinded all of them out on the finish of the sport), and one other bug halted progress on the principle storyline for days till a patch. That’s on prime of body price and efficiency points, like lacking translations, in depth pop-in, and occasional stuttering. These bigger points have been mounted as of writing, at the very least on Home windows PC, however a number of of the smaller issues should still be current at launch. These bigger points will definitely get mounted, however I’m not assured that the whole lot can be solved by launch as a result of scope of the sport.

The opposite piece of Infinity Nikki that I’ve discovered exhausting to talk to whereas taking part in a pre-launch construct is the foreign money system. Like some other gacha recreation, Infinity Nikki has a number of in-game and premium currencies used to do the whole lot from crafting outfits to rolling for particular, restricted outfits and restoring vitality for sure mechanics. No premium foreign money was obtainable throughout the pre-launch evaluation interval, and the evaluation builds had been loaded with the in-game foreign money for pulling the particular, elaborate outfits. (Assume the gacha system in Genshin Affect, the place you’re pulling for characters, besides in Infinity Nikki, you’re pulling for clothes items.) These clothes items are sometimes highly effective score-wise, however they’re not Means Outfits — these are found by means of gameplay. Largely, the outfits obtainable up to now haven’t been my vibe, both, so I can’t think about spending something to amass them.

However free-to-play video games like this are free for a purpose: The developer expects to generate profits elsewhere. The foreign money used to buy vouchers for the particular pulls is known as Diamonds, that are earned by means of gameplay. Nevertheless, to have sufficient to make a whole lot of pulls, you might be incentivized to buy the Stellarite foreign money with actual cash, which may then be transferred one-to-one into Diamonds. Diamonds are used to revive stamina, however once more, Stellarite comes into play in the event you haven’t earned sufficient Diamonds. The third kind of foreign money is known as Bling, which is acquired solely by means of gameplay and used to buy objects from in-game distributors, as an example.

All of that is to say that Infinity Nikki is complicated right down to its core: It’s the story of exploitation, warfare, and desires blended with its candied exterior. It’s additionally the overwhelming menu that’d scare off probably the most “hardcore” of players, and its sheer breadth of clothes choices, right down to socks and footwear, that enable for any kind of fashion. In video video games, vogue has all the time been energy, even when it’s not instantly apparent to the common participant. In video games like Elden Ring or Future 2, gamers go scorched-earth to search out probably the most highly effective gear — a helmet that’s resistant to fireside assaults, maybe, or a chest plate that will increase injury dealt. Infinity Nikki takes that concept very actually, eliminating the kind of stereotypical violence historically seen in video video games whereas nonetheless holding true to the collection’ deep, intriguing darkness and shimmering frivolity. Developer Infold Video games has created probably the most earnest (and generally absurd) story with Infinity Nikki, centered round a historically female worth — fashion! — that connects all kinds of various gamers. What you get is one thing that’ll each bewilder and dazzle you, even when it’s irritating.

Infinity Nikki can be launched on Dec. 4 on Android, Apple iOS, PlayStation 5, and Home windows PC. The sport was reviewed on PC utilizing a pre-release obtain code offered by Infold Video games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. You could find extra details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.