Infinity Nikki review – “Hi, I’m videogame Barbie!”

A new Barbie videogame came out this year, not that you’ll have heard. Billed as the “ultimate Barbie adventure,” Barbie Project Friendship should be riding high off the critical and cultural success of Greta Gerwig’s love letter. Not quite. At the time of writing, it has eight reviews on Steam; one user maintains they “wouldn’t recommend this game for most people, even for most kids.” It’s a crushing indictment that games for girls are undermarketed, and the audience is underserved. Infold Games is here to change that with Infinity Nikki – and after smashing through its 30 million pre-registration milestone, the girls have certainly shown up.

It strikes me that even the term “games for girls” has become less of a genre and more of a concession that games traditionally marketed to men can also be played by girls. Girls can and do play Elden Ring – Twitch streamer MissMikkaa is the definitive proof of that – but there seems to be no room in that fulcrum of gender neutrality for the hyper-feminine. Instead, games unequivocally made for girls are often relegated to Y2K-style browser games for beauty makeovers, princess parties, and animal care. Infinity Nikki includes all of the above, yet treats its target audience with the respect it deserves.

The fifth installment of Nikki’s adventures takes us to Miraland, a pastoral idyll of Wordsworthian mountains, flower-spittled meadows, and crystal-clear tributaries, all beautifully realized in Unreal Engine 5. Its world design is predicated on stylists and wishes, a convergence of creativity and magic that strikes the perfect balance between playful and earnest. A basic on-rails tutorial sets the stage for Infinity Nikki’s isekai premise, and then the open world’s my oyster.

This particular oyster is stuffed with minigames, activities, and side quests galore. In a single play session, I might take a hot air balloon ride; delve into a dangerous cavern; win a time-attack bicycle race; spot hidden objects in photographs; maneuver an origami crane through a cardboard landscape – or do something entirely different. Whenever you think you’ve exhausted all the activities available in Miraland, Infold pulls another one from its sleeve.

Ability outfits let you connect with Infinity Nikki’s world in a way that’s immediately familiar to life game fans. Groom animals, trap bugs, catch fish – it’s all very rudimentary, but there’s a degree of skill to be found here, too. Shirtcats and celebcrows are easily spooked on approach, scarf worms often elude my net, and whiskerfish put up a bigger fight on the line than the guppy-like brushie. None of these activities present any real challenge, especially to the adult gamer, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hold value to this demographic. Instead, Infinity Nikki falls into the domain of relaxing games that are perfect to settle down with after a hard day.

That said, it’s difficult to reach a total zenlike state in exploration when I’m inundated with constant side quests. Theoretically, this helps me keep track of all the NPCs I encounter on my way to my main objective, letting me return to them when I’m ready. In practice, my quest log quickly becomes flooded with tasks that don’t seem to have much purpose besides busy work.

Without any expositional framework, I’m given little reason to care about these quest-givers, and so I have zero motivation to answer their plight – which often amounts to tracking down a specific item of clothing and showing it off to them. Nevertheless, I quickly develop a soft spot for Aventura, a traveling quizmaster who often challenges me to take in the locale with renewed focus. He rewards me with lore tidbits that reveal an unprecedented attention to detail on Infold’s part.

It’s easy to assume Infinity Nikki’s world is as skin-deep as the outfits that govern it – after all, that’s part and parcel of the stigma attached to girl games. However, Infold is not content merely to scrape over that low bar. While Miraland’s landscape flirts at utopia, wading into the weeds of its human society reveals a world built on wishes as fraught as our own. The customs and beliefs of rival settlements sprout from a single source – the evangelism of an absent, half-mythologized ‘Wishing One’ – but they’re also mired in the aftermath of war. These little references in dialogue and flavor text, combined with my discovery of the remnants of an ancient battlefield and ruined castle, inexplicably echo FromSoftware’s world design. Miraland may not be half as gloomy, but the shadow that hangs over it is tinged with the same familiar sadness.

Miraland is an intricate stage, but Nikki’s wardrobe unequivocally steals the show. Infold has packed her outfit compendium with over a thousand pieces at launch, with hundreds more undoubtedly set to arrive in future updates. This debut collection comprises an array of fabrics that would make a tailor swoon. Plush velvet; delicate lace; silken fur; downy feathers; leather polished to a glass sheen – every stitch, sequin, and embroidered thread is as beautifully crafted as Miraland itself.

Infinity Nikki’s clothing physics are the sole rival to all this textural richness. In one outfit, the thick cotton of Nikki’s furbelow ruffles in the breeze over a practical crinoline; in another, a pair of pressed slacks perfectly follow the lines of Nikki’s character model down to the crease. Even the most basic pieces suggest high-end luxury, while the rarest are elevated into fantasy, such as a mermaid dress with ocean waves undulating in its ruffles.

I’m most fascinated by a swan fairytale garment, the very picture of Christian Dior’s Junon and Venus. These famed sister gowns sit at the intersection of art, fashion, history, and culture – and it strikes me that Infinity Nikki is the perfect videogame to explore that crossroads. If this seems a ludicrous proposition, I direct you to Meryl Streep’s iconic cerulean sweater monologue in The Devil Wears Prada for a swift education.

While Infinity Nikki’s marketing might lead you to suspect it’s all dirndls and ballgowns, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. My first shopping spree in Florawish has me trading out Nikki’s classic pink-and-white number for a pop-punk get-up consisting of a neon leather bralette, tinted sunglasses, and army-green cargo pants complete with chain. Wherever you land on the fashion spectrum, odds are that Infinity Nikki has an outfit for you.

Your sense of style isn’t so much the limit as it is Infinity Nikki’s banners. This system is old hat for gacha fans, and basically amounts to spending premium currency for a chance to ‘pull’ exclusive outfits. However, the sheer number of pieces that comprise each outfit means you’re more likely to pull small accessories like jewelry, socks, and shoes before ‘statement’ pieces like hairstyles and dresses. The low odds for pulling the best Infinity Nikki outfits also mean that you’re more likely to unlock all the three-star pieces in the banner pool fairly quickly, lowering the overall value of a single wish in the long term.

Nevertheless, these banner odds see me pulling four-star and five-star pieces with far more regularity than Infinity Nikki’s gacha alternatives. More importantly, Infinity Nikki’s world is packed full of clothes that can be collected as quest rewards, account milestones, or just within treasure chests tucked into the nooks and crannies of its open world. I mentally unhitch myself from the gacha grind and consider the limitations of my account’s wardrobe as a chance to experiment with outfit combinations that would otherwise go overlooked, and in my estimation, I’m all the better for it.

Styling challenges also provide an opportunity to find value in what you own, though they’re not quite as complex as I’d hope. The challenge herein is to construct an outfit according to a set theme, but this boils down to score thresholds calculated with the stats attached to each piece. All too often, this score system leads to an unmitigated fashion disaster, all in the name of victory. Style is subjective, but some of the outfits I saw Nikki flaunt in these styling challenges just made me want to confiscate her Stylist Guild membership card.

Dress-up might be a world away from Genshin Impact or Zenless Zone Zero, but the more I play, the more systems from the HoYoverse playbook sidle into view. ‘Dig, Pear-Pal’ lets me passively farm crafting materials in hourly increments, while the ‘Glow Up’ system allows me to spend those materials to level up outfits and overcome trickier styling challenges with the wardrobe pieces I already have. I can even access realm challenges, spending energy to farm bosses and exchange materials. These systems alleviate any walls I might run into while leveling, crafting, or exploring; however, I worry that the focus may inexorably shift until this journey of pastel-pink discovery and whimsical intrigue starts to resemble the same rickety hamster wheel endemic to all gacha games.

I’m also not enthused by the premium store, which includes exclusive outfits that are clearly designed to capture a wandering eye. Want to dress up like a bibcoon maid or an e-girl? You’ll have to hand over cold, hard cash to do it. Advocates of this system are liable to point out these outfits are “just cosmetic” – but given this is a game built on cosmetics, the defense rings hollow. Ultimately, the same disclaimers I give for all gacha games apply here: if you’re an adult with poor impulse control, proceed with caution; if your child is playing, don’t give them your credit card details.

Infinity Nikki is also subject to several minor but obvious oversights. There are currently only four slots to save your custom looks, which is a major restriction in a literal dress-up game. I’d have also appreciated an option to revert Nikki’s outfit to a blank canvas, instead of fighting to realize my styling vision through a mish-mash of clothes every time I want to switch up my look. The discrepancy between how much Insight you receive in general exploration versus the ease with which you collect Whimstars means you often end up with too many of the latter, and too little of the former. Nevertheless, these minor gripes are easily remedied, especially given Infold’s receptivity to community feedback.

Ultimately, I don’t believe Infinity Nikki is a ‘Genshin killer.’ It is something greater: a fresh approach to the blueprint that HoYoverse popularized in 2020. Infold adopts those systems for Infinity Nikki’s own purposes, whereas the likes of Tower of Fantasy and Wuthering Waves follow that blueprint almost to the letter. Instead, Infinity Nikki’s fashion-forward approach suggests coexistence rather than direct competition, and in doing so, secures its survival and success in a small but crowded marketplace.

More importantly, Infinity Nikki will doubtless become a core memory for many little girls looking for a videogame that aligns with their interests. Its promotion of self-expression, determination, and kindness is a font of positivity, while its basic movement mechanics and fantasy violence serve as a gentle gateway into the wider world of videogames. The leap from mobile to PC might seem daunting, but Nikki, Momo, and Infold haven’t just succeeded – they’ve got a dress picked out for the occasion.