It’s been a while since my last post for various health reasons, but I’ve been asked a lot about my thoughts of the newest game in the Nikki series and how it lives up to the tagline of “Coziest Open World”, especially as I’ve been playing it nearly every day since release. Before I start, I want to clarify that I have only played the game on PC so everything I say will be based on my experiences with that platform only.
While I didn’t play the very first Nikki games, I did check out both Love Nikki and Shining Nikki with both essentially hitting my same problem with most Dress-Up games: You didn’t get enough money to actually spend on things you wanted and often needed to buy things you didn’t even like to pass the challenges on top of needing to repeatedly earn multiples of items to get others. The crafting mechanics frustrated me, I hated a lot of the outfits I needed to wear, and the gachapon systems [in the ones that had them] just made it all the more frustrating. For those reasons, I didn’t play either for long.
Despite those concerns, Infinity Nikki feeling like such a different game with the focus not really on the dress-up portion (besides Ability Outfits which are slightly different) had me intrigued from the very first trailer for the game. Open World games can be hit or miss for me as if they are too open and there isn’t enough structure for where to go next, I can feel quickly overwhelmed, but I love exploring and puzzles so if it manages to not cause that, I tend to have a lot of fun.
One of the nice things with Infinity Nikki is that while there are enemies, they aren’t really flooding the map and most only take one hit to defeat (with some taking 2-3. Bosses can take 3-6). HP also quickly refills as soon as you’re out of combat, on top of it being really easy to get out of combat by just… hiding behind something or moving a distance away, so you don’t really need to worry about getting into a position of running into more enemies while being low on HP. This makes it so I can explore without really feeling nervous or bothered. I’m not constantly afraid of running into things or getting frustrated when I get aggroed by an enemy when I was just looking around as one click, and it’s gone, and I can continue with what I was doing. The only tricky instances are when I’m riding the bike as sometimes I can’t get off it or away properly as I’m being attacked, but you’re unable to attack on the bike.
In that same vein, crafting doesn’t feel as awful when I can just be running through freely without having to worry too much. I still have mixed feelings on how exhausting gathering stuff can be for me as someone who easily gets turned around, but the map tracking can be pretty helpful to just keep an eye on which direction I need to run to get to what I’m looking for. They have also since made it, so things respawn when the day rolls over vs it being based off when you grab things in the first place thankfully. Especially as some items can only be gotten once per day.
That said, at the moment, not everything can really be tracked by the map (such as enemies who also have resources you need, though this will supposedly be added in the next update), but the map does also show all Whimstars you’ve collected which can be helpful to keeping track of which you found. I hope they may do the same with chests and Dews of Inspiration at some point. I still have two areas left that I need to find more on, but it’ll be a while as both are fairly big. I will say for a launch; the map and amount of story was a lot more than I was expecting. And we’ve already gotten a decent-sized new area (that is permanent, thankfully) after two months.
I think there is also a point where it can still get tiring to gather everything (though, this will definitely vary per person) due to some things requiring stealth, others requiring specific times of day, and needing to keep switching costumes for the various ability outfits. Similarly, you really do need A LOT of items for making everything, especially the boss materials which you… do not get very much per play (Only 5) when some outfits require hundreds. While I am very thankful for the fact that I can just… quick skip it instead of redoing things, it’s still just a ridiculous number of things you need to build up, especially at a 350 cap (so you can get 8 plays a day spread between multiple bosses or getting materials for things).
And there is so much to use the energy for. There are Eurekas which are essentially boosts to your outfits for the fashion stuff (and also look very cute), but… Well…
-What Eurekas you get when playing a map are random with the only real adjustment being the difficulty level you’re playing.
-While this is more a personal thing (though, there is also one achievement), 5* and 4* Eurekas have various different colors. 4* Eurekas have three colors, 5* Eurekas have 5 colors, one of which is the “Iridescent” color which is considered the rare one. Unfortunately, the color it turns into is randomly picked upon hitting level 10. You can get repeats. Sometimes I’ve gotten the same color several times in a row. I’ve only gotten Iridescent ones like… twice now. One of the goals for the most recent event even requires you to get a specific color of a specific Eureka… Thankfully, you do not need to complete it to manage to do enough of the goals to finish, but it’s still kind of disheartening.
‘- 3* ones only have one color and max out at level 5.
-It adds up very quickly.
While you can find Blings all over the map (and I know some people hunt the Bling enemies each day), it’s a tiring process especially as it’s not the only upgrade/purchase that adds up fast. There is the Stray Hatty that requires a ridiculous number of blings to get all the Whimstars from it (my final three Whimstars total are from it and I need 6 million for them :|) and the general item evolution and glow-up to earn more points for the Design Challenges. These also require tons of Bubbles as well which is yet another thing to use your energy for. While you can also trade in extra clothing for the colored bubbles for glowing up, you get more from the Boss fights.
The worst bling-sucker though, or I suppose tied with the Stray Hatty for those last ones, is the in-game Bling Gachapon machine: The Surprise-O-Matic, sometimes called the “SCAM-O-Matic” by players, which has some incredibly terrible odds for 20K per pull. It’s 0.8% for 5*’s and a 1.6% chance for 4*’s. You’ll get a 3* item otherwise. The items are exclusive to it. The 4* and 5* items are limited to 1 per account so at least you won’t double up, but 3* items are unlimited, mainly used for the Glow-up bubble trade-in feature I mentioned above.
Both are likely to be an end-game thing I suppose, but needing such a ridiculous number doesn’t feel rewarding– just frustrating.
One thing I really hope gets added in the future is the ability to mix and match Ability stuff. For example, there are currently three different “Float” outfits– the starting one, the Fairy one, and the Origami Crane one. It’d be neat if I could mix different outfit parts from all of them, including the different color unlocks, so like I could use the dark hair color from the 2nd Fairy evolution, the dress from the first Fairy color, and a combination of items from the other two and then just… pick which ability I want to use.
Other things locked to outfit sets are certain poses in the camera or interactions and considering some items literally give you the option to toggle off abilities (like I’d probably turn the scales off for the items that released during the Ribbon Eel event), it’d be nice to have more variety with all of that.
I’ve also been hoping to be able to dye specific parts instead of whole outfits which a dye system is in the works, so fingers crossed. Some of the most frustrating parts with the Resonance outfits (especially ones you pull for through the Gachapon mechanic) is a combination of:
-You need to pull 160 times for certain special things in 5* Resonance banners. So far, these have been photo props and a special animation (a new dance). It’s a lot of pulls, especially when those may be the only things you care about in the first place.
-Each 5* Resonance outfit has four colors. One is unlocked when you pull the outfit completely twice, but the other two require over 200+ pulls as they are the final bonus rewards (180 and 230 respectively to be specific). Depending on your luck, you could get the second outfit very quickly and yet, you can’t even evolve it unless you get the evolution items from 180 and 230 pulls for those respective evolutions first, whether you care for them or not. Using Dance Till Dawn as an example, I would have loved to get the cute Bear you can have on your shoulder in every color, but I just couldn’t justify pulling that much, especially when the only items I really cared for outfit-wise were the tights and earrings, all which I’d have liked in more colors, but not to the extent of pulling that many times. Similarly, sometimes I really love the final evolution color (which requires a second of the outfit) and not so much the other two, yet I need to go in order to actually evolve to the one I like best in the first place.
While they do have various free outfits and even 3* outfits can earn decent stats, so you don’t necessarily need the 5* ones, they can still sometimes help. I would say the biggest issues is some bonus things, if you’re the type who really likes a lot of options with photos, have only been attached to certain limited time resonance outfits such as various ‘Whimsicality’ abilities. Wings of Wishes also has a faster float speed which can be very helpful for some of the tighter timed challenges.
So, there is still the aspect of “You will have to level things you do not care for” and “You may not like the outfit that is best for a challenge”, but I think everything else being more my speed and finding things I like helps make these less frustrating. That said, while the focus never feels fully on the dress-up challenges, they are technically required to finish the current story arc so far. You only need to score “Normal” to pass each one, but you will not get the special scenes or finish the challenges until you get Perfect.
As for the story, I think this will be the biggest thing for you to debate on how cozy/wholesome the game is. If you’ve played other Nikki games, you should be more than familiar with the occasional darker lore hidden in things such as outfit descriptions and moves, but the story DOES get dark at times and while there is that underlying feeling of hope, the game literally takes place after a war and is even helping refuges. I can’t really talk fully about darker moments without spoiling the story, but it does go there, and it is very clear that this is just the beginning as well.
Overall, I’m having a lot of fun with the game even if I’m already burnt out a bit on collecting. I’m hoping to get the rest of the Dews of Inspiration I need before the upcoming update this week, but I’m not sure if I’ll truly feel up to it just yet… Fingers crossed.