Hey all, I’m back with a look at the huge Infinity Nikki 2.0 Update which released in November and continues to improve and change the game in a lot of interesting and fun ways. And you can also check out my review of the core version of Infinity Nikki from when it first launched.
Infinity Nikki is still free to play, and it can be found on the PlayStation platform, for iOS and Android, and for the PC at the Epic Games Store and over on the Steam platform.
Plot: The new 2.0 update adds a completely new region called Itzaland to the already expansive open world of Infinity Nikki. It’s connected to the old region of Wishfield rather than being a completely separate area like how Fireworks Island, the Sea of Stars, Danqing Island, or Nikki’s home were during the 1.X patch cycle.
Newcomers to the title can actually skip straight to the new area without going through the older content first. I do suggest doing so just to unlock the Saintess outfit, but after getting that and unlocking the first fast travel point I’d go deal with the Wishfield storyline as things are significantly easier there. Of course, with this new region came a brand new story quest line, and it was pretty awesome. Don’t expect tons of intrigue and heart pounding action in this story although there are some bits of that, but it’s pretty awesome all on its own. I won’t spoil it by discussing it further, but please let me assure that the story isn’t bad at all.
Gameplay: The new update comes with a brand new and completely revamped combat system and control scheme, and it’s honestly pretty amazing. Combat in Infinity Nikki was originally Nikki conjuring blasts of wind at an enemy and dealing with them like that with only bosses really taking more than one hit to get rid of. You could dodge and it would allow you to avoid any damage but mostly it just involved Nikki handily dealing with any enemy by hitting a button and them disappearing.
That’s changed with the new archery combat system that you unlock nearly immediately upon first arriving to Itzaland. Enemies frequently have three or more HP requiring multiple hits and come at you much faster. You can still fire pretty fast if you’re close enough to an enemy by hitting the correct button/key and deal damage that way, but you can now charge up your attacks to lock onto enemies in a certain radius and lock on multiple times to a single enemy to deal multiple points of damage.
This is incredibly useful as you can sometimes stand outside of the attack and aggro range of an enemy and snipe them from afar by charging up multiple arrows worth of attacks or you can deal with multiple enemies at once with ease. In addition, players are strongly encouraged to dodge with more precise timing in order to trigger new skill effects and to build up more bow energy to launch some truly devastating attacks like a charged shot that pierces through multiple enemies and their shields (another thing that is changed from the original release) or summon a rain of arrows down on a group of enemies.
There are even a couple different bows you can acquire via exploration of Itzaland that further change how Nikki fights. All in all, the combat changes are both welcome and really make the title even more fun to play. But the main draw of the Nikki series as I’ve come to learn is all about wearing various outfits and utilizing them along with the abilities that come with them, and there’s plenty of new and pretty spectacular pieces that you can acquire for free by exploring and experiencing the story of Itzaland as Nikki.
And of course, there’s the more premium stuff that is available through both real money transactions and free to play players that save up long enough. And while you can spend real money on various things, you don’t ever really need to if you play the game diligently and work towards unlocking the various free outfits since they will allow you to beat any styling challenge once you put some effort into upgrading them.
That’s not to say that saving up for a big premium gacha outfit is not worth your time, as some of them can have pretty amazing effects. For example, one of the 2.0 premium outfits (which is no longer available as of writing but will probably be rereleased again within the year based on how last year’s content is being released again) was one that added a completely new form of archery and it was honestly worth getting purely for the ability to travel quickly via expending bow energy to transform into a very fast orb of light. This is especially true once you unlock various skills and upgrades through acquiring Whimstars in Itzaland that recharges the energy up to four bars worth out of combat, and the archery effects were nothing to sneeze at either being incredibly powerful if you fight smart.
Even without them, you’ll unlock various useful and powerful abilities by going through the main storyline of Itzaland, like the Gigantification outfit which lets Nikki grow up to the size of a small Kaiju. It’s quite fun to stomp around as a giant purely to just get around quicker let alone use it to solve various puzzles and the like.
Overall: All in all, I’d say that Infinity Nikki’s proven that it can handle the competition of various other live service and gacha titles, especially now with the 2.0 update being purely free to play while making the adventure even more fun and relaxing with an even bigger open world to explore.
Developers: Papergames
Platforms: Android, Epic Games Store, iOS, PlayStation 5, Steam