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The long-running Nikki series – not to be confused with Stellar Blade dev Shift Up’s saucy mobile shooter NIKKE: Goddess of Victory – has been styling smartphones across various iterations for several years. This version, available on console for the first time and introducing an enormous whimsical open world, is by far the most ambitious, however. It’s also utterly brilliant.

Those of you who’ve played the previous instalments, like Shining Nikki, will know what to expect to an extent. The eponymous heroine is a sharp-tongue stylist with impeccable fashion taste, and she explores the world of Miraland with her contrary talking cat Momo. In this particular entry, the pair get embroiled in a plot involving prophets, wish jars, and a guy called Giovanni.

The story, which is paper-thin but brisk and breezy, outdoes Kingdom Hearts for its melodrama and ostentatious outfits. You’ll already have a good sense, from that sentence alone, whether you have the stomach for something as flowery as this. Personally, we absolutely love the unreserved ridiculousness of it all, but your mileage will certainly vary.

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While previous games were largely about assembling costumes and winning style battles, there’s a lot more to this newest version. The so-called style battles do return, and you’ll be rated across a number of categories, from sexy to cool. But the real meat and potatoes of the game lies with exploration, and it’s absolutely outstanding.

Lifting inspiration liberally from releases like Genshin Impact, you’ll spend a lot of your time simply navigating the lush Unreal Engine 5 landscapes, using your Ability Outfits – special dresses augmented with superpowers – to either float to out-of-reach places or engage with basic activities, like fishing and bug catching.

There’s a pinch of Super Mario Odyssey here, as you’ll need to use certain abilities to pass specific gameplay gates. Along the way you’ll be gathering Whimstars, which can then be used to unlock parts of an enormous skill tree, furthering your progression and unlocking even more skills and content. It’s a great loop, and actually gathering the collectibles is moreish and addictive.

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Furthermore, the title is constantly inventing new ways to challenge you. Some of the Whimstars simply need to be reached to be obtained, but others come with small gameplay puzzles associated, like timed racecourses or combat gauntlets. A lot of the action is de-emphasised in this game, but Nikki can cast magical orbs to attack opponents.

The key thing, really, is that the open world is not just beautiful to look at – filled with flowers, meadows, and idyllic architecture – but also absolutely bursting with things to do. Minigames are everywhere – some simple like where you need to jump through a set number of rings, while others see you herding sheep or dodging obstacles.

With one of Breath of the Wild’s designers also part of the development team, there are small puzzle-like “shrines” you find around the environment, which test your core aptitude in different ways. One may require you to climb a tower while avoiding red platforms, while another may task you with guiding a ball into a designated position. None of them last more than five minutes, but feel fun.

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And that’s really the key to Infinity Nikki where other gachas fail: it never lingers, instead choosing to lead you by hand to the next little activity. The cutscenes, while filled with proper nouns and other obnoxious lore nonsense, never overstay their welcome and make you feel like you’re waiting around for too long. Every few minutes of exploration, you’ll find something new to do.

The map is vast, too, filled with several different biomes at launch – some rural and unpopulated, others packed with NPCs and side-quests to complete. As a live service game, we already know the developer will continue to build on what’s available here at launch, with a whole house decorating expansion currently in development and due in the near future.

And that brings us to the most important part of the experience really: the fashion. Nikki is a stylist in this story, so is all about dressing up and wearing obscenely detailed outfits. This is kind of like the Gran Turismo of fashion games, with sheer fabrics and tiny details meticulously rendered on the PS5; the presentation is among the best you’ll find on console.

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You’ll unlock tons of clothes and customisations through pure gameplay, but there’s a gacha system with time-limited outfits you can engage with as well. Currency is earned through gameplay – such as completing quests or fulfilling daily tasks – but you can also choose to purchase it with real money if you so wish.

Perhaps the cool thing here compared to other gacha games is that everything is optional: you don’t need the premium cosmetics to complete in-game tasks, and it’s purely just about looking good. Furthermore, you’re guaranteed a five-star piece every 20 pulls, so this is quite friendly for free-to-play. Yes, building a full five-star ensemble will become extremely costly, but you can mix-and-match any pieces you do get with others.

Furthermore, an in-game store enables you to purchase some costumes outright, so you don’t even need to worry about RNG. And monthly login subscriptions and a fairly easy to complete Battle Pass give you cheaper paid options if you want to throw the developer some money without selling your soul to the gacha. Not everyone will feel comfortable with the business model here, and that’s fine, but from what we’ve seen so far, it seems fair for a title that offers so much content for free.

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Our only real gripe at this stage is that the game feels built for smartphones before the DualSense. Some of the controller bindings are beyond complicated, requiring multiple button presses to achieve simple tasks. There’s already been some improvement in this area since launch, so we hope it’s something the developer is going to continue to iterate upon moving forwards.

Conclusion

Infinity Nikki, even in this early phase of its lifespan, is utterly essential – assuming you can stomach the twee, whimsical tone to it all. Its cosy vibes will prove an acquired taste, but its attention to detail and commitment to keeping the player engaged during every minute of exploration is impeccable. Moreover, its visual presentation is up there alongside the best you’ll find on PS5 – an extraordinary achievement for a free-to-play game that also miraculously runs on mobile. Some control quandaries and an abundance of proper nouns prevent it from achieving perfection, but these are minor blemishes on an otherwise outstanding experience.