If you thought Paper Games’ magical anime dress-up game Infinity Nikki looked incredible during its State of Play reveal trailer, here’s an additional tidbit to take note of: development is being headed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s designer Kentaro Tominaga. The veteran previously worked at Nintendo EPD until 2022, and has contributed to a variety of major projects, such as the aforementioned, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. That’s some resume!
Nikki is actually a long-running franchise on smartphones, but this is the most ambitious entry yet, with its open world. Collecting different outfits will give your magical anime waifu different powers, such as the ability to float, shrink, and so much more. You’ll use all these different abilities to traverse the world, but do keep in mind that you’ll probably have to pull for certain costumes through the game’s gacha system. We should find out a lot more about how the system works during the title’s beta test later this year.
With the designer of Breath of the Wild behind it, though, expect the open world to be absolutely jam-packed with cosy activities. We already know there’ll be resource gathering, as well as the ability to catch bugs and fish. You’ll even be able to take photographs using your magical companion Momo, and it seems like there may be some Pokémon Snap style activities to enjoy while you’re out and about adventuring. We can’t wait for this one.
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Their other games are free to play gacha, so if this is the same then I'm not interested. If it's a full paid game then count me in.
Thought it looked awful. 😂
@UltimateOtaku91 It’s a free to play gacha game.
It looked oddly charming, so I'm willing to give it a chance despite its gacha nonsense.
Disclaimer: When Sammy writes "we", he means him.
Idk about this game, but now I really want to fire up the Wii for some Twilight Princess 😀
@ShogunRok As in, "We can’t wait for this one"? 😂
Why is it always the good looking games doing gacha or have gameplay I'm not into.
Dress-Em-Up
Game looks amazing graphics
@Malaise Gachapon is the Japanese name for those machines you put a coin in, turn the handle, and get a toy in a plastic capsule. But I'm terms of videogaming it's a game where you get characters or equipment through a random draw that you use virtual or real currency to pay for.
To be fair, you can typically play them without using real money and some are genuinely great games - but the gacha elements do make them worse.
So glad gacha games hold no appeal to me. Kind of feel like those are for suckers if I'm being 100% honest.
@get2sammyb You almost had me interested in the game. It was sooooo close… but then that whole “free to play gatcha game” line happened.
Another free to play mess this play event is getting worse and worse.
Mobile history? Gatcha? So is this a real game or a live service slot machine? Hopefully the former as it actually looked quite interesting.
Edit: saw your response. I guess that’s gamers out. Maybe my 8 yo niece would be interested, but she doesn’t have a PS5.
I know everyone hates Gacha games here. I myself enjoy them, I wonder if anyone has actually played one? They are games you can still play without spending any money because most offer a lot of ways to earn the currency used for free as you play the game. And maybe it comes down to personality, some may find the temptation hard to resist.
Game looks fantastic I can't wait to give it a shot
Huh, I didn't expect the designer for a bunch of Zelda games to be at the helm of this.
@FanCFeast I've played a few, especially on mobile and it's always the same outcome, at first the games are generous with materials and gacha tickets and then all of a sudden you hit a wall in terms of progression and difficulty. Then this is where the predatory microtransaction system comes into play, either grind for hours and hours to make some (little) progress or spend some money to help speed it up. They are purposely made to make people think "forget this il spend some money".
Gacha games for me are miles worse than games like fortnite, overwatch, apex legends etc, in those games you can experience everything the game has to offer and everyone is on an even playing field, the only MTX are battle passes and cosmetics. But gacha games require MTX for progression and the more a person spends the more powerful they will be compared to other players even with the same amount of time played, this is especially worse if those gacha games also include PvP which then makes the game pay to win also.
Maybe this game will be different and only offer MTX for cosmetics like with dreamlight Valley but we shall see.
I was really looking forward to this game but if its a free to play live service rubbish again then I will be bitterly disappointed and will not give it the time of day. Let's hope its like a proper platformer and full game release.
@Flaming_Kaiser Just saw Ballad of Antara is also a free to play game 😬 and guess what it's a branch of the company that also makes this Nikki game, this also now makes me cautious of any Chinese game shown at these events. Marvel's Rivals was also another free to play game and you guessed it again made by a Chinese developer, also just checked Where Winds Meet and it's also made by a Chinese developer so I'd wager that is also free to play. Knowing all this now really makes me think what Sony was thinking with that State of Play showing so many Chinese gacha/live service games whilst making people think they were single player games, they should have a disclaimer at the end of the trailers stating if it's a f2p game or not. But it seems to me Sony's focus in Asia is to get as many gacha games onto the system as possible and make a load of money from the MTX.
Imagine it was a fanservice game instead. You get different costumes, but they break when you're hit a few times, and you spend the game scavenging different clothes that also inevitably break after a few hits. You eventually find the Master Dress, but even that breaks and you have to wait for a timer to count down for it to re-form.
So will it be a gacha game where this outfit shoots fire and lets you float, whereas the “free” outfit allows floating? Pay to win or pay to dress up?
@UltimateOtaku91 I will admit, there are many predatory gacha games, especially on mobile with the pop ups that are constantly trying to get you to buy. I find the games from Hoyoverse and Wuthering Waves to actually try not to force anything on you. Yeah, it’s there if you want to do it, but the lack of pop ups really makes it feel unnecessary. If you want/need every character in the game, then yeah, probably also not the best game for someone. I just know you can complete what a game like Genshin has to offer as a free to play, might just take a little more time. There is no PvP though.
@UltimateOtaku91 Same here in not going to waste my time on these Sony events anymore. If its going to be free to play or better said pay nothing waste your time games.
If this is the future them im not going to waste my times on the next platform and kusr go buy older consoles with second games.
So it's going to be a empty world with grass fields then. It looks like it can be fun though, but like others have said, if it's a free to play live service then it's a hard pass.
This was certainly one of the more standout titles shown during the presentation (even if it was primarily for the fact it was one of the few games there that was actually colourful and charming XD) and seeing it being helmed by a man with as much pedigree as Tominaga (dude was the Assistant Director on both Zelda Wind Waker and Mario Kart Double Dash for crying out loud!) inspires a lot of confidence in Nikki's potential personally.
@RBMango I agree. It's one of those "feel good" games.
I actually think the game will do pretty well.
Eeeeew f2p gatcha.... There went that. Why are glorified mobile games in a PlayStation presentation? Isn't that what Apple events are for?
@Ralizah ROFL. Let's do it! We're going to be billionaires!
Hahaha! Now all the YouTubers who made stinkfaces about this will suddenly love it!
@NEStalgia Come on man. You act as if F2P gacha games like Genshin Impact, Honkai Star, and Zeneless Zone Zero never been showed in SOP.
@PuppetMaster You say that like it's a good thing. I didn't spend $500 on a console to do exactly what I could have done on a phone I already have. It's one thing to exist. It's another when it's what the platform is pushing is the reason to own it. It's just an another step in consoles existing between worlds without an Identity.
@NEStalgia Good thing for anyone who enjoyed F2P gacha games but more comfortable on playing it on their PS5 / PC so they don't need to worry about their phone battery needs to be charge every couple of hours after playing the game? And i'm sure PS5 / PC version has better control, graphic, and frame rate than mobile version.
I mean, plenty of people still playing games like Vampire Survivors, Minecraft, Fortnite, or Genshin Impact on their very expensives PC rig that is more expensives than PS5 and those games also can be played on mobile. So i don't get your "i buy $500 gaming console not to play this gacha games" logic when the purpose of gaming console is for playing whatever type of games either they F2P or not. That's like saying why play indie games like Stardew Valley on your Switch when you can played it on your mobile.
But the point here is PS5 is a console that offers variety including F2P gacha games. You're free to dislike the practice and not played them on your PS5. But other PS5 owners might be interested.
Oh, gacha, no, bye.
@PuppetMaster The problem is that these gacha/ftp games will sometimes be pretty interesting, but I don't respond well to a bunch of unspoken threats/fomo/gambling. Any game that I feel is bending my arm to throw more money at it I immediately write off.
They could avoid these kinds of prejudgments by offering a full-priced version of their game in which everything is unlockable. But then the game would need to be balanced, and that sounds like a lot of work.
@NEStalgia Yeah, it's interesting. I have no problem with mobile games attempting the scope of a console game, but just as often this gen we are starting to see mobile business practices and expectations invading the console space. I have no tolerance for that. That kind of thing killed Mortal Kombat for me, and that was one of my favorite series.
@LikelySatan Sadly we're going to see that a lot more. Games like this are a little different because it's an actual mobile developer branching into console. But the big publishes see the money potential in mobile and are entirely committed to converting all gaming to the much more profitable mobile model. And it lands right when people are pinching pennies and cutting expensive purchases out and looking for "free". Might be a perfect storm for some ugly gaming.
@PuppetMaster Like I said I don't have a problem that the game exists for the people that want it. But there's such a thing as reading the room and knowing the audience. The people tuning into a platform presentation on YouTube is a very small group, of very core customers that are looking for a very different product than mobile games but pretty. Wrong marketing for the wrong market. But that's defines the modern Sony presentation.
@NEStalgia "But there's such a thing as reading the room and knowing the audience"
Are you trying to say there's no audiences for F2P gacha games on PS4/5? Based on last year leaked, turns out Genshin Impact generated $1 billion revenue on PS within the first two years. Hence the reason why Sony keeps showing these games on SOP because they have the audiences for it.
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/genshin-impact-has-generated-1-billion-in-revenue-on-playstation-within-its-first-2-years-info-obtained-from-sonys-internally-leaked-presentation.1666123/
And while not every games in SOP looks promising or satisfy everyone expectations, but at least they showed games like Astro Bot, MH Wilds, DW Origin, SH 2 remake, Until Dawn remake, and those VR games for PSVR2 owners. These games also have audiences on PS.
"Wrong marketing for the wrong market"
You do know this SOP are not exclusives for US and EU market right but also broadcast for Japan and Asia market which is a big market for F2P games and a lot of people in Japan & Asia also own a PS4/5.
You can say you dislike Sony decision to promote F2P games since this type of games doesn't appeal to you. But based on the numbers, Sony definitely doesn't do any wrong marketing here.
@LikelySatan A full price version of F2P games with everything unlocked only work if the game doesn't receive any new contents.
But if the game just launch then people will be angry if they buy the full price version but still need to spend money for the new updates like new characters or costume. What worst, if the game got shutdown within a year or two because not many people played it.
Beside, i don't think that will change any negative view or prejudgement for F2P games.
Gatcha damn it! Gatcha damn it all to hell.
This was up there with Astro Bot as my favourite of the show. Now this took a massive nose dive.
I just wanted to be able to explore the magical worlds…
Yeah, I’m still gonna play it. But dang.
@PuppetMaster I would buy a version of this or Genshin etc if it were just a full priced game with in-game unlocks. Maybe. I don't know, I find waifu BS tiring.
@PuppetMaster You're still missing, as Sony is, the answer to the question of who actually watches sop to Begin with, and it isn't the market that plays f2p gatcha games. There's a place for that, and this isn't it. If they can't figure out who the market they're addressing is, they're bad at marketing.
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@PuppetMaster I really don't know why someone that didn't doesn't even own a PS5 is going around starting arguments about how Sonys PS5 presentation that's received the most negative reception ever and is mostly disliked in this very forum based on this sites poll, is somehow well done marketing, but you do you.
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