The saddest part of this whole fiasco is that every single negative review you see here comes out of love. Every person who has downvoted this game wants desperately for it to be the opposite. I wanted to leave this game a positive review. I really did. And I would have, if not for the 1.5 update alone. Whoever was in charge of this update needs to release a public, video apology. I genuinely cannot comprehend what went into making any of these decisions. The scummy monetization changes and game-breaking bugs have already been discussed to death, so I'll spare you.

The nail in the coffin for me, however, are the story changes. They completely retconned the original story basis without any warning. I never heard anyone give feedback that the story was bad, or that they didn't like the intro. Thus, I'm very confused where they got the idea that we would prefer something completely different. There have been discussions of wanting the story to be more mature, and for Nikki to have more agency, which I agree with. However, not only does that not require erasing the story up until now in any capacity, they also didn't even fix that part. The new explanation is just worse in every way.

Genuinely, if the new intro is the one I had experienced when starting the game, I never would have continued playing. It's blatantly uninteresting, sloppily written, and makes characters that used to be dynamic, completely one dimensional. What a disgrace. I would have continued past all of the other issues. This is an ambitious game for Infold given their previous titles, and I can get by with some bugs and clumsy patches. The monetization is an issue, and if it's something they don't fix, I wouldn't continue, but I'd be willing to find a middle ground. The nail in the coffin for me is destroying the story. There's just zero reason.

Also, shouldn't this be the EASIEST PART for Infold??? They've written many good stories in the past, what could possibly make this one any different? Whose nepo baby was allowed to set fire to the writer's great work? I just can't fathom why they would do this. If this is the story I'm supposed to want to keep playing for, then I'm done. I was prepared to show this game so much love and support. I was so proud of how popular they had managed to make a "girly game" become. It felt like companies would finally see the value of catering to women and girls for once. Please Infold. Don't throw this away. Why squander all the hard work you've done? You've listened so well to us in the past, and we were so grateful. Please listen again.

Should you play this game? Maybe. I hope you get to. I really really hope that this all becomes a thing of the past, and new players get to play the game I fell in love with. But that's not this game. Not anymore. I will gladly change this review when proper action has been taken. I'm sorry to all of the writers, developers, and artists, who had to be utterly embarrassed (presumably because of some dogwater CEO who's never played a game in their entire, fake life) by this update. I hope they are taking care of themselves, and know that none of this hate falls to them.

God.

The game used to be good.

But Infold retconned the intro just to promote limited-time outfits. Nevermind the fact that the tutorial is unplayable due to bugs.

Infold has remained silent, and even continued to censor players and their complaints.

I intend to not be silent.

NEW PLAYERS: AVOID THIS GAME UNTIL IT’S FIXED.

As a day 1 Infinity Nikki player I can't in good faith recommend this game, especially after the corporate greed that is 1.5. If you are a new player and feel kinda interested in trying this "cozy" game, please, stay away from it and don't let yourself nor your wants be exploited by predatory business practices.

1. With the introduction of 11 pieces outfits, the base pity to get a full outfit increased from 180 to up to 220 required pulls, just to get the base outfit. This is outrageous and certainly develops an urgency to spend just to face the fear of missing out and, if left like this, would open the gate for outfits with even more pieces and more required pulls.

2. With an increased pity count, they had the gall to reduce the rewards from one of the only activities that gives players Diamonds (the currency in the game to buy pulls/120 Diamonds - 1 Pull) the Mira Crown Contest. Before it was reset every 14 days, but now, it can last up to 21+ days, almost a full version.

3. They are incurring in illegal and false discount advertising. In this version they added a cosmetic item, a bathtub, for your Nikki to use, it doesn't add anything new gameplaywise, but they are charging for it 10USD at a "discounted price" where, according to them, its price without a discount is something around 75USD. Yes, 75USD for a bathtub.

4. The retconning of the story... since release. This company seems to have no direction for the game, after 5 versions of the game from release, they are already retconning the story, making it convoluted and basically throwing the worldbuilding and lore that had been built up until now to the trash. This just makes it clear that they do not know where to go with the story and can make changes this abruptly without any consideration of the story up until now, and with it being like this, it's concerning in the long run.

5. A "Dyeing System" that is pay to win. One of the most expected features from 1.5 was the dyeing system, where you could customize your outfits. However, it's an extremely greedy system, adding three new currencies to the game that, as of now, you can only acquire through the Shop. Not only that, you need this new paid currencies to unlock certain colour palettes, but wait, it's not for the whole outfit that you unlock these palettes, but for EACH PIECE of the outfit, each outfit has around 10 pieces, and the price for these palettes are quite high, so yes, it's not a free to play system, but more a pay to win one. Even when you fully evolve an outfit to unlock a colour wheel for dyeing, which, in the case of limited 5*, took you around 430 pulls before, but with the increased minimum pity, it would take you more than 450 pulls, and you still need to unlock ALL palettes.

6. You will experience these issues once you can go past the myriad of bugs that the game has right now, it's incredibly how little to no play testing this multimillionaire company has before releasing such a huge update such as 1.5. From missing voice-overs to not even making it out from the login screen.

It's quite disheartening to see in which state the game is in right now, this coming from someone who thoroughly enjoyed it from the start up until this version. It was a cozy game and a safe space with stress free gameplay and a heartwarming story, but now it's just a money-grabbing game from a company with little to no respect to its playerbase, pushing a predatory and greedy agenda, even when they pride themselves with "no more empty promises".