I am currently obsessed with a videogame called INFINITY NIKKI.

This is basically the game I had been waiting for my whole life. The story goes that there was a series of dress-up games for smartphones, by chinese developer Papergames. I won't go into much detail because I didn't play them! Although I saw the ads all the time! There was Love Nikki, then Shining Nikki, and like 3 more games that were only available in china. The thing is that for their latest installment in the series they went the extra mile and turned it into a full-fledged open world game, available for PC and Android and even consoles, and boy what a game it is.

Where do I even start describing it...
You take the role of Nikki, who's chilling with her friend Momo (An ADORABLE talking plushie mascot thing) preparing for the ball, when they get isekai'd away into the world of Miraland. In there, a higher power gives her the task of acquiring the so-called Miracle Outfits, and then she is thrown out into the world. Nikki doesn't mind; She's super excited to be living an adventure! Shortly after, she arrives in the beautiful town of Florawish, where she meets some people and ends up registering officially as a Stylist at the stylist guild. Sylists in this setting are like Jedi; They are wielders of the "whim", which is like The Force, and the whim is strong in Nikki. Momo has been known to say things like "Don't worry, just leave it to Nikki! She is a Stylist!" to mean that she is capable of hunting down giant monsters with her magical energy blasts, or jumping and flying like Mary Poppins to the top of the tallest towers with little effort. Well Nikki can do all these miraclous feats thanks to her Ability Outfits which is one of the main mechanics in the game.
But what is the game like? Well for starters, it's free-to-play, singleplayer online (though some co-op features were added later), of the sort that has limited-time events and gachas in which to sink your money. This is a double edged sword... At least for me. In game model always lends itself to the "fear of missing out" if, say, you wanna take a break, but on the other hand it means the game is regularly updated with exciting new stuff. Anyways, the game is first and foremost a dress-up game. Despite being a gacha game, you will collect loads of clothes to choose from just by playing, plus the game tends to be generous with the free money, so you can roll on that gacha outfit you really want even if you are f2p by saving up properly. Besides, the beauty of clothes is subjective; Just because an article of clothing is only "three stars" of rarity, it may still go perfectly with your coord! Every piece has its use.
Naturally, once you're done arranging an outfit that you really like, you'll want to actually see it being worn by your character; Not just to take pictures of it but to actually do something with it, or at least that's how I feel. Which is why I think this game is genius, as there's so many things to do and sink your time into while showing off your clothing. It's not a game with cosmetics, it's cosmetics with a game. As someone who is addicted to dress-up games this feels like the one game to end them all, in that sense.
The game itself plays mainly like a platformer collectathon, seemingly inspired by Super Mario Odyssey. You can tell by the collectibles themselves: Instead of moons, there are "whimstars" (Which are helpfully marked on your map once you get them) and instead of purple coins there are "dews of inspiration" (always found in groups of 2-3-4, not marked on your map so finding the last few ones in an area is a pain, you mainly trade them for outfits... And they're also purple). The maps are big and are PACKED with stuff, so it's common to go through an area a hundred times and still find a collectible you missed.
In order to traverse maps Nikki has Ability Outfits: The main ones are the purification ability, which shoots beams and is used to fight monsters, and the floating ability, which is your main traversal tool as you'll be floating everywhere. There are many other ability outfits, such as a bug-catching outfit, a fishing outfit, and even one to fix electrical appliances (This one doesn't see much use... Funnily enough, most places in the game don't use electrical power at all!).
Now I have to stop myself, because this is not meant to be a review! This is not a review site! I just wanna talk about the things I like! So that's what I'll be doing. So what's just great about this game is all the lore and worldbuilding. The world of Miraland is huge, and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg so far, but each update adds a bit more. So far the story takes place mostly within one jurisdiction (Wishfield), within one nation (The Heartcraft Kingdom), of which there are said to be seven in total. The game's interface itself hints that we'll be able to visit other kingdoms in the future, so that's pretty exciting!.
The main story so far is about Nikki becoming an investigator for the Stylist Guild, and going on a quest to figure out the case of the Quick-Wish Bottles. You see, in the culture of Florawish, people write their wishes down in paper and place them in wish bottles, so these shady quick-wish bottles have been popping up, promising to grant your wishes fast, but instead people who use them have been falling into comas. So this is what prompts Nikki and Momo to explore all the nearby locales, and in the process you will learn a lot about the history of the world, its mythology, and even its cosmology, and you get a mix of what the inhabitants believe vs what's really going on. For example, the people of Florawish believe in the Wishing One, a sort of creator god who answers their wishes, but then you go to the neighboring town of Stoneville, where people believe the Wishing One actually became the Silvergale, a legendary bird, and that their written wishes must be instead burned in a sort of community ritual. Also, you can even find a little cave in which people burn their more embarrassing wishes with a little more privacy. That is the sort of worldbuilding you get here. You also learn for example, that the town of Florawish itself was built on top of the ruins of an old Florawish, which was destroyed in a calamity event. The people were led by a girl named Lilina, the first Mayor of the town, for whom a statue stands in the middle of town. There's talks about an ancient "war against the dark", how "whimancers" came to be known as "stylists", and so much more. This is a world where everything is haunted by ghosts of the past (Curiously many of the stories involve ghosts of some kind), and it's all about learning what happened more so than what's happening in the future. And like I said, it's only the tip of the iceberg. Every update (once a month) adds more stories that expand on the world or individual characters; Any random NPC store owner could turn out to have a big story behind them! While some of the smaller events are limited-time stuff (usually new props will be placed in existing locations with a little story around them, like one time when visitors from the faraway LingLang Empire came and parked their boat at the shores of Florawish), the big stories that involve brand new locations, dungeons, bosses and whatnot, are all permanent, so there's no missing out in that sense. Still, I wish all the event stories were permanent (And I wish you could replay all the cutscenes! I wanna go back and take more screenshots!)

There is so much more to gush over, I also have to add pictures! But this will do for now. Anyways this game is hella awesome.