As much as I enjoy cutsie characters, I’ve never really had much of a connection to Hello Kitty. That’s not to say I’m some sort of edgy Hello Kitty hater, but I’ve never felt the urge to put my possessions in a Hello Kitty rucksack or wear an adorable Hello Kitty hat (despite the fact such a thing would look great on me). Now alongside this I have also never really managed to understand the appeal of the Animal Crossing games, so you’d think that combining these two things would result in a video game I avoided like the plague. Well against all odds Hello Kitty Island Adventure has brought me so much joy, thanks to its cosy vibes and varied activities.
The game begins (once you’ve created your custom animal character of course) with you and a whole lot of adorable animals flying on a plane. A theme park island is reopening soon, and all your favourite Hello Kitty characters are keen to check this out. One extreme skydive later and you all find yourselves on an island that you’ll be calling home for a while, so you might as well get settled.
Once you’re on the island you’ll find yourself with plenty to do, mainly thanks to all your animal friends. Unlike a game like Animal Crossing, Hello Kitty Island Adventure is a much more guided experience with plenty of obvious objectives you can aim to complete to keep busy. Now admittedly a lot of these are fetch quests or find-an-item quests, but while this would likely annoy me in other games I couldn’t help but gleefully wander this cosy island for hours to help my animal pals here.
Friendship is a key part of Hello Kitty Island Adventure, with each of the iconic characters sporting a friendship meter that’ll grant you loads of rewards for filling it. Levelling up friendship will grant you access to new side activities like fishing, give you new colour schemes for your character and loads of handy materials, so it’s always worth helping those in need and giving them regular gifts to strengthen those bonds.
When you aren’t making friends with adorable animals, you’ll probably be spending your time in Hello Kitty Island Adventure doing one of the game’s many side activities. There are all the usual suspects here like fishing, cooking and decorating, but there are also more intriguing activities too like taking photos with hidden Gudetamas or aiming for the best time in a race. It’s easy to get swept up in these entirely optional time sinks, especially when the cosy island vibes are so enticing.
Outside of these twee little activities there are also puzzle dungeons, which feature more traditional gaming challenges. These generally involve moving blocks and pressing switches, and will feel immediately familiar to anyone who has ever played a vgame before. They’re also not as basic and easy as I was expecting, and in fact managed to stump me a few times. I don’t like to admit that I got stuck in a Hello Kitty game, but this did happen.
As I sunk more and more hours into Hello Kitty Island Adventure, I was shocked by the sheer amount of content in the game. The map is massive and full of things to do, the characters I grew to love were always up to something new, and with a day and night cycle and multiple seasons to check out this is a cosy game you could play for months and months.
For this review I played the game on the Nintendo Switch, and for the most part it was a wonderful way to do so. There is admittedly a rather large load time to start the game (and I also experienced a few frame drops) but if this portable console is the best place for you to get your cosy gaming on then you’ll not regret spending your time with Kitty here.
I can’t quite believe I’m saying this, but there really isn’t much to complain about when it comes to Hello Kitty Island Adventure. The platforming is a bit iffy and I’d fairly regularly get stuck in the scenery, but you’ll get popped back to a clear spot nearby when this happens. Not all of the side activities sucked me in either, but it’s not like the game forced me to partake in them.
Hello Kitty Island Adventure is one of the most surprisingly fun games I’ve played in a very long time. With cosy vibes, loads to do and a massive island to explore, I was always excited to jump back into the island and hang out with my animal buddies. You can pretend all you want that you’re too cool for Hello Kitty, but after an hour with this delightful game I’m sure you’ll keep coming back.
