Hello Kitty Island Adventure (Switch) Review

In a world that is seemingly filled with a constant stream of negativity, many of us have turned to video games as a welcome distraction from it all. Since 2020, the Nintendo Switch has seen a huge variety of games to make us feel nice and warm inside.

The latest in this stream of cosy games comes in the form of Sanrio’s Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Having been an Apple Arcade exclusive for some time, it was inevitable that it would see release on the Nintendo Switch and find an audience ready to dive in.

The game begins by asking you to create your own Sanrio inspired character. There are many options between the type of animal you want to be, to giving them a face, ear design and colour scheme. By the time you’re done, you’ll end up with something that wouldn’t look out of place if they decided to create a new mascot to join Hello Kitty’s crew. Once you’ve got your creation, you are then introduced to all the main characters that will take part in the game as you are on a flight to the island with them.

Speaking to the characters immediately showed that the writers have taken specific care to make sure each mascot is an accurate representation of their personalities. Hello Kitty comes across as the caring leader of the group, Badtz-Maru drips with sarcasm and can’t wait to prank everyone, and Pochacco can’t wait to see how he can maintain his fitness once he lands on the island. Even Retsuko, who isn’t an official Sanrio character, tells you she doesn’t know anybody on the plane, but needs to destress on the island due to her demanding work commitments. Anyone familiar with these guys will be pleased that they’ve been treated with respect.

Viewed from an isometric perspective, you are quick to discover that many of the characters have been lost, and that you need to perform several missions to set the island up. You soon discover that there is plenty of island to explore through unlocking different zones. As you complete missions and build relationships with everyone, the game continues to open up.

The sense of progression is what sets this apart from a certain other game filled with animals. While this may come across as a game that lets you wander around at your own pace and set your own goals and targets, it is more about collecting, exploring, and completing quests. There are puzzle dungeons, scavenger hunts, mine cart rides, and photography, and there is plenty of all of that to do. Throw in some mobile style daily quests to do, and you find yourself a package where you’ll hardly ever find yourself without something to do.

Where the game can occasionally trip itself up however, is that when you begin a certain quest, it makes the mascots involved in that quest too busy for you to attempt other quests that also involve them, including the main storyline. I received a date-specific quest that had me finding some items for Badtz-Maru’s birthday. This quest locked up five different characters while I had to find a certain type of comic book to continue my quest. The comic books you can find change daily, so I ended up locked from the main quest, as well as gaining access to diving and fishing for over four days. Once the game finally offered the specific comic book needed, I suddenly had access to the rest of the game.

Overall, though, it is a satisfying gameplay loop that gives everything meaning. Whether you’re collecting items to give gifts, to make food, to craft things, or to complete quests, everything seems to have its purpose in the game. Strawberry boxes can be collected and used to refurbish cabins that can then be furnished with furniture that you find littered around the island or that you’ve crafted yourself.

Furnishing the cabins has itself another purpose as well, while you get your own cabin, you can then unlock and decorate other cabins around the whole island. Customising the interiors can then attract some of the lesser-known Sanrio characters such as Dear Daniel and Mama and Papa (Pompompurin’s parents), which adds even more quests and friendships to build over time.

The mini dungeons that you can find littered around the island offer some puzzle elements to the game. None of them are particularly difficult, and it might have been nice if there were some challenges, but they do offer some variety to the rest of the game. Each puzzle involves buttons and switches that will open and close doorways, and it’s up to you to figure out how to open the path to get the treasure located in each dungeon.

Other activities to do include collecting bugs and fishes, which add to your overall collections in the achievements menu. There is a place in the swamp to donate and display bugs, but after playing for a couple of weeks, I haven’t found anywhere to donate the fish, with the only way to display them being to put them in fish tanks inside cabins. Collecting bugs and fish doesn’t feel overly robust, and they are not tied to the calendar either, so collecting them all can be done once you have a net and a rod.

The game is very cute graphically and overall does very well to bring the 2D world of Sanrio into the 3D space. Despite not looking overly intensive, there are moments where the framerate dips, and the game comes to a complete stop every time it auto saves. Usually, these stoppages last just long enough to make you think the game has crashed, before it jump starts back into things.

Outside of owning a Pompompurin drink bottle, I’ve no real connection to the Hello Kitty brand overall. While I was expecting something like an Animal Crossing with a Hello Kitty skin, what I got was something completely different. There are some issues that should be addressed, such as missions blocking progression and some technical issues that stopped me from enjoying it completely. Hopefully, these issues can be addressed in future updates as it is a solid title overall.

Rating: 3.5/5