Hello Kitty Island Adventure review — The pinnacle of cozy gaming we have been waiting for

Hello Kitty Island Adventure has to unironically be one of the most anticipated releases in the cozy community ever since it started making waves on Apple Arcade. From its status as a meme from South Park and being trapped behind a mobile gaming wall, it was hard to believe it would be anything more than that. My first notion was skeptical as even though I love Sanrio, its connotations for being a mobile game was infected with micro-transactions and shallow gameplay. But to their credit, the team over at Sunblink proved us wrong and has created a game worthy of filling the chasm Animal Crossing left behind when fans realized we weren’t getting any more updates.

The start to Island Adventure is pretty wild, you and your Sanrio companions are on their way to Big Adventures Park for a much needed vacation, when suddenly Hello Kitty’s cake machine malfunctions and threatens to crash the plane. What is their response to this situation? Jump out of the plane with helium balloons. Now obviously you weren’t going to expect much realism from this game, but still, wow.

Once everyone has landed somewhat safely, you take a look around you to see the Sea Resort, but you notice some party members are missing. This begins the foundational objective of the game, and by that I mean it isn’t the main objective, so don’t expect to spend much time on it, but it acts as a guide to opening up the map around you and triggering all the quests that come with each character. And let me tell you, there are a lot of them. The map is also huge, with 5 giant areas to explore in an open style world. And apart from one area, from the get-go you are free to go as far as you want.

One of its focal objectives is discovering the past of Tophat, a hologram that appears when you and Chococat explore the ruins dotted around the resort and complete main friendship missions. I am still relatively early on in the game so I’m not sure on where this plot line will lead, but to be honest, depth and mystery aren’t too much of a concern. With these types of games, the simple act of working towards something is enough.

The reason why I’m not too far in is because Island Adventure does use a real-time clock for certain aspects of its game. Its in-game clock runs relatively slowly, but there isn’t any real indication to what time of the day it is, it’s simply split into day and night. It doesn’t use this very often, some quests will ask you to talk to a specific character at Night time, but there’s no sense of time management like in other games. However, for aspects like shop stock and gift giving, they are locked to your real life clock. Shop stock will change and you’re only able to give gifts to friends 3 times a day, and there are other little things like daily rewards and visitors staying for one or day real life days. It seems like a bit of a strange choice for this game due to its lack of emphasis on time, unlike in Animal Crossing, but it does serve as a block for players to make too much progression. I needed to get to level 6 friendship with Hangyodon to progress a bunch of other quests, but 3 gifts weren’t enough to get him from level 3 to 6. It doesn’t grind progress to a complete halt and it does urge the player to come back every day to work on certain quests, which slows for a chill gameplay loop.

One of the main aspects of Island Adventure is the Friend system. You level up your friendship with each character by completing their quests and giving them the gifts they like. With each level of friendship, you get a reward, from pieces of exclusive furniture to main story quests that allow you to progress the game. For example, getting to level 5 friendship with Kuromi gives you the blueprints for a Snorkel you use to reach Hangyodon in his underwater Comedy club. One of the cooler features of friends is their ability to be unlocked as a companion. You can take them wherever you go and they all give you small perks, like Badz Maru giving you better luck in fishing.

Other gameplay features are plentiful for the player to mess around with, which includes your typical bug and fish catching. I want to give a special mention to the designs of the bugs, Island Adventure could have done what every other game in its genre does and use real bugs, but theirs are all originally designed, from a Pumpkin styled spider to a sandcastle crab. It’s that small dash of personality that keeps me on top of a monotonous task like hunting for bugs.

Another one of my favourite gameplay features were the Visitor cabins. My Melody proposes that other guests would like to take vacations on the island, so the player can restore cabins dotted around the map and furnish them to a visitor’s liking. I was gob-smacked when I saw how many potential visitors there were, a whole ass Sanrio cinematic universe with My Melody’s extended family and the many friends of Cinamoroll. Every visitor needs specific furniture items, like Hello Kitty’s sister Mimmy wants Hello Kitty themed items, talk about obsessed. Once a visitor arrives, you’re able to befriend them by doing mini quests, and eventually, they will move to your island permanently.

It is absolutely crazy how much there is to do in this game and there’s constantly something to work towards. If you’re fed up with fetch questing, you can mess around with the many puzzles to complete in the temples or bake a ton of cakes. I’m shaking in anticipation for my quest to 100% completion. The game also has limited time festivals, all with their own unique outfits, furniture items, and currency. In my time playing the game it’s the Lunar New Year so themed snake furniture is available to buy. Despite it only being a small thing, it really helps in a game’s longevity and persuades me to log in for a couple of hours a day.

However, the only thing that does crop up now and then are technical difficulties. I played Island Adventure on Steam Deck which was a smooth experience with dips here and there. It’s nowhere near game destroying, just some hiccups like the fish clipping in and out of water and nearby land and frame rate drops when you glide across the map using your balloons. Hopefully it’ll be smoothed over when it’s released!

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