Review – Hello Kitty Island Adventure

In our modern time of multiplatform gaming and a decrease in console exclusivity, sometimes it’s undeniable that a game from one system would fit better on another. Take Mario Kart 8’s jump from Wii U to Nintendo Switch as a prime example. A great Wii U game with less eyes on it initially because of its platform went on to become a top-selling Nintendo Switch powerhouse. 

Now let’s talk mobile gaming. I’ve had all four of my eyes on Hello Kitty Island Adventure since it released on Apple Arcade in 2023 and made a splash with cozy gamers. One look at its colorful pastel graphics, cutesy proven Sanrio characters, and top-down isometric perspective and you’d be hard-pressed to not see a future for the game on Nintendo Switch. I hesitated to try Sunblink’s “Animal Crossing killer” on Apple Arcade due to the limited screen size offered by my mobile device and the touch controls.

I’m thankful I waited and I didn’t have to wait long either. Island Adventure glued me to my Switch for the past week and a half in a similar fashion to Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ serendipitous release in 2020. It’s a testament to the Sanrio brand’s power that I had little to no idea what a My Melody or Cinnamoroll were before playing this game, but 30 hours later I can’t stop talking about how Kuromi’s birthday is on Halloween. 

 

 

It’s a good thing I became cordial with Hello Kitty and her friends too because Island Adventure revolves around your player-created animal character giving them gifts to become better friends with them. This is where Hello Kitty’s Big Adventures Park and New Horizons’ *Your island name inserted here* differ. In order to progress in Island Adventure, you’re going to have to level up your friendships in a very video gamey way. I appreciated this. If I’m being honest, I was hoping for more “video game” and less “life sim” from Island Adventure. The best part is, I got a good balance of both. 

I appreciated the plot that Island Adventure frames itself around. Your animal character is on a flight with Hello Kitty and several of her Sanrio friends. You’re quickly (and optionally) introduced and told that you’re almost to your vacation destination, Big Adventures Park. This theme park is a tropical island tourist trap of sorts and My Melody is setting up a furniture shop there. Before you can get comfy in your seat, the plane has a pie(?) malfunction and skydiving ensues. When you make it to the ground, you soon find that each character has carved their own niché into Big Adventures Park. Badtz-Maru runs a comic book shop, Hello Kitty is the island’s resident baker, and Tuxedo Sam operates a fashion store. As you venture out to more of the island, you’ll find that the theme park is a bit run down and abandoned with discoverable characters attempting to fix its attractions. There’s a larger plot involving power crystals needing to be obtained for each biome to truly come alive and it keeps you motivated. The amount of effort put into the characterization, relationships, locale and dialogue is far beyond what I would have expected for a licensed Hello Kitty game. 

 

 

I’ve established that friendship levels are important in HKIA, so let me explain why. Quests are locked behind higher friendship levels and quests are how you officially progress. There’s all manner of items to forage for crafting and collectibles to find, but the quests are the primary method of how you get the blueprints to craft essential tools. The bug net, fishing pole, flippers and other cozy game staples all have to be crafted first before you can reap their benefits. You can also choose the location of and decorate your home and other visitors’ homes but less emphasis is placed on that than in, say Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing. But, here’s the best part of Island Adventure: You can explore its huge map at your own pace. 

Now I didn’t expect top-tier exploration from a Hello Kitty game but Sunblink have been able to achieve for me what last year’s The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom could not. This is some of the most rewarding and entertaining map combing I’ve ever experienced. It feels very natural thanks to the way the map is laid out. You’re on an island theme park and when you first land after skydiving from your flight, you find yourself in Seaside Resort, the central hub.  From there, you can run, climb, swim, and glide to one of four additional biomes. This reminded me of a better take on Disney Dreamlight Valley. Cleverly, accessing these biomes isn’t locked behind a certain amount of collectibles, but progressing in them is. The state you initially find Mount Hothead in, for instance, changes as you increase friendship levels with certain characters to unlock its quests. But you’re never locked from obtaining treasure chests or materials there. The only thing limiting you are your abilities at the time of attempting to reach the top of a higher cliff or diving underwater. 

 

 

Taking cues from another Zelda game, Breath of The Wild, or even more appropriately, A Short Hike, your climbing and swimming elicits a decreasing stamina wheel. By exploring the map and increasing friendship levels, you can gain “heart pieces” which are golden apple slices in this game. Collect five to form a whole golden apple and gain another wheel for your stamina. Like in A Short Hike, you will eventually need those stamina wheels to climb a mountain. By taking well-worn and established ideas from other successful adventure and cozy titles, Island Adventure creates a fresh blend of the two gameplay styles. I’ve never particularly felt like I was going on an adventure when playing a cozy game which is what makes Island Adventure feel so refreshing. The exploring doesn’t feel limited and it’s also aided by an incentivizing to engage with picking up a certain number of collectibles, cooking a specific set of treats or taking a certain number of photos. The game doesn’t lack for challenges, be they daily, weekly, story quest lines, crafting new tools, competing in timed collectathon minigames or venturing into ‘shrines’ with Zelda dungeon-esque puzzles. There was so much to do and see in Island Adventure that the slower nature of its progression didn’t bother me. 

If you’re someone who enjoys cozy games, you are probably familiar with time traveling mechanics. I personally feel this cheapens what boils down to a daily pick-up-and-play experience and soured my taste on the Animal Crossing community in 2020 due to their insistence on using it. Island Adventure does not adhere to this principle. For one, the game doesn’t run on real world time for its day-night cycle, just for the passage of one real world day to the next for events and island item/gift giving limit resets. Time traveling disables the game’s autosave mechanic, messes with item respawns and a save file cannot be salvaged if it is ruined by time traveling attempts. Thankfully, time gates aren’t prevalent but they are present enough to grind some gears of the cozy game faithful. As mentioned, you can only find a certain amount of each crafting material and give each character 3 gifts a day. Rare items like Island Bouquets and Friendship Bouquets can grant you a reset of these mechanics whenever you please and are gifted to you on certain days of the week. So you’ll naturally make more progress on certain days of the week this way. I personally didn’t mind this, but it may bother those who are used to a more hands-off approach to cozy gaming.

 

 

Hello Kitty Island Adventure filled a vacancy for me on the Nintendo Switch. I’ve been hoping for another colorful, wholesome cozy game that wasn’t just another farming sim. Island Adventure is more than the sum of its parts. By combining several well-known and beloved game mechanics often found in Nintendo’s own games, it successfully merges satisfying adventure gameplay with cozy game systems to become something special. Several gamers might attempt to write off this title as just another live service mobile game, but they’d be missing out on 2025’s first big Nintendo Switch hit. I was concerned about how the game would look and perform on Switch, but it talks the talk and walks the walk. This is a feature-packed, lengthy title with hours of gameplay in store for both the curious and the dedicated. Sunblink has done a generous favor in bringing over the game with its many updates and seasonal events over to the platform most associated with its cutesy identity. In doing so, neither Apple Arcade players nor console players are leaving shorthanded. However, I think history will show that Hello Kitty Island Adventure truly found its home on Nintendo Switch. 

 

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