Have you played… Hello Kitty Island Adventure?
I’VE HAD IT WITH THESE CAKES ON THIS PLANE!
Picture this: You’re chilling out, making friends with adorable Sanrio characters aboard a flight to a dreamy holiday destination. But wait, what’s that smell? Is that… something burning?! Uh oh… the oven has malfunctioned, Hello Kitty’s delicious cakes are spewing out all over the place, the plane is crashing and you’ve got no choice but to parachute into the ocean to survive.
Welcome to the whimsical world of Hello Kitty Island Adventure! An adorable mix of adventure, friendship building and baking awaits!
The Characters
The gang is all here; you can hangout with all your favorite Sanrio characters, from the queen herself Hello Kitty, Cinnamonroll, Pompompurin, My Melody, Kuromi and Bad Batz Maru, and lesser-known characters like Chococat, Pochacco, Tuxedosan, Hangyodon and Keroppi. Though you’ll have to find them first! When the plane crashed it scattered everyone across the island, so your first quest is to venture out across the different lands, find everyone and reunite them with their luggage so they can enjoy their holiday. Each day you can chat to them, give them gifts to increase your friendship level and ask for gift recommendations. While the conversations are sometimes a little repetitive, there’s lots of genuinely funny dialogue that gave me a good giggle.
You can also fix up and decorate cabins around the island to welcome guests such as Dear Daniel, Mimmy, Azuki, Cappuccino and Chiffon. Each guest has different requirements ranging from cabin location, furniture needs and food demands, these Sanrio characters may be cute but they don’t compromise! They won’t come and visit until the requirements are met, so you’ll need to complete quests, bake some tasty treats and save up your sand dollars to buy things at the stores to transform your cabins into the holiday home of their fluffy little dreams.
The Island
The island itself has a surprising number of different areas to explore. From the pumpkin studded spooky swamp to the coral filled depths of rainbow reef, you’ll discover a place that fits your vibe! I appreciate the details they’ve added to each area, they all have their own ecosystem with different critters roaming around and music for each area (the spooky swamp music is a personal favourite). To be able to explore all areas of the island you’ll need to work with different characters to craft the items needed to get you there, it was a magical moment when I finally made the snorkel and entered the rainbow reef for the first time.
The Quests
When I started the game, the first thing that hit me was the absence of my boy Gudetama. I went through all 5 phases of the grief cycle, fearing he wouldn’t feature in the game at all. But to my delight I was wrong; Pochacco tells you about all the mysterious little Gudetama’s hanging out around the island and tasks you with finding and taking selfies with them. Personally this is my favourite part of the game, you never know where or when you’ll find a Gudetama and what they’ll be up to!
There are lots of cute quests you’ll need to complete to progress in the game; from fixing up ziplines so you can travel around swiftly and cooking up cakes for Hello Kitty to gathering materials needed to go snorkelling and opening the nature reserve, there’s plenty to do to keep you busy on the island!
Hello Kitty Island Adventure is available to play on Apple Arcade, which has it pros and cons. It’s fun to be able to take the game with you everywhere you go, but boy has my phone battery been suffering because of it. It also excludes everyone that doesn’t have Apple products which is a big disappointment; while you can play online with friends I was unable to as my friends are android users which was a shame. It would’ve been amazing to see this released on Switch and Steam with more features and gameplay available for everyone to enjoy.
Overall though, for a mobile game I was pleasantly surprised by how large the map is, how many quests and events there are and the attention detail. It’s a great little game, I would recommend it to all Sanrio fans and cosy gamers alike!
- Have you played… Hello Kitty Island Adventure? - October 2, 2023
