Hello Kitty Island Adventure surprised me in the best way possible. Where I expected a lower-production value Animal Crossing-like game painted in Hello Kitty colors, made to cash in on Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ runaway success, and put in front of the lucrative mobile audience, the demo I played presented me with so much more. I explored, made friends, and completed challenges around an island in an early version of the Switch port for Hello Kitty Island Adventure.
Hello Kitty Island Adventure was originally released on Apple Arcade last year, blending management sim-like mechanics with light exploration, platforming, and puzzle solving to create a comprehensive cozy adventure. Think Animal Crossing or a less intensive version of Stardew Valley combined with A Short Hike or the exploration and quest systems you’d find in a 2D Zelda game. If you’ve played Animal Crossing, you’ll find a lot of this game’s setup pretty easy to parse out. It’s all about building out your island and inviting cute Sanrio characters to live on it.
I checked out an early story quest for about half an hour. I helped My Melody find new clothing stands for her clothing shop while playing as an adorably chunky, self-designed cat in a Gudetama outfit. I stumbled across so many small, fun diversions while looking around that kept me engaged during what would otherwise be a simple fetch quest in the starting area.
One task had me reliving Mario 64 Red Coin challenges as I raced to pick up a handful of pink coins in a quick timeframe. Another was less of a deliberate challenge and more of a collectible: statues of Gudetama, Sanrio’s lethargic egg mascot, are scattered around the island for you to photograph. I only found two or three of the 132 ovate statues peppered around the island, but you’ll be rewarded with special decorations, clothing, and other rewards for every 12 that you find and capture with your camera.
These little diversions are admittedly small, but infusing microscopic platforming and puzzle challenges into the management sim-like quest structure adds so much value to your time. It encourages you to go off the beaten path and explore. That coin challenge I mentioned earlier, for example, led me to find a new item.
After that, I started on a story quest that helped me unlock a swamp-like section of the island, which in turn helped me make new friends, like Keroppi. My demo ended pretty soon after I unlocked this new area, but I was blown away after a look at Hello Kitty’s full map, which dwarfed the starting area. My half-hour with Island Adventure was clearly only the tip of the iceberg.
Developer Sunblink has been supporting and supplementing Island Adventure with free content updates Since its original release on Apple Arcade almost a year ago, regularly adding new characters from Sanrio’s surprisingly deep roster of characters to befriend. While the developer I spoke with didn’t confirm any details about who or what we should expect to see in the future, they’ve promised full parity with the mobile version day-and-date when it launches on consoles and PC next year.
Sunblink has done such a good job supporting its Apple Arcade hit, in fact, that my only concern with its future is its Switch port. The demo I played was presented on Switch and it ran pretty poorly. It was still playable, but it dropped a concerning number of frames. It’s an issue that I sure hope will be ironed out by the time Hello Kitty and friends make the jump to Nintendo’s handheld-console hybrid, but knowing what we’ve seen in other ports to the Switch, I’ll believe it when I see it.
Chugging performance aside, I had a great time running around the island with Saniro’s charming stars. Whether I was doing mild platforming or completing a quest, I was consistently impressed with how and where Island Adventure took opportunities to give me stuff to do as I completed story quests. Fans of cozy games or someone who’s looking for a fun adventure for a younger gamer should keep their eyes on Hello Kitty: Island Adventure if they haven’t already had a chance to play it on Apple Arcade.
