When it comes to video games based on Hello Kitty and her friends, most of the offerings haven't captured the fans' imagination. You might find some people who have heard of and were lucky enough to play the Balloon Kid clone known as Hello Kitty World, and there are a few who would claim that Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue was decent, but just about everything else was forgettable. Hello Kitty Island Adventure is different, and what started out as an Apple Arcade exclusive has finally made its way to the Nintendo Switch and PC.

The premise starts off simply enough. As you wake up from a nap, you find yourself on a plane with Hello Kitty and some of her friends. You find out that all of you are taking a trip to a mysterious island, which appeared as suddenly as the theme park did on that island. The oven on board the plane suddenly goes haywire, causing everyone to decide that it's a good idea to jump out of the plane with some balloons to float. Everyone lands safely on the island, but they're not together. While Hello Kitty and a few others are setting up for their vacation and related tasks, you're put in charge of reuniting the Sanrio characters and solving the mystery of the island.

The story doesn't catch you off guard as much as the introduction, but the presence of the mystery drives things along, even if the tale isn't as deep as in similar titles. The characters keep things charming, and while longtime Sanrio fans will love that the game stays true to the lore, newcomers will appreciate that the title quickly gets them up to speed with how the characters are supposed to act. Pochacco loves sports, Kuromi is kindhearted but mischievous, Badtz-Maru is tough but not mean, and so on.

The game occupies that cozy sub-genre of life simulator games, and the initial point of comparison many people would make is with Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Both games use a tropical island as their backdrop and give players the chance to partake in a ton of activities like fishing, bug hunting, cooking and crafting. You can be friends with the various Sanrio characters, and you can entice more characters to come over by decorating guest houses for them to stay in. There are stores to buy new clothes and furniture, and you can also collect various items hiding around the environment. The game also happens to employ a top-down viewpoint with a static camera.

While Nintendo's pandemic-era phenomenon serves as the blueprint for the game's basic design, Island Adventures also takes a ton of inspiration from the likes of Disney Dreamlight Valley from Gameloft. The game features different biomes from a typical island beachfront to a desert town, a haunted swamp, and even a place with an active volcano. There's no limit to the number of island inhabitants you can have, so you can have a bunch of people running around at any moment. There are also meters present, so you can immediately tell what your friendship levels are with the characters and how far you need to go for the next level. The kinds of gifts they like are also explicit, and the game features plenty of blueprints so you can craft and cook a variety of things. Quests were a big deal in Dreamlight Valley, and it's the same in this game. Some are pretty simple fetch quests, and others have you doing certain activities like baking items. Some are more involved, and even though the puzzles aren't difficult, their presence is welcome. The quest system gives the game more structure for those who crave it. It also helps that the game features both daily and weekly quests and some side-quests, like races or having to photograph the various Gudetamas hidden around the world.

Even though Animal Crossing serves as the game's base and Dreamlight Valley's many game mechanics flesh out a good deal of what you'll do, there are still a few unique elements. For starters, the character creation process might seem rather limited, especially since there isn't a plethora of colorways and clothing options to start with, but fans will appreciate that they can start as different animals like dogs, horses and rabbits to better fit in with the Sanrio cast. There's no limit to the number of items that can be carried on your person at any time, so you aren't worried about shuttling items back and forth or being unable to pick up one item without having to drop another one in your possession.

Currency is also something you don't need to worry about; everything works on a barter system, but that change also has its own drawbacks if you are looking for something rare. When it comes to multiplayer, you're limited to two players, but you can use a second player to help you solve some puzzles. Quests also have an option to have a guide, so you know where to get some items or get some tasks done. There's also a mini-map, so you can see at a glance where you're going instead of having to navigate menus to see a full-screen version of the map.

The biggest thing that cozy game players will notice is the general scope of the map. One look at the world map shows that the island is huge to the point that it can take several minutes to get from one end to another. Add in the game's verticality, and the world is easily one of the bigger ones in a cozy game to date. It helps that lots of areas are teeming with life, including insects, fish and other native inhabitants, so the place feel very lived in.

Complementing the large maps are your movement abilities. You can already run with a button press, but you'll need to reactivate it every time you change directions, and it doesn't take very long before you can swim and activate fast-travel points. Progress far enough into the game, and you'll unlock the ability to dive into the water and do some hang-gliding. The thing you'll use the most is jumping and climbing, since the game has some verticality. Much like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the game features a stamina meter for climbing. While you can level it up enough to have a meter that drains very slowly, you have enough stamina by default to climb to the top of many surfaces to explore areas and find hidden items in otherwise unreachable places.

Despite all of the good mechanics on display, there are a few things that hold back Island Adventures from being a near-perfect cozy game experience. Compared to other genre titles, there's not much in the way of customization. Forget about making your own clothes with various designs. Those who want to customize the placement of houses or decorations will be out of luck, so everyone's version of their island is the same as everyone else's. There's also not much in the way of furniture placement; you can't even place smaller objects on top of larger ones. Having to entice Dear Daniel to come over, for example, requires you to decorate a house with an apple pie, but it is a bit strange that you can't place that pie on a table. To that end, don't expect to do much interaction with furniture — which Animal Crossing still excels at.

The one main complaint that some people would have about the game would be with the obvious grind involved. A majority of the abilities, quests and progress is tied to your friendship levels with the various island inhabitants. Leveling up requires you to finish their related quests and give them their favorite gifts. While that may seem easy early on, it becomes more difficult when you reach the higher levels. That's expected, but the hard limit of three gifts per day per person means that you can go quite a while before your favorite characters give you something new to aim for. It wasn't much of an issue in Animal Crossing, since that game was so freeform that you weren't actively aiming for goals all the time. It also wasn't an issue in Dreamlight Valley, since you could still give anyone gifts, even though the friendship level gain wouldn't be so high. For those not willing to abide by the game's forced pacing, this can be a real drag.

The game does a good job on the audio side of things. The soundtrack fits the aesthetic of each biome nicely, and it's at a low enough volume that it doesn't sound overwhelming. It also lets you know it's still there and when a song transition happens. The effects fit in fine, and while some may be disappointed that the game features no voices, others will be fine with it.

Graphically, the game looks quite good. The world is clean and colorful, with everything having just enough pop without looking garish. The animations are cute, and the frame rate is solid throughout. Those with ultrawide displays will be both pleased and disappointed, as the game goes beyond the normal 16:9 ratio but not enough to cover a 21:9 ratio. It's an odd choice but perhaps one due to the game's iOS roots.

For those on the Steam Deck, the game fits well on that device. You're getting a full 1280x800 resolution, and the battery life hits around three-and-a-half hours on a full charge on the LCD version of the device. There aren't too many graphical options to mess around with, and while you will get 60fps most of the time, there are moments when the game will hitch and drop frames for a second before returning to normal.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is a solid game that's full of charm for fans of the cozy game sub-genre. The map is large and varied, the number of characters feels like the right amount. The activities blend in well with the light adventuring aspect, and there are a few quality-of-life changes that feel like they should be adopted by other cozy games. The only knock is in the more prevalent progression gating, but if you aren't bothered by that, then you'll enjoy what this licensed game offers.

Score: 8.0/10