Hello Kitty Island Adventure had been a meme from the South Park franchise when Butters Leopold Stotch admitted that he was not playing World of Warcraft, but this cozy little adventure. Funnily enough, the game didn’t exist yet. The original release from 2023 sharing its name with the line is just a wild coincidence (or is it?). Now, in 2025, we can experience the very real game on consoles. Read on for our Hello Kitty Island Adventure review!

“I don’t play World of Warcraft, I’m playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure”

The game starts off like most cozy adventure games do by customizing your character. Since you’re in the Sanrio world you are selecting what animal critter you are. You pick from a dog, cat, bunny, horse, bird or a sheep. The selection is minimal at the start but there are pallets that you can unlock later throughout the game as you build your relationships with the islanders.

You’re venturing off on a vacation to an island with the Sanrio gang. If you’re familiar with Sanrio, Hello Kitty and My Melody have plans to turn this island into a getaway of everyone’s dreams, along with Kuromi, Batzmaru, and more familiar faces. That is, until the plane crashes. 

Now you and all your new friends are separated on this vast island. My Melody requests your help to find the ones who fell away from the main residential area, and to give them their welcome gifts. As you do so, you start to help other residents with any quest they have. This unlocks new island areas and secrets.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure was originally released as an iOS mobile game. Playing it on the Switch shows that the menu screen and inventory hub give it that gacha phone vibes, only without the microtransactions. As one might expect, the gameplay shares similarities with games like Animal Crossing. It doesn’t have the same user interface, but you are constantly doing quests to keep the story going. The game for the most part has an open world. You can craft, pick up and collect items, fish, collect bugs, design homes, and unlock outfits. All the best features from any cozy game. 

Questionable Performance

Due to it starting as an iOS game, transferring over to consoles means that it doesn’t run very well. I experienced a ton of stuttering and frame drops when just wandering around. The action buttons tend to switch around, which is confusing. Activating conversations and picking up items, or activating actions are all on the A button. But giving gifts or items to complete a task is on the Y button. This would be fine but when playing mini games, mining or any non-controllable character moments, the action button is Y instead of A. This can be confusing for those who are used to muscle memory.

The item menu is also frustrating to go through, and navigating through quests is a hot mess. As it populates a ton of locked quests and weekly quests, it muddles up where you are in the game to continue further. These are all viewed in the menu screen. Certain quests are hard to even know how to start or unlock. You need to level up your friendship with the residents before knowing where to go next, but you have no idea who would be the person to talk to. A lack of reading or missing dialogue isn’t to blame, either. Once you finish a quest event the next objective won’t even trigger.

After unlocking certain areas, it’s hard to know where to go next as talking to residents just starts a new quest or they ask what you want which leads to “tips on gifts” or “talk to you later” options. For example, you cannot swim, so you’ll need the snorkels to be able to even touch water. But you need to unlock the schematics to craft them and by then I didn’t even know how to trigger it. I could not figure out if it was in an event or if I had to trigger a conversation to unlock them.

I was speaking with Kuromi for a different quest, and when our friendship level went up, I noticed it was available to unlock but only after granting a higher level of friendship. Another questionable thing was the photo mode. You can pause background action so the character will pause to take a picture with you. It’s similar to Animal crossing’s photo mode, as it’s limited to moving around where you decide to take the photo. Decorating your home is also limited. Some items can not go on tables or other furniture – you have to place a lot of objects on the floor. 

The Friends We Make Along the Way

Let’s talk about what the game does right. Fishing was interesting and different from other cozy game’s fishing mechanics. I liked that when you were reeling in fish you have to toggle the stick from left to right to follow the needle and stay in the green. It was not like an easy tap and time or painfully challenging (looking at you Stardew Valley). The friendship gauge and leveling friendship isn’t too difficult. The character’s personalities match their TV shows’ counterparts and are hilariously wholesome. Batzmaru is a prankster and enjoys prank-like gifts, whereas Chococat is a bit more specific on what he likes. I was able to work with certain treats that are themed to Chococat but nothing else fits their wants. Gudetama had me looking for this little egg in every area I ventured off to since you have to take his picture.

Since it started as a mobile game, players can expect the typical trappings of daily and weekly objectives. The game has log-in rewards and other multiplayer tasks to complete, as well.

Verdict

I definitely appreciated the theme and the type of game Hello Kitty Island was striving to be. It has a little bit of everything with the social aspects, quest grinding, collectibles, and adventure exploration packed into a cute island getaway. As a cozy gamer who plays like a lone wolf, rather than with multiple people, I can see why Butters preferred Hello Kitty Island Adventure to World of Warcraft. I just wish it ran a bit smoother on console and that the UI was cleaned up over time.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is available on all major platforms and mobile. Reviewed on Nintendo Switch with a code provided by the publisher.

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