Fans of Animal Crossing: New Horizons can rejoice as Hello Kitty Island Adventure flies onto the Nintendo Switch and PC. As an avid Animal Crossing: New Horizons (AC:NH) fan, I have been frothing to get this ever since it launched on Apple Arcade. Sadly its initial exclusivity meant us cosy gamers had to wait for it to come to other platforms. So does it live up to the hype? Short answer: Yes… and here’s why!

Free from capitalist slavery (AKA no nasty Nook)

Right off the bat, I was hit with a pleasant surprise: Hello Kitty Adventure Island’s plaza looks like a swanky resort, completely weed-free, stick-free, and hornet-less. In fact, there aren’t even any hornets nests in Hello Kitty Island Adventure, for which I’m thankful (the one-eyed look doesn’t suit me). There’s already a bunch of people living on Friendship Island, even though we all jumped out from a plane at the same time and landed here… Hmm, interesting. I’ll roll with it.

*Big doors for a big island. Very Jurassic Park.*

I actually relish the island being set up. Setting up my island in AC:NH was the most painstaking process ever because I terraformed my whole island from scratch — because OCD. I’m totally enjoying the chill vibe of not having to stress over perfecting every flower arrangement. No one is roping you into a huge debt, jacking up rent, and locking me into a contract (quoting our Deputy Editor Shaun here). You’re actually meant to focus on questing, crafting, fishing, and collecting, but not for nefarious capitalist reasons. No one’s trying to sell me overpriced turnips!

Where friendship means no freeloading

The characters on Hello Kitty Island Adventure all have their own little niches. Bad Badtz-maru runs a comic book stand, Chococat is a crafting guru — basically, everyone’s doing their thing. The cool part? No one’s waiting for you to build their house or get them some absurd number of rare flowers. Instead, you trade goods (just like the old days) which makes the whole thing feel more like a nice exchange of services. A circular economy if you will. However, store stock doesn’t change daily like AC:NH, but it’s nice to not chase the short-form satisfaction of retail therapy.

I should mention though, you DO have an option to upgrade cabins scattered throughout the island to entice some of Sanrio’s other popular characters to live on the island, like Dear Daniel, Hello Kitty’s boyfriend.

Just like AC:NH, you can gift items to local residents, who are of course, all of Hello Kitty’s friends, but there’s more incentive to do so. In Hello Kitty Island Adventure, you can build friendship levels with different characters. As you level up with each character, you unlock quests or items — so there’s actually a reason to care about what each friend likes. And the best part? You don’t have to guess. The game tells you what each character likes, which makes gifting a breeze. No more handing a random villager a rock and hoping they don’t give you a sarcastic response.

Gameplay is Gangbusters

*The little yellow ball of light above the umbrella is my Guiding Light.*

Questing is fun and straightforward in Hello Kitty Island Adventure. There’s a nifty Guiding Light feature to show you around to your next destination when tracking quests, making it very kid-friendly without feeling like it’s holding your hand too much. You won’t be too spoon-fed, but it does make navigating the island way easier. Trust me, you’re gonna need it — it’s a pretty big island.

There’s a tonne of quests to sink your teeth into: daily, weekly, story-driven, and more. You’ll be unlocking new areas, tools, and recipes as you go. And because the island is so expansive, you’ll need all those tools. There’s also puzzles to solve in quests, so you won’t be walking around mindlessly on autopilot.

*Is that what I was alluding to? Who knows.*

Oh, and speaking of getting around… forget endless running back and forth. Hello Kitty Island Adventure includes easy ways to get around the island. I won’t go into too much detail to avoid spoilers — but it’s super helpful and gives us more time to focus on completing those quests!

Some other differences

Foraging? Very AC:NH-ish. You get your fishing rod, net, and camera, and you’re off to collect. Cooking is where things get extra fun. When I played AC:NH, cooking wasn’t available but I understand it’s possible to do now. In Hello Kitty Island Adventure, you can whip up food in Hello Kitty’s cafe (the closest I’ll ever get to it because I didn’t make it to the one in Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre), or use a pizza oven I found. Food is mainly of the baked or oven-fired variety, and you can experiment to unlock recipes. Seriously, I don’t know what it is about unlocking new food in games, but I love it.

*Bad Badtz-maru showing me the ropes – I mean lines.*

Fishing is more interactive than AC:NH, which is cool at first. You can use bait or just cast your line and hope for the best. But you actually have to actively reel in the fish with your thumbstick, so it feels more engaging. That said, it could get a bit repetitive, but eh, it’s a minor gripe.

One of my other gripes is actually with crafting. The mechanic itself is fine, but the animation for crafting takes a little too long for my liking. Also, every time you do anything, the game kicks you out of your menu. You can’t just stay in the crafting menu to do the next thing, which gets a little annoying. Just let me keep crafting, okay?

*Can’t adjust the camera angle to see my face!*

On the plus side, you can quickly switch between tools by pressing LB (on my Steam Deck), which is a total game-changer when you’re chasing bugs. I found using the thumbstick to manually select it was a little jankier, so was stoked when I found this little hack.

My main gripe in the game? Camera angle movement. It impacted playability a little, when I couldn’t see where I was fishing, picking things up, trying to take pictures etc. It didn’t impact my playthrough, but would’ve been good to be able to move the camera on my own.

Speaking of camera angles — one feature I was egg-cited to have is spotting Gudetama, one of my personal favourite characters. You’re asked to take pictures of Gudetama when you see him on the island, giving me a cute laugh when I find him posing. He’s basically my spirit animal (he’s an egg, guys).

I don’t want to say goodbye Kitty

It’s clear why Hello Kitty Island Adventure won Apple Arcade’s Game of the Year. The world is huge and I felt like the quests were very well varied to avoid repetition and that annoying fetch-quest feeling. Sure, there are a few fetch quests, but they’re so cleverly mixed with other types of quests that you barely notice them.

There’s so much established on the island, which is a key difference from AC:NH where you have to basically set up your island. I don’t mind this, as I found trying to be creative and pretty stressful. Something to note if it’s a feature you really enjoy!

From what I’ve read, this version seems slightly different from the mobile game. I’d encourage players to demo it if they’re reluctant to commit to the price, given it is significantly shorter than AC:NH. This is probably my biggest roadblock to purchasing the game. I’d expect Sunblink to release DLCs for the game, but this hasn’t been officially confirmed. I had a super enjoyable single-player experience on my Steam Deck, and am looking forward to continuing my journey on Friendship Island.

Quest Daily scores Hello Kitty Island Adventure:

9/10

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is available now on Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam for $60.

A copy of Hello Kitty Island Adventure was supplied to Quest Daily for this review.

Review | Hello Kitty Island Adventure: ‘Animal Crossing Fans Rejoice’ (Switch)