To say I was jealous of all iPhone and iPad owners when Hello Kitty Island Adventure was released on Apple Arcade would be an understatement. After feeling burned out by the latest Animal Crossing adventure, I needed to spend some time with my boy Tuxedosam as soon as I could. And I’m happy to say that the wait for a console/PC release was well worth it. Hello Kitty Island Adventure is unironically one of the best cozy games to play solo or with a few friends. And I can’t believe I’m saying that. Should I be thanking South Park for meme’ing this into existence?

‘Hello Kitty Island Adventure’ Blends Questing and Comfort for a Massive Package

The story starting with all these adorable little Sanrio fellas jumping out of a crashing plane was not how I expected this one to kick off. But honestly, I’m thankful that they must not have quality control in Sanrio-land, because Hello Kitty Island Adventure is just pure cozy bliss. After creating a character of my own that I could customize and reconfigure at any time, it was time to set off.

I also didn’t expect the game to be so quest-heavy. Standard quests, friendship quests, side quests, multiplayer quests. That’s a lot of quests! There’s always something to do, and that’s not even putting the standard game into consideration. Puzzles, haunted houses, minecarts; there’s so much to interact with in Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Plus, the fear of FOMO is drastically minimized here.

Rather than focusing on a real-world schedule, Hello Kitty Island Adventure features a day/night cycle. As I played, time would pass within the world, and I wouldn’t have to stress about staying up until 3 AM to catch a specific type of butterfly. Plus, any game with a good fishing mini-game automatically gets an extra bump in the right direction. And the fishing in Hello Kitty Island Adventure is quite good. Badtz-maru loves me, fish fear me.

Witty Writing and Unique Dialogue for Every Character Makes the World Shine

Adding to my ever-growing list of Hello Kitty Island Adventure surprises is the fun dialogue. It doesn’t matter if it’s just characters speaking, or when you’re responding right back to them, every character is full of personality. And they all feel unique. Maybe that’s an added benefit of not having over 400 characters that you need to try and make feel unique.

The smaller cast of characters never loses their charm, either. Even after putting in an unhealthy amount of hours in both single and multiplayer, I still can’t wait to interact with them daily. Seeing what kind of mischief Kuromi is getting into, compared to My Melody just hanging out around the village. Each of these characters has their own little lives, and I’m happy to be a part of this vacation village.

As with any good cozy game, the ability to have a home of your own is also important. And rather than spending the rest of your life paying off Hello Kitty in sand dollars, they just… give me a house. And I can decorate it how I want with items I can purchase from the shops or find on the map? Pinch me, I have to be dreaming. The ebb and flow of Hello Kitty Island Adventure allows me to take this adventure at my own pace. There are plenty of things to do, and there’s no rush to do them.

Wait, There Are Shrine Puzzles in ‘Hello Kitty Island Adventure’?

Puzzles, adventures, and more await on the island, but what fun is that alone? Hello Kitty Island Adventure is completely playable in both solo and multiplayer, giving my wife the run of the island while I worked on story quests. There were a few notable parts of the multiplayer aspect I want to talk about, as well. If I hosted, for example, my wife would have access to every tool I unlocked. Even if she didn’t have it for herself in her normal save. This made exploration equal for everyone.

There are also Multiplayer Friendship Quests we could partake in, with each tier making our characters grow closer. We could stick by each other for extra stamina while climbing, swimming, and diving. We could earn unique items, and I could even gift her a cabin on my island. Multiplayer is fleshed out in Hello Kitty Island Adventure, and that’s a sentence I would never have imagined myself writing in the year 2025.

It’s genuinely some of the most fun I’ve had playing a multiplayer game with my wife. While I do wish she could also take pictures of the numerous Gudetamas that appear throughout the island to claim them for her own, it just gives us extra incentive to keep playing on her island later.

It Seems You Don’t Have To Join Them if You Want To Beat Them, Just Become an Animal Yourself

While Hello Kitty Island Adventure is released on more powerful hardware alongside the Switch, all of my game time was spent on the Switch version. Hello Kitty Island Adventure looks great on the antiquated hardware, and it’s one of those games that doesn’t require 4K/120FPS to look and play well. There were some stutters and dropped frames, to be fair, but it was never anything to detract from my overall experience.

Even looking at the screenshots I’ve captured while playing in handheld mode, Hello Kitty Island Adventure is a bright, vibrant world, and its art style makes it perfect to play on nearly any device. The controls are also tight and function as expected. If I found myself stuck somewhere I shouldn’t be, the game would quickly revert me to where I should be, and there were no crashes to report.

I will say, though: Hello Kitty Island Adventure does take a bit of time to initially load. It was so long that I admittedly thought the game froze. After that, however, load times were fairly minimal, allowing me to quickly enter and leave buildings and new areas.

The map itself is huge, and there are no loading screens between areas. While the PlayStation 5 will run this game at a much higher frame rate and resolution, the Switch version didn’t disappoint. Plus, it has daily rewards and all of the features from the mobile version.

‘Hello Kitty Island Adventure’ Could Be a Contender for Cozy Game of the Year, and I’m Not Kidding About That

I could heap praise on Hello Kitty Island Adventure all day, but I’ll leave it at this. If you’re a fan of Sanrio, this is a game for you. Cozy game fan? Give this one a try. Looking for something to play with a friend or significant other? Your plans have been sorted for the foreseeable future.

Maybe I just got burned by New Horizons. Animal Crossing: New Leaf is one of my all-time favorite games. And Hello Kitty Island Adventure is another great addition to the cozy game genre. There’s space for them both to coexist and plenty of enjoyment to be had by players of all skill levels.

What could have been a lazy cash-in title turned out to be one of the most feature-packed, content-rich, and genuinely best-feeling cozy games I’ve ever played. No matter what type of player you are, there’s something to love about the cozy vibes on display here.

Verdict: Highly Recommended

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Hello Kitty Island Adventure will be available on January 30, 2025, on Nintendo Switch and Steam — with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 releases later in the year. It is already available on Apple Arcade. A code was provided by the publisher for the sake of review. Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.