In a world that’s seemingly full of a continuing stream of negativity, many people have turned to video video games as a welcome distraction from all of it. Since 2020, the Nintendo Swap has seen an enormous number of video games to make us really feel good and heat inside.
The newest on this stream of cosy video games comes within the type of Sanrio’s Hiya Kitty Island Journey. Having been an Apple Arcade unique for a while, it was inevitable that it will see launch on the Nintendo Swap and discover an viewers able to dive in.
The sport begins by asking you to create your personal Sanrio impressed character. There are various choices between the kind of animal you need to be, to giving them a face, ear design and color scheme. By the point you’re achieved, you’ll find yourself with one thing that wouldn’t look misplaced in the event that they determined to create a brand new mascot to affix Hiya Kitty’s crew. When you’ve acquired your creation, you’re then launched to all the primary characters that may participate within the recreation as you’re on a flight to the island with them.
Chatting with the characters instantly confirmed that the writers have taken particular care to verify every mascot is an correct illustration of their personalities. Hiya Kitty comes throughout because the caring chief of the group, Badtz-Maru drips with sarcasm and may’t wait to prank everybody, and Pochacco can’t wait to see how he can preserve his health as soon as he lands on the island. Even Retsuko, who isn’t an official Sanrio character, tells you she doesn’t know anyone on the airplane, however must destress on the island resulting from her demanding work commitments. Anybody acquainted with these guys shall be happy that they’ve been handled with respect.
Seen from an isometric perspective, you’re fast to find that most of the characters have been misplaced, and that you could carry out a number of missions to set the island up. You quickly uncover that there’s loads of island to discover by unlocking totally different zones. As you full missions and construct relationships with everybody, the sport continues to open up.
The sense of development is what units this aside from a sure different recreation full of animals. Whereas this may occasionally come throughout as a recreation that allows you to wander round at your personal tempo and set your personal targets and targets, it’s extra about accumulating, exploring, and finishing quests. There are puzzle dungeons, scavenger hunts, mine cart rides, and pictures, and there’s loads of all of that to do. Throw in some cellular model every day quests to do, and you end up a bundle the place you’ll infrequently end up with out one thing to do.
The place the sport can sometimes journey itself up nevertheless, is that once you start a sure quest, it makes the mascots concerned in that quest too busy so that you can try different quests that additionally contain them, together with the primary storyline. I obtained a date-specific quest that had me discovering some objects for Badtz-Maru’s birthday. This quest locked up 5 totally different characters whereas I needed to discover a sure kind of comedian ebook to proceed my quest. The comedian books you will discover change every day, so I ended up locked from the primary quest, in addition to having access to diving and fishing for over 4 days. As soon as the sport lastly provided the precise comedian ebook wanted, I immediately had entry to the remainder of the sport.
Total, although, it’s a satisfying gameplay loop that offers the whole lot which means. Whether or not you’re accumulating objects to present items, to make meals, to craft issues, or to finish quests, the whole lot appears to have its objective within the recreation. Strawberry containers might be collected and used to refurbish cabins that may then be furnished with furnishings that you simply discover littered across the island or that you simply’ve crafted your self.
Furnishing the cabins has itself one other objective as nicely, when you get your personal cabin, you may then unlock and enhance different cabins round the entire island. Customising the interiors can then entice among the lesser-known Sanrio characters similar to Pricey Daniel and Mama and Papa (Pompompurin’s dad and mom), which provides much more quests and friendships to construct over time.
The mini dungeons that you will discover littered across the island provide some puzzle parts to the sport. None of them are significantly troublesome, and it might need been good if there have been some challenges, however they do provide some selection to the remainder of the sport. Every puzzle includes buttons and switches that may open and shut doorways, and it’s as much as you to determine methods to open the trail to get the treasure positioned in every dungeon.
Different actions to do embrace accumulating bugs and fishes, which add to your general collections within the achievements menu. There’s a place within the swamp to donate and show bugs, however after taking part in for a few weeks, I haven’t discovered wherever to donate the fish, with the one option to show them being to place them in fish tanks inside cabins. Amassing bugs and fish doesn’t really feel overly strong, and they aren’t tied to the calendar both, so accumulating all of them might be achieved after you have a web and a rod.
The sport may be very cute graphically and general does very nicely to convey the 2D world of Sanrio into the 3D area. Regardless of not wanting overly intensive, there are moments the place the framerate dips, and the sport comes to a whole cease each time it auto saves. Normally, these stoppages final simply lengthy sufficient to make you assume the sport has crashed, earlier than it leap begins again into issues.
Outdoors of proudly owning a Pompompurin drink bottle, I’ve no actual connection to the Hiya Kitty model general. Whereas I used to be anticipating one thing like an Animal Crossing with a Hiya Kitty pores and skin, what I acquired was one thing utterly totally different. There are some points that ought to be addressed, similar to missions blocking development and a few technical points that stopped me from having fun with it utterly. Hopefully, these points might be addressed in future updates as it’s a strong title general.
Score: 3.5/5