Mario Party has defined the party game genre for decades, and in recent years, many games have put their own twists and take on the formula, including Sanrio Games’ newly released Hello Kitty Party Land. On paper, Hello Kitty Party Land offers a lot of content with the Sanrio characters and cuteness that fans come to expect. However, one major question involves its overall execution, so there’s a lot to get into with this one.
As its namesake suggests, Hello Kitty Party Land takes players to Party Land with their newly created avatar to team up with their favorite Sanrio characters. From solo play to up to 4 players locally or online, you can enjoy an assortment of mini-games both on and off the available boards. Party Land also acts as a hub with its own separate mini-games and activities that you can complete for some extra rewards. So far, this sounds like the making of a great party game for Sanrio fans, but there are some caveats.
Hello Kitty Party Land Takes You to a Sanrio Wonderland
To cut to the chase, Hello Kitty Party Land is a game that feels more grand than it actually is. With over 145 Sanrio characters and more than 45 mini games, you’d think that there’s more than enough to hold you over, especially with friends. I actually played Hello Kitty Party Land with friends for this review, and while it was fun, we quickly ran through most of what the game offers in just a few sessions. This comes down to a number of factors, but one of the most glaring is the lack of distinct boards to play on, with Hello Kitty Party Land only having three.
On the boards, you have a goal that all four participants (either local, online, and/or with a mix of CPU and real players) must meet within a certain amount of days, with one day comprising of one turn for each participant. These goals involve delivering a certain amount of items to certain checkpoints throughout the map. These items are acquired by completing mini-games and “Petit Games,” which are smaller individual mini-games that are reminiscent of WarioWare mini-games. Typically, party games are more like a friendly competition to see who wins out at the end, but in Hello Kitty Party Land’s case, this is more like a co-op game where its the collective goal is what everyone is chasing for together.
The first board serves as a tutorial, while the other two boards are slightly more challenging with some Sanrio NPCs that get on the board to influence the game for the four main participants, for better or worse. Besides that, the objective is still the same: deliver enough items to each checkpoint on the board before you run out of time. Once the goal is met, there’s one grand mini-game to close out the session and get a look everyone’s results. On boards and mini-games, you’re graded by the group’s overall performance, ranging from Bronze to Platinum.
Board games, and essentially everything else in the game, is accessible from various sections in the Party Land hub, which is populated by Sanrio characters. Game Park holds all the board games and Petit Games, Photo Studio lets you switch your Sanrio partners and grants you the ability to take photos, Sky Farm lets you grind farming mini-games for extra coins, Creative Labo offers art, music and puzzle-based mini-games, and the Shopping Mall lets you buy clothes and gear for your avatar.
Over time, the characters that appear in Party Land will refresh, which comes in handy for collecting stickers. Every player has a sticker book consisting of stickers representing the Sanrio characters they’ve talked thus far. With so many characters in the game, collecting all of them will take a long time, so you’ll have to be regularly checking the game every day to find them. Occasionally, there are “Hide and Seek” that show up in the hub world, allowing you to talk to more Sanrio characters.
A Decent Game That Falls Short
I would like to go more in depth, but the fact is that Hello Kitty Party Land lacks depth, and that may be partly due to the game’s main audience being children. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the Sanrio brand appeals to millions of fans around the world of all ages, with many of them being adults. Once you’ve experienced all the content I’ve described, there’s really not much else to do other than maybe going back to the game from time to time with friends willing to play and get more stickers. Of course, party games like this are meant to be replayable with the content that’s already there, which isn’t a bad thing. There’s still something left to be desired in the form of additional contents and modes.
I also had a few gripes with the overall game design for Hello Kitty Party Land. Strangely, you can’t pause or change in-game settings while in the Party Land hub, and there are no clear indicators about when the game is saving, either. In addition, if you decide to start the game in solo, you can invite friends to play mini-games, but you’d have to return to the main menu to start up a room. Since there’s no pause menu, you have to go back to the “exit” sign in the main plaza of Party Land, which isn’t totally inconvenient but it’s also just an extra step you need to take. What’s more, one of the disappointing aspects of the game that my friends had some complaints about were the lack of playable Sanrio character. Despite there being over 145 Sanrio characters, only 16 of them are “playable” as partners, which can be a bummer for fans of particular characters.
Overall, Hello Kitty Party Land is a fun game with a cute, vibrant artstyle and a variety of mini-games, but it’s one that adult gamers will burn through rather quickly with friends. The board games are fun, but there should have been more boards to leverage the varied roster of Sanrio characters. Once you experience the main content that game has to offer, it becomes a test of the game’s overall replayability, which will vary greatly from person to person. For a $50 game, being left with that feeling can be disappointing. For kids and hardcore Sanrio fans, there’s still enjoyment to be had here, but you shouldn’t expect more than a few sessions before seeing all that there is to show.
Hello Kitty Party Land is available now for Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 in the Nintendo eShop and physically at retail.
Disclaimer: Bandai Namco provided Nintendo Switch 2 review copies of Hello Kitty Party Land for review purposes.
