Hello Kitty and all her friends have been sucked into a magical portal and end up in an abandoned fairy village.  Help Hello Kitty use a new magic wand to rebuild the village.  She needs star power to use the wand, so solve match three puzzles to earn stars to build the village.  Hello Kitty Friends Match is a free-to-play mobile game, but reviewed on iPad here.

Gameplay is pretty much like any other match three puzzler.  Slide objects with the touch screen to match three or more to make them disappear.  If you can match four or more into patterns, you can get an items like bombs, rockets, and more to help you clear out the level.  If you can slide two of these power-ups together, you can get an even more powerful item.  Each stage has certain tasks for you to finish, and if you do that within a certain amount of moves, you’ll earn a star.  But if you don’t, you’ll lose a heart and can’t play if you run out.  But hearts do regenerate over time.

You’ll use the stars to rebuild the village and move the story along.  Sometimes you can even pick your structures, like flower colors and whatnot.  There are character costumes you can buy with in-game purchases and such, too.  The game is decent, but it does get a bit hard after level 100 or so.  It’s just a shame because the last Hello Kitty game turned out really good.  That one is called Hello Kitty Island Adventure and I’ve been really enjoying it because it plays a lot like Animal Crossing.  You can play it on Switch or Apple Arcade (I’m playing it on Switch) and right now it’s my GOTY so far.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or objectionable here.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.  Parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases, though.

Tags: Game Reviews