Hello Kitty: Roller Rescue

"Kitty needs rescuing from this roller mess...."

Tsk tsk Kitty. Tsk tsk. If you're a girl, chances are you've heard about the anime cartoon character Hello Kitty. Why? I don't know. Alls I know is that people find Kitty awfully cute. Well now she's got a game. And how does it fare? ...Just read the review.

STORY
Seems some evil aliens known as the Block Batalion have arrived on Earth to transform the planet and it's citizens into blocks themselves! Not one to let the bad guys get their way, Kitty decides to fight back. Thanks to her frog friend whose name escapes me, Kitty gets a flashy new outfit, rollerblades, and a magic wand that can kill the block creatures and help her save the world. Too bad it's one of the shortest and lamest adventures around.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are kiddy and simplistic. That being said I thought the game looked great. Seriously the environments have a nice cartoony feel, the characters all look very nice and round, and the CG cutscenes are actually pretty sweet to look at. Namco always succeeds in this department. I couldn't complain. Don't expect Resident Evil 4 (not that you would), don't expect some awesome animations of Kitty as she rollerblades either. It's nice. It fits the material.

AUDIO
The audio however fails. First off there are no voice overs at all. This makes the story really dull and uninteresting. I'm not one to hate reading but I know there will be those odd bunch who can't stand it. Those odd bunch...probably have or had trouble at school. But I digress. The music is childish girly pop stuff, but none of the songs are catchy enough to get stuck in your head. Billy Hatcher this is not. So unfortunately, lame audio.

GAMEPLAY
It looks great but does the game follow up with some awesome gameplay? HELL NO! First off this would be a first in a video game like this for me. I beat the game in 2 and a half hours. From start to finish, no cheats. That's not even the sad part. The sad part is I didn't die once. The game is too easy.

There are only 16 levels in the game, and 6 of those levels are boss fights, so there's really only 10 levels. It's 2 levels, boss, 2 levels, boss and so on. The game is ridiculously simple and repetitive. All you ever did in this game was mash the B button to kill enemies, and jump from platform to platform every once in awhile. That's it. If this game was actually long you'd hate it even more. The enemies have the stupidest AI ever. Seriously they walk in a single line going back and forth as if it had some kind of purpose. They're slow, not very threatening, and overall easy to beat.

Kitty is too slow for a girl on rollerblades. Seriously. You'll find you'll have to mash the spin button a lot just because it helps her go places a lot faster. The game tells you how to clear every boss leaving the challenge to be non-existent. The only thing left to unlock in the game are some new clothes and all of the music tracks and movies featured in the levels. You also save these characters who then join your party and help make the game even easier than it already was. One thing I couldn't understand then is why this game doesn't have a co-op feature to play with a friend. Seems like the smart thing to do doesn't it?

IN THE END...
Look if you suck as a gamer and you're a huge fan of Hello Kitty, you're probably gonna like this game. But everyone else who is a real serious gamer, avoid this terrible waste of space. And don't hate me because I'm not a Hello Kitty fan. If I was I'd still say the game sucked. And now that that's outta the way....why is Hello Kitty popular!? I don't get it!

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/09/06