"Hello Kitty! Goodbye Sanity!"

Hello Gamers! You know the saying "at least it's better than a sharp stick in the eye"? Well, a sharp stick in the eye would probably hurt less than this game. At least the pain would end. This game hurts from the minute you hear the tinkly introduction music to minute you angrily snap off the Game Boy in the middle of a puzzle. The premise is great--Hello Kitty meets Tetris. It sounded like it might actually be a good "girl's" game. Who doesn't love Hello Kitty? Who doesn't love puzzles? It sounded like fun combining the saucy sweetness of Hello Kitty with puzzle challenges. This could have been a great game. Something bad happened. Oh, the pain.

Game Play 5/10

Hello Engineers! You are Hello Kitty, and it's play time! This is a Tetris-like game with falling blocks that can manipulated to form chains or structures. Once you get a chain of three or more matching cubes, they disappear. The twist is the screen is cleared not by getting rid of all the blocks but by Hello Kitty moving back and forth across the screen, collecting prizes. Most of the prizes hang in mid-air, so you have to use the blocks to create structures she can climb. It doesn't take long until you have to become a structural engineer and quickly create architectural marvels in order for Hello Kitty to access the prizes. Blocks continuously fall from the sky, often landing on your structure and deleting vital configurations. To compound the frenzy, a motley crew of Hello Kitty's friends (or disturbing characters, as they are called in the manual) show up and kick out or change block configurations. Nothing is more frustrating to have FINALLY built a climbable tower and have Badtz-Maru kick it down. Or often you finally build a structure only to have time run out. There are 11 puzzle lands to explore. You cannot move on until you clear three stages in each level. The last stage of each level is usually virtually impossible to complete. The prizes are generally in unreachable places, and the blocks fall very fast. You lose if you run out of Hello Kitty lives, exceed the time limit, or if the blocks are piled so high that cubes can no longer drop. Once you complete the three stages, you unlock the next level. While challenging, I found the stages and levels to be very tedious and repetitive. Once you complete all 11 levels, you get an extra mode that allows you to play the game with 11 additional, familiar characters such as My Melody, Keroppi, and Pochacco.

There is also a storybook mode, which allows you to read the story of Hello Kitty's adventures. You add a chapter as you clear an entire level. You do not interact with the story. You simply scroll through pages and read inane stories. Once you complete a level, a free play mode unlocks that allows you to go back and play any completed land.

Controls 1/10

Hello Carpel Tunnel Syndrome! The controls are horrendous. At first I thought the buttons on my old Game Boy Color were unresponsive. After playing it on a newer Game Boy Advance, I discovered it's the game that's unresponsive. As with any Tetris style game, you can rotate, move and drop the blocks. This is done in a straightforward manner with the A/B buttons and the directional pad. The kicker is controlling Hello Kitty. In addition to manipulating the cubes, you have to move Hello Kitty, or she can die. To do this, you have to press and HOLD the Select button AND the A/B buttons. Yes, that's right. You press and hold down the Select button while pressing the A/B buttons. This disables the cube control feature, however, so cubes now can land wherever they fall. This is the most unwieldy button combination I have encountered. There is a noticeable time lag from pressing a button and having it respond. I found myself mashing the buttons and overshooting the place I wanted the blocks to land. The lack of button responsiveness often resulted in Hello Kitty's death by either large block combinations falling on her head or allowing her to fall off the game board.

Graphics 4/10

Hello Glasses! Tiny blocks, tiny sprites. Oh, look, that white Pong ball with a pink dress must be Hello Kitty! They spent far more time with the background and storybook graphics than with the dynamic elements. Each land has wallpaper that features Hello Kitty sporting a new outfit apropos to her location in the storybook. The colored cubes and characters are not rendered well, however. They look worse than some of the bad shirt designs my kids have created in Animal Crossing. At least you can tell what color and shape is on a cube. The so-called disturbing characters who knock your blocks around were utterly indiscernible. I had to reference the manual to find out they were Badtz-Maru, Pandaba, and Hana-Maru.

Sound 2/10

Hello Ear Plugs! This game has some very odd sounds. The soundtrack does changes with each level. But it is an endless loop of a peppy, repetitive sounds throughout each of the three stages of a level. Except when you start or clear a stage. Then you hear voices that sound like they were recorded from a fast food drivethru speaker. I expected to hear someone ask me if I wanted fries. It was very jarring to abruptly go from cheerful plinks and plunks to scratchy static.

Story 4/10

Hello Imagination! Since this is an arcade style game, there really is no story in the game mode. However, once you complete a level, you unlock a chapter in the storybook mode. It's filled with Hello Kitty's madcap, imaginary adventures in an unknown land. While she was asleep, that naughty penguin, Badtz-Maru, transported Hello Kitty to a strange place. Tears and determined resolution ensue as Hello Kitty tries to find her way back home. Along the way, she gets to try on new outfits and experience a world of fun! Oh goodie! If you are a Hello Kitty fan, you'll recognize some her dressed up in some of her merchandise lines such as Angel Kitty, Wedding Kitty, and Cowgirl Kitty. It was distressing to find the best graphics in the game in the storybook instead of the actual game.

Replay Value 1/10

Goodbye Kitty! If you can ever finish the game, I really don't know why you would want to play it again. Just savor the sweet victory of success.

Overall 3/10

Hello eBay! This is the only game in which I had to resort to unlock codes. This is the only game I have quit out of frustration. Everything from the instruction manual to the controls is frustrating. I can't imagine the target audience, a young child, being able to play this game. If you enjoy repetitious, difficult, puzzling challenges, puzzling controls, and puzzling graphics, you may enjoy this game. It's probably better to sell it to a "collector" on eBay, where it fetches more the original purchase price. Now that soothes the pain--a little.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/28/05