Review: Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade grooves to the rhythm of its own beat

If you love repetition, you’ll love Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade.

Image: Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade / Netflix / Rogue Games, Inc / Dabadu Games

Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade Developer: Netflix, Rogue Games, Inc., Dabadu Games Publisher: Rogue Games, Inc. Switch Release Date: 10/26/2023	Review Score: 6
Quick Verdict:	Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade is worth owning if you’re a fan of the IP and rhythm games.
Pros:	Art style is very faithful to the IP Music is catchy
Cons:	Not a lot of ways to heal Forced game restart upon death is frustrating
Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade is available on Nintendo Switch, Android, and iOS.	The reviewer played Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade on Nintendo Switch. A code for Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade was provided to GameCrate by the publisher.

Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade is an adorable title that brings a lot of the beloved Sanrio characters to the rhythm game genre.

I’m not the biggest Hello Kitty fan and even I bend the knee to the sweet franchise. So, when I got the opportunity to review Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade, it was a no-brainer.

As a cozy gamer, this game was made for a casual player so someone looking for more story or substance probably won’t enjoy this title.

Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade Story and Gameplay

Image: Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade / Netflix / Rogue Games, Inc / Dabadu Games

Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade pops you into this tile-based map where each tile represents a setting and a song. Sometimes those tiles have familiar Sanrio characters that you can unlock by meeting certain requirements.

As far as the story goes, there’s nothing too deep to dive into. It’s just a simple concept where you play games and earn coins to either upgrade your characters or buy cosmetic items for them.

This style of gameplay offers replayability, but also frustration because it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels with little to no progress.

You get three characters to form your team and they each have a unique power to implement. Your team in the beginning is firmly Hello Kitty, My Melody, and Pompompurin. You’ll need to unlock more characters for different teammates and different attacks.

This game isn’t linear. As you go through these tiles, you’ll lose health. The opportunity to gain health back is slim and once that character is down to 0, they’re out for the rest of this game run, not just the tile.

When all three of your characters die, the game resets. You keep cosmetic items, unlocked characters, and any upgrades you paid for. But, you start back from zero and must play through the tiles again to get back to where you died or beyond.

Overall, the art and music felt very faithful to the brand.

This style of gameplay offers replayability, but also frustration because it can feel like you’re spinning your wheels with little to no progress.

I grew up on classic rhythm game titles like Bust a Groove, Parappa the Rapper, and Guitar Hero. So, I thought I’d pick up the concept fairly easily. I suppose an old dog can learn new tricks with some practice because it took me a couple of songs to really understand how to play the game.

There are two modes to play depending on the difficulty level you’re looking for. You can play the first mode which means you need to be tapping a button to the rhythm of every single step or a relaxed mode that lets you simply move your character back and forth.

Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade originated as a mobile game, so I can see where these control mechanics were more intuitive on a phone. However, it took a bit to know which buttons needed to be hit. You’re not just tapping one button to a beat, you’re tapping a direction, so the button changes each time, even if you’re going down a straight line.

I find that this style of gameplay brings something unique to the genre, but with a tutorial that proved a bit lacking, it can be a bit frustrating at first.

Art / Music

Image: Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade / Netflix / Rogue Games, Inc / Dabadu Games

The set dressing for the game is charming and classic Sanrio. The character design is faithful and the cosmetic items you can put on each character are thought out. There are items that call back to certain art pieces throughout the years that make some items feel like a little Easter egg.

The only thing that I wish was different was the ability to either heal between tiles or to play from where you died.

As for the music, I don’t know why I didn’t expect J-pop-related music, but in hindsight, it seems the only choice for a Hello Kitty rhythm game. I wasn’t already familiar with any of the musicians that I got to play levels with, but they definitely added a good element to the game.

Overall, the art and music felt very faithful to the brand. The only thing that’s worth mentioning is that there are some flashing neon lights that could cause issues if you have sensory needs. Luckily, the developers thought ahead and you can turn those off. Even without issues myself, I turned them off because they were giving me a headache.

Verdict

Image: Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade / Netflix / Rogue Games, Inc / Dabadu Games

Overall, I think that if you love Hello Kitty or rhythm games, then this game should definitely be on your radar. I played it on Switch and I felt that the $19.99 price tag is fair, but may be pushing the ceiling on what is an acceptable price.

The only thing that I wish was different is the ability to either heal between tiles or to play from where you died. The forced repetition is where the game takes a huge hit on the score for me. It’s a massive con for anyone looking for more than repetitive gameplay.

Luckily, Nintendo is running a sale right now, so you can get Hello Kitty and Friends: Happiness Parade for $16.99 on the Switch Shop until November 10th and I’d say that if you’re a fan of mobile-style rhythm games, you should snag it!

(Editor's note: Minor wording/grammatical changes.)

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