After seeing Greta Gerwig’s Barbie film and enjoying Howdy Kitty Island Journey final weekend, I’ve to surprise: Is it cool to be a woman once more? However really. We’ve gotten glittering pop tracks that includes Energy Puff Lady-inspired visuals from NewJeans and Gerwig’s film has been launched to theaters to seemingly common fanfare and pink. Now, followers of cellular video games get a bit cherry on prime: a social sim that includes Sanrio’s forged of characters. The summer time of 2023 has been an ideal season for media geared toward ladies and women.
Howdy Kitty Island Journey – to not be confused with the fictional sport from South Park – is a social sim from developer Sunblink (Heroish). One half A Quick Hike and one other half Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Island Journey focuses on the same old sim-game points of interest of gathering objects, crafting, and baking, but in addition goes onerous on exploration by permitting me to climb and glide anyplace. It’s being printed by Apple Arcade, the place it can stay locked behind Apple’s subscription in the meanwhile. Whereas it’s suitable with a controller, I reviewed the sport on a fifth-generation iPad Air and caught to the common contact controls.
Howdy Kitty Island Journey kicks off with a fever dream during which a veritable who’s who of Sanrio characters bounce out of an airplane mid-flight after an onboard cake-baking disaster. I, and others like Howdy Kitty, Kuromi, Badtz-maru, and Keroppi, all leap from the emergency exit, and shortly the sky above the island is peppered with big-eyed puppies, bunnies, and extra floating down as they maintain onto bundles of celebration balloons. We land, and the true problem begins: It’s as much as me — an unnamed cutesy cat character I designed myself — to seek out everybody scattered throughout the island.
From right here on out, Sunblink tries to do so much: I can fish; I can prepare dinner; I can clear up block puzzles in micro dungeons; I can restore cabins and embellish them with themed furnishings units for guests, a la Animal Crossing: Pleased House Paradise; all of the whereas, I’m gathering objects with which to bolster my relationships with the remainder of the forged. Regardless of the sheer number of completely different actions, nonetheless, exploration varieties the spine of the sport. The island feels sprawling and stuffed to the brim with easy timer challenges, objects to forage, and critters to catch. It’s not overwhelmingly massive, however it accommodates a wide range of areas, together with a spooky swamp and a blistering volcanic expanse.
Though Sunblink largely leaves me free to roam from the beginning, there are specific parameters that direct the place I can go. To unlock sure objects or quests that open up different areas, for example, I have to stage up sure relationships. To do that, I want to offer characters presents tailor-made to their persona. Characters talk the preferences of others by means of dialogue, however Sunblink’s UI additionally turns out to be useful, displaying various numbers of hearts to point out how a lot every character will recognize disparate presents. Whereas a personality like Howdy Kitty will favor a cake, Kuromi prefers Jack-o’-lanterns.
Other than the exploration required to seek out new characters, it’s the fostering and upkeep of friendships that steers me all through my time on the island. I can solely give every character three presents per real-time day, and key crafting assets are equally restricted since they respawn every day in restricted portions. I discovered myself zooming by means of the early sport the place discrete quest situations helped me stage up friendships, however I hit lulls after unlocking the primary area the place I discovered myself grinding for presents that my unlocked forged would love.
By wholeheartedly leaning into the “journey” in Island Journey, Sunblink’s new title represents a really bold and earnest try and increase — even evolve — the sim video games which have captivated so many people since Animal Crossing: New Horizons by combining their conceits with the sweeping exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. (Throughout a latest preview, a developer informed me that their intention was to mix Breath of the Wild with a sim sport).
As a result of it reaches for a lot, Island Journey doesn’t all the time stay as much as its personal ambitions. Dungeon-like areas, like a haunted mansion I explored with Kuromi, make use of easy and tedious puzzles utilizing trapdoors and levers. Whereas there’s a stunning quantity to discover, spending sufficient time in every area will finally make the locales really feel acquainted moderately than expansive. What’s extra, Island Journey has some tough edges: Throughout climbing sequences, the sport merely fades to black and resets the climb should you get caught. And maybe this was simply because I used to be enjoying on a bigger display, however I did want I might zoom the mounted, indirect digicam angle out ever so barely.
Howdy Kitty Island Journey isn’t the be-all and end-all for a franchise geared toward women, neither is it the crowning achievement within the sim sport style. It’s one thing smaller and sweeter. It’s one other flashpoint in a summer time that has already felt like a celebration of all issues girly. Certain, Sanrio isn’t simply for the women, however that’s kind of the purpose. This sport, together with Barbie, is right here to say “Hey — all this girly stuff? Nicely, it’s cool as hell.”
Howdy Kitty Journey Island was launched on July 28 on iOS through Apple Arcade. The sport was reviewed utilizing a pre-release obtain code supplied by Apple. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. You could find extra details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.