First Impressions: Hello Kitty Online

Here it is, the “special MMO” I’ve mentioned some time ago. I’d actually played the tutorial several months ago but recently went back and played through it again. This has a specific reason: My co-worker loves everything Hello Kitty and I was reminded of this MMO. So this “first impressions review” is dedicated to her because she’s awesome and working with her has so far been a lot of fun! :) (And when you consider her love for pink (rosa!) – and my love for dark colours, she brightens my life? ^^).

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I first heard of Hello Kitty Online in Warhammer Online. It was mentioned in the same way that people called others “carebears”. “Go play Hello Kitty Online!” – I thought that was just a joke but decided to google it as some point and was… shocked to see that this game actually exists. ;) So of course, I had to check it out. I hadn’t taken any screenshots, though. So I went back on New Year’s Day (it was a boring and rainy day… ^^) and now I’m here with lots and lots of screenshots. Muahaha. ;)

But let’s start at the beginning: What is Hello Kitty Online? As I already said, it’s an MMO. You can find the website here where you can download the client (close to 4GB if you’re interested). The game is “free to play”, so you can jump right into the action. Of course, it comes with a shop (“item mall”). The good thing first: I didn’t notice its existence in the game at all! No huge button that you always stumble over, no big pop up window in your face, etc. Let’s get away from the “real money transactions”. That’s not what I tested, after all. I did actually manage to play through the tutorial and then walk around the Dream Carnival for a bit. Now what did I experience, you may ask yourself. Colours. Lots and lots of colours. Pink, most of all. I guess that’s the biggest difference between Hello Kitty Online and all those other MMOs that I’m playing or have played. HKO is pink. Not just pink… it’s PINK! With lots of other pastels in between.

What can you do in Hello Kitty Online? It seems to have what the other MMOs have as well. You have a world that you can walk around in (though I only saw the tutorial, the Dream Carnival and some other region whose name I don’t remember), you have items and an inventory. You apparently also have housing (I only met those Boa Constructors that told me about housssses, but haven’t seen anything else). And there is also combat! Yes, combat in Hello Kitty Online. But it’s not the way you might think. Again, I’ve only played the tutorial. But I got to whack some bad monster who wanted to drain my energy. It was actually just auto-attacking the monster (a star-shaped something) and then… it fell asleep. Yes, you read that right: You hit monsters until they fall asleep! Isn’t this cute? (^_^) By the way, the thumbnails of the screenshots might look identical but they’re not. The one on the left shows me right during the combat with the tutorial page saying what I need to do and the one on the right shows me right after combat (with the tutorial telling me how I lost lots of energy while I actually didn’t!).

There are also minigames that you can play. Nothing too exciting, though. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take screenshots while playing them. Anyway, this is just a very short “first impressions” review because while the game played flawlessly and I didn’t notice any bugs etc., it’s just really not my cup of tea. Hello Kitty is cute and all but that was way too much pink for my liking! ;) I probably wouldn’t have any problems letting my kid play that game once in a while though (if I had one… ^^). I now do understand, however, why people might use “Hello Kitty Online” as an equivalent to the all-too-common “carebear” (which I loved as a kid, by the way). There’s just no violence in Hello Kitty Online. We just love our colours and help others overcome their sleeping problems. ;)