Game: Hello Kitty Island Adventure – City Town DLC
Genre: Simulation, Adventure, Lifestyle
System: Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 (Also on Steam (Windows), PlayStation and Apple Arcade)
Developer | Publisher: Sunblink
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $24.99 | UK £22.50 | EU € 24,99
Release Date: April 16th, 2026
Review code used, with many thanks to Forty Seven PR.
I gave Hello Kitty Island Adventure a ‘Two Thumbs Up’ rating when it was released in January 2025. I loved exploring Friendship Island, getting to know all the Hello Kitty characters, participating in the various events and collecting the many items needed for quests. And with the numerous free updates, improvements, and a new resident, Hello Kitty Island Adventure keeps giving.
Hello Kitty Island Adventure – City Town DLC is the second paid expansion to the game (although it’s free to Apple Arcade subscribers). It promises a new friend to meet, lots of new quests, outfits and décor, and some additional shops. Let’s find out whether it’s the high-rise heaven or an urban sprawl.
A Mysterious Boat
Having played Hello Kitty Island Adventure for a while now, I’d already met the prerequisites needed to start the opening quests for the City Town DLC. However, if you are new to the game, then you’ll need to be level 7 friendship with Badtz-maru, Chococat, Keroppi, Kumori and Cinnamoroll, as well as having completed several early base game quests.
The adventure starts with Badtz-maru discovering a brightly coloured boat moored at the Seaside Resort dock. Where there’s mysterious technology, the best resident to discuss it with is Chococat.
You’ll find him at his tent, deep in conversation with Keroppi, who had seen a boat sailing along the coastline. When they realise that the boat is now moored at the dock, you all hurry back to investigate further.
Unfortunately, the boat won’t start, and whilst imagining all the possible reasons as to how and why the boat arrived, a strange flying gem-like item appears. This little ‘figment’ must hold the key to understanding the boat, so Chococat takes it to run tests. Whilst waiting for Chococat’s findings, you go to talk to Hello Kitty and then Kuromi, and during your conversations, which are full of imaginative ideas about the boat and adventures in a magical land, two more figments appear.
Chocolat creates a recipe for combining these figments into an ‘essence of imagination’, a power source to fuel the boat back to its homeland. Once the necessary provisions have been gathered, you and your group of friends power up the boat and head off.
I wish it were possible to replay the cutscene, as the sight of City Town from sea is really spectacular. It takes around 30-40 minutes to play through the dialogue and gather the resources needed for these opening quests, although it might take longer if you don’t have a well-stocked inventory.
The City Town
Once you arrive at the City Town, you are encouraged to explore and then meet back to discuss what you’ve found. The City Town is very different to Friendship Island; there are roads and pavements, tall buildings and green parks. You need to find elevator shafts, air vents and climbing pipes to access the rooftops, as the walls can’t be climbed.
After you’ve discovered the unused café and the Rainbow Tower apartments, you return to the group, where Usahana greets you. Usahana is delighted to have other people in the city, and, unlike the early gameplay of Hello Kitty Island Adventure, you don’t need to wait a real-world day before progressing with the next batch of quests.
There are lots of familiar activities in the City Town DLC, including: challenge courses, with brightly coloured flower coins to run through; crates (orange sherbet rather than strawberry) to find and then unlock the Rainbow Tower apartments; different critters and fish to catch; new comics and almanacks to collect; and fast travel points to discover and unlock.
My personal favourites are all the new gudetama to find and photograph, and the apartments to decorate, to encourage Usahana friends to stay permanently.
There is also an extra daily and weekly quest to complete.
What’s New in the City Town DLC
Along with all the familiar aspects, the City Town DLC has new activities. Across the city, there are strange markings, which are figments. There are four types of figments, requiring different skills to release them. The green ‘hidden’ figments require you to go to a different location, within a set time, to collect them. The pink ‘platform’ figments challenge you to a parkour and climbing task to reach them. The blue ‘hungry’ figments want to be fed, and the yellow ‘treasure hunt’ figments require the crystal sensor to find them.
The Figment Nul will keep track of how many figments you’ve collected, and you’ll be rewarded with furniture for certain amounts. In addition, glowing flowers will appear around the city, which will give a recipe ingredient, and vibrant chalk drawings will appear on the pavement, brightening the city.
Just like the residents of Friendship Island, you can gift items to Usahana to increase your friendship levels. In exchange for a gift, Usahana will give you rice and at level 3, you’ll unlock the story quest “A Whole New Menu”. Completing this quest gives you access to the Imagination Café. Unlike Hello Kitty’s café in Seaside Resort, this is a fully functioning café! Hello Kitty Friends will visit the café and request food, it might be a specific recipe or a flavour profile. You can then create a suitable dish at the chef’s station and fulfil their order.
This part of the City Town DLC is an excellent addition to Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Unlike dedicated café simulation games, there is no time pressure or grumpy customers to deal with, just the joy and satisfaction of providing the right dish. As well as receiving payment and helping to increase the café level, customers might give items, either recipe ingredients or orange sherbet crates. The café has 35 levels, with many of the levels unlocking new quests and furniture.
So far, I’ve unlocked two of the new shops, with the Piano Plush Pals being my absolute favourite! The new shops are an inspired way of giving the Friendship Island residents a purpose, and I’m looking forward to seeing if any of the other shops will beat the cuteness of customising plushies.
Progression in the City Town DLC
One of my concerns about any DLC is the amount of additional content. Within about 12 hours, I’d completed all the challenge courses, collected all the new fish and critters, and released about two-thirds of the figments. I’d already unlocked another area in the city containing puzzle rooms, completing only just a couple of them, and two of the seven new shops were open for business.
However, with another 20+ friendship levels to gain with Usahana and nearly 30 café levels to achieve, I’ve still got a lot of gifting and serving to do. Perhaps I’ve progressed slightly quicker than expected in some areas; no doubt helped by the many items I’ve collected since the release of the base game. However, there are new ingredients to be collected, and I look forward to the challenge of managing the use of these, whilst I’ve got limited numbers.
Overall, there is a considerable amount of content in the City Town DLC. I’ve explored, gifted and puzzled my way through another 5 hours or so, opening another couple of attractions, and getting closer to finding out what is behind the foggy area and whether I’ll be able to ride on the train. However, I’m still not even halfway to maximising Usahana’s friendship or levelling up the café.
Gameplay
The controls for City Town DLC are the same as for the base game – they are straightforward, and on-screen prompts appear if required. There is no touchscreen functionality, but the text is large enough to read on the Switch Lite screen.
For the majority of the time, I was playing the Switch version on the docked Switch 2 console, so loading times between areas are quicker than on older hardware, but there are still the odd frame-rate issues.
Conclusion
I am thoroughly enjoying the Hello Kitty Island Adventure – City Town DLC. The cityscape offers a different vibe from that of Friendship Island. The inclusion of new shops and a functioning café gives more reasons to craft and forage across all of the Hello Kitty Island Adventure locations to meet customer orders.
There is nothing in the City Town DLC which detracts or is out of keeping with the original game, and who would have thought an avocado plushie could be so adorable?
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up 
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