Hello Kitty Party Adventures

I just hope I wasn't too late to the Little Stars' party

You don't need to keep track of all the things the 15+ characters tell you though,

as Kitty comes armed with a rather handy 'birthday book',

which automatically records people's birthdays and other random facts, along with, once you find it out,

what their ideal birthday present would be.

You can also get 'stamps' added to your birthday book if you can get a gold medal in the mini-games, with a total of 21 to try and collect.

The mini-games themselves are surprisingly varied, too - and are different depending on whether you're speaking to the character during the day,

or at night. You could play a Puzzle Bobble-esque balloon-firing match 3 game with the angry-looking penguin Badtz-Maru,

play a game of 'pudding aerobics' with the podgy Pom Pom Purin - where you need to copy his moves by manipulating Kitty on the Touch Screen,

or try your hand at assembling hot chocolates in Cinnamoroll's restaurant by putting the correct number of the ingredients shown on the little card on the saucer.

There's races, football, colouring in and pairs too, as well as a couple of 'quests' to do - fetching some apples for Chococat,

delivering cakes for Usahana or searching for Kerroppi's pet snail Den Den.

There's certainly plenty to see and do - even before you even take into account that Hello Kitty Party Adventures's target audience are likely to play the games over and over again.

Endlessly. Seemingly, without getting bored - I lost count of the number of times my five year old cousin played the pairs game,

or the number of pictures she coloured.

Time passes quite quickly in Hello Kitty Party Adventures - about 1 minute in real-time equates to 5 hours in the game,

although the time is paused when you're in a mini-game or a building. This means the days pass rather fast,

so it's never too long until it's someone's birthday (you can also skip to a specific day by using the calender in Hello Kitty's room) -

although the disadvantage of the 5-minute-long days is that it turns into a race against time to find out what someone wants as a present,

fetch it from the shop, and make your way across to the birthday building (the red house next to Kitty's).

I just hope I wasn't too late to the Little Stars' party, turning up at 7:30 in the evening after a mad dash to the mitten shop.