Hello Kitty Island Adventure | Video Game Review

Back in 2022, I told you about Disney Dreamlight Valley, a game that I highly enjoy. Almost three years later, I still enjoy it - even though a bit of the shine has worn off. I used to blaze my way through all of the quests but now some of the newer quests are difficult, meaning I have to look up a walkthrough to finish it, or tedious, meaning I grow bored of trying to find x number of gemstones. Thankfully, Hello Kitty has arrived to help quell my boredom.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure started out as an Apple Arcade game in 2023. This year, it has been released for the Nintendo Switch and Windows computers via Steam. (Playstation 4 and 5 versions are supposed to come out later this year.) I currently have 64 hours of playtime logged so it is about time I tell you my thoughts.

To start off, I would like to inform you that this is not Hello Kitty’s game. She may be the face of the Sanrio brand but this is My Melody’s game. The entire reason the Sanrio gang drags us to this island is so My Melody can open a shop in a theme park. She is, in fact, the main character. I’m OK with this. Someone besides Hello Kitty deserves the spotlight. If only the game was named after My Melody.

With that said, I do thoroughly enjoy this game. Each of the Sanrio characters has a distinct personality and usefulness on the island. Chococat is a scientist that can help you with puzzle rooms. (More on puzzle rooms later.) Hangyodon is a fish character that runs the underwater comedy club. Cinnamoroll flies around the islands, helpfully delivering you to various locations as a fast travel feature. And so on. These characters have their own quests and storylines. You give them daily gifts to level them your friendship with them. Higher friendship levels results in more quests and their assistance in various tasks.

As for the gameplay, there is a ton of stuff to do. The basics include gathering materials (sticks, pineapples, iron ore, etc.) that will be used to craft items. These items can be gifts that you give to the characters, furniture to decorate houses, or clothing for characters to wear. When you get certain houses decorated properly, friends and family of the main group of characters will come to visit. After a certain number of visits, those characters will also become island residents. Currently, four of these characters have moved to my island. There are so many more I have to convince to live here.

But gathering materials and crafting isn’t the only thing you can do. Each of the locations on the island has a number of puzzle rooms. These are special rooms where you have a solve a puzzle in order to obtain a treasure chest. The chests can contain special furniture, crafting blueprints, or materials. While some of the puzzles can be frustrating, it’s exhilarating when you get that chest. And the doors to the rooms light up when you finish them. It’s pretty cool to see a bunch of glowing doors around the island.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is pretty comparable to Dreamlight Valley, with the exception that the quests aren’t usually as time consuming. If you enjoy Dreamlight Valley or games like Animal Crossing, this would be right up your alley. You can spend as much or as little time on this game as you want with no consequences. Be careful, though, it can be addicting!

Love of the Irish (2025)

Love of the Irish was supposed to be the finale for the February Valentine’s reviews. Thankfully, it was not a Loveuary release because I had a very difficult time getting through this one. I rolled my eyes so hard I was afraid they might stay that way!

Fiona (Shenae Grimes-Beech) is a ballet dancer having trouble landing a role. In an attempt to fix her bad luck, she goes on a trip to Ireland with her mother, Helen (Moira Kelly). Helen’s goal on the trip is to reunite with her birth mother, who she believes lives in Ireland. Thanks to some helpful locals, and a single dad named Liam (Stephen Hagan), the women may just find what they are looking for.

I have a few problems with this movie. Just to get this out of the way: Fiona is supposed to be a dancer yet we never actually see her dance. No, the fancy turn when she’s playing darts doesn’t count. And no, “teaching” children how to hold their arms doesn’t count either. They could have given her any career in the world. Why did they choose ballet if they weren’t going to do any actual ballet?

Next, the writers really needed to pick one storyline to stick with. Every time a scene started to get interesting with Helen and her mother, they switch over to Fiona and Liam. WHO ARE BORING. They are boring people. They do nothing. This movie would have been a lot more interesting if they made it more of a mystery-type movie where they spend more time tracking down Helen’s mother with a big happy reunion party at the end. Liam could have been their guide around Ireland that Fiona falls in love with. His daughter is completely unnecessary, Fiona’s ballet is completely unnecessary, the rest of the movie is completely unnecessary.

I’m sorry that this review didn’t make it into February. On the plus side, an Irish movie fits in with a March St. Patrick’s Day theme, right? Well, either way, stay away from this one. It’s dull.

Rating: 2 out of 5 hearts or clovers

Sisterhood Inc | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

Strangely, the final movie of Hallmark Channel’s Loveuary releases, Sisterhood Inc., is not about romance. Depending who you talk to, it isn’t really about love at all. A weird choice to end your month of love.

Megan (Rachel Leigh Cook) is a successful corporate executive who just got fired from the company she founded. Her sister, Izzy (Daniella Monet), is a bit of a mess. When Izzy begs Megan to help her get her life together, Megan decides to run Izzy’s life like a business. She forms a board of directors with successful people from Izzy’s life to make all of Izzy’s important decisions for her. Since the board needs an impartial third party, psychology professor Dominic (Leonidas Gulaptis) steps up to the plate. The board can make Izzy successful but can they make her happy?

As I said before, this movie isn’t about romance. It’s about the broken relationship between Megan, Izzy, and their mother Lois (Judy Kain). Megan seems to have the perfect life, except that she pushes everyone who cares about her away. Izzy has a chaotic irresponsible life but she makes Lois happy by giving her someone to care for. Lois is a helicopter mother to Izzy, who is about to turn 30 and really shouldn’t need a parent hovering over her. While turning Izzy’s life into a business wasn’t the best idea, it did serve it’s purpose. After the Big Conflict, the women are able to begin to repair their broken relationship. Oh, and Dominic exists as a sort of love interest for Megan, even though he really isn’t necessary.

I found Sisterhood Inc. rather sweet and endearing but that is mostly because Monet is perfect at playing a woman living in chaos and Cook is a good offset to that. Sure, there should have been a little more meat to the story - the Dominic and Megan relationship appears out of nowhere and is never really built on, we don’t get to spend a lot of time with any of the board members teaching their specialty to Izzy, and Megan spends a lot of time trying to sell an app that would never really be successful. But it is still cute and it’s a decent break from cheesy romance movies. And I could always use more Daniella Monet in my life.

Rating: 3 out of 5 hearts

My Argentine Heart | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

My Argentine Heart isn’t one of the Loveuary releases but that is only because it was released in January. So let’s see if it would have been a worthy addition to the Valentine’s Day releases.

Abril (Julie Gonzalo) is a half-Argentinian woman living in Boston. When her family’s ranch in Argentina is in danger of being sold to her ex, Diego (Juan Pablo Di Pace), she quickly flies in to save it. However, there was an old loan taken out on the farm and now it may be sold to a local banker instead. Abril and Diego must team up to really save the farm.

This was probably one of the most boring movies I have ever watched. Abril makes awful decisions and, instead of fighting for what he wants, Diego is a pushover. I’m not sure how either of them get anything accomplished. And, while I can understand Abril being reluctant to sell the ranch, she hasn’t been there in fifteen years. She doesn’t even talk to her cousin, Belinda (Valentina Frione), who lives there. To top it off, Abril has been having a difficult time getting a new job thanks to a failed deal at her last job…which she doesn’t really want to talk about.

As for Diego, he didn’t like his job in the big city so he came back to the ranch to work. His family has been working on the ranch for generations so coming back wasn’t a problem. But Abril, who is a part owner of the ranch, didn’t even know he was there. Yes, no one told one of the owners who is working on the ranch and, since she wasn’t talking to Belinda, she didn’t ask. This movie feels like the definition of “failing upwards.” Everyone is terrible at business but they are very successful.

Rating: 2 out of 5 hearts

Return To Office | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

Winter is, honestly, a terrible season. Recent storms have completely messed up my planned viewing schedule, which is why I missed a review last week. But thankfully, I didn’t miss any of the Loveuary movies. The next one up is Return To Office. Because that is all what we really wanted, right? To go back to our corporate offices instead of working from home.

Liv (Janel Parrish) is an executive at a tech company that has just acquired an artistic social media company owned by Tom (Scott Michael Foster). When the head of the tech company forces everyone to go back to the office, Liv points out that there are not enough desks for everyone. The solution is to have all of the employees share desks. One group of people will use the desks on Mondays and Wednesdays, while the other will be in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Liv and Tom, unknowingly, end up sharing a desk. They leave each other messages via post-it notes. Eventually, they end up falling in love.

Return To Office had it’s cute moments. But most of these are solely when Liv and Tom are talking via post-it note/text app. When they are actually in the room together, they are a little annoying. Granted, this is the trope. People who hate each other in real life unknowingly fall in love. I think the problem is that Parrish and Foster don’t really have any chemistry. They are perfectly fine as separate characters but they should not be in a relationship.

Rating: 3 out of 5 hearts

The Wish Swap | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

The Wish Swap is Hallmark’s second Loveuary movie of the year. My wish would be for Hallmark to change the word Loveuary. I don’t know why it bugs me, it just does.

Casey (Emily Tennant) and Henry (Jake Foy) happen to share the same birthday. While they are celebrating at the same restaurant, Henry finds that his family never ordered him a cake while Casey’s co-workers ordered her a giant cake. So Casey offers to share. The two blow out the candles on the cake, making their birthday wishes. Amazingly, the wishes come true. Only Henry has Casey’s wish of completing the list of things she wants to do for her birthday and Casey gets Henry’s wish of owning a farm. Now they will have to work together to make each of their dreams actually come true for them.

This was a pretty cute movie but it also felt a little empty. Casey’s first (of three) item on her wish list was to perform in Dance Your Heart Out, a Dancing With The Stars type television show where random couples perform a dance on live TV. While the theater was empty during their rehearsals, of course, it was also empty when they were actually performing. It was just the dancers, the host, and a camera. It felt eerie to me. On top of that, very little seemed to be happening at the form. Sure, Casey collected some eggs from the chickens and she fed some goats but that was it. Most of the rest of the time Henry spent dancing or talking to Casey. He was the least farmery farmer ever. I get that production probably didn’t want to deal with all of the animals but then make it like Christmas On The Alpaca Farm, a specialized farm with only one type of animal that we see more often. Film all of the goat scenes together so you can get the goats out of there.

If you can look past the emptiness of the scenes, they movie itself wasn’t bad. Tennent and Foy didn’t have a ton of chemistry together but they did seem to have fun. The script could have used a little beefing up. Maybe that would have made the movie feel a little fuller as well. Overall, it was fun but it felt like a nicely made amateur movie where the only actors are the directors’ friends. Hallmark could do better.

Rating: 3/5 out of 5 hearts

An Unexpected Valentine | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

The first movie of Hallmark’s 2025 Loveuary releases is An Unexpected Valentine. I don’t think I’ve watched any of Lacey Chabert’s non-Christmas Hallmark movies. Her Christmas movies are rather hit-or-miss. Let’s see if she does any better with Valentine’s Day.

Hannah (Chabert), a chocolate designer about to launch a Valentine’s Day line of chocolate purses, finds an engagement ring in the backseat of her rideshare driver Finn (Robert Buckley), a photographer who has a big exhibition at a local gallery. Together, they race around the city to find the owner of the ring before Valentine’s Day ends.

So, this wasn’t as good as The Perfect Setting. Then again, I didn’t think it could fit those shoes. But it wasn’t a terrible movie. Chabert is charming, as always. Buckley is a bit boring but fine, overall. I think maybe my issue with the movie was it lacked a conflict. The closest we come to conflict is Will They Find The Owner Before They Propose and Will They Both Make Their Events. Neither of which are particularly interesting as conflicts. The only reason Hannah had to go to the chocolate purse, which is a stupid idea anyway, event is because her marketing friend is too incompetent to do the marketing herself. And Finn only has to go to his event because his gallery owner friend is too incompetent to sell Finn’s photos without him. If both of these people could do their actual jobs, Hannah and Finn could have had the whole night to themselves…which was their plan in the beginning of the movie.

If you can get over the lack of anything happening, there are some fun scenes to be found. Hannah and Finn trying to deliver a much-too-large balloon bouquet was a little funny. Crashing a drawing class, only for Hannah to be mistaken as the model of the evening…also chuckle worthy. But, alas, there wasn’t anything to make me want to really tune into An Unexpected Valentine. I guess you can’t win them all.

Rating: 3 out of 5 hearts

The Perfect Setting | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

While Hallmark Channel doesn’t release as many movies for Valentine’s Day as they do for Christmas, they do have a handful of themed releases in February. Excuse me, Loveuary. The Perfect Setting isn’t one of their four Loveuary releases but it is a romance movie with a Valentine’s Day event in it.

Abby Vandenbrink (Laci J. Mailey) is currently stuck repairing jewelry instead of creating new pieces. When she gets a call that her grandfather’s jewelry store in Belgium is in financial trouble, she flies out to help him get back on his feet. On her way to the shop, she meets Alexander Remy (David Elsendoorn), the son of a rival jewelry-maker. To prove that their store is the best, and to get the much-needed prize money to pay the mortgage on her grandfather’s shop, Abby enters an exclusive contest - the Valentine’s Day Diamond Contest. Unfortunately, Alexander’s father enters him in the contest for the bragging rights. But sometimes there is more to life than jewelry.

I’ll admit that maybe the awfulness of the Christmas movies has tainted my brain a bit. Because I thought this movie was actually pretty cute. First off, Abby and Alexander make an adorable couple. They really complimented each other nicely. Each of them supported the other, even though they should have been fierce rivals. It was quite refreshing to see.

On top of them being great together, they each felt like a “complete” person separately. While Abby’s boss dismissed her when she asked to design some pieces for their store, Abby did advocate for herself and try to prove that she was capable of creating a piece worth selling. Granted, she was a little self-conscious about her jewelry but I think anyone would be after getting shot down so often.

Alexander’s challenge was different but similar. Even though his father wanted him to be a jewelry-maker, Alexander kept trying to prove that he is better at marketing that he is at making. And when his father tried to undermine his entry into the contest, Alexander stood up and did the right thing. I know it’s a low bar but he leaps over it.

I’m happy to say that this is a good start to the Valentine’s Day season. It makes me hopeful for the actual Loveuary movies.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 hearts

The Roottrees Are Dead | Video Game Review

We recently got a LOT of snow in southeastern Pennsylvania. While I was stuck in my house, I bought a puzzle game called The Roottrees Are Dead. I love puzzle games and this one seemed to add a bit of genealogy, which sounded fun. Boy, was it ever!

In the game, you are a renowned genealogist. When a plane carrying the very wealthy Roottree family - father Carl, president of the family candy company; mother Brenda, fashion designer for the family’s fashion line ROOT.; and daughters, Rhayna, Rhose, and Rhiley - crashes andeveryone on board dies, a mysterious person knocks on your door. They ask you to fill in the vast Roottree family tree in order to find who is a blood relative of Elias Roottree, the great, great grandfather of the current Roottree generation and founder of the Roottree Candy Company. His fortune can only be divided among blood relatives so it is very important to figure out who is part of the trust and who is not.

This sounds a little overwhelming and it is. A little. The game takes place in 1998 so, while you don’t have a smartphone, you do have a few useful resources available to you. Your trusty computer is set up with a SpiderSearch engine, where you can look up information on the family members. The computer also has access to books and periodicals (magazines, newspapers, etc.) And, every once in awhile, the mystery person shows back up to give you information from the Roottree Candy Company. Use the right keywords to find names of family members, their various occupations, and photos of each of them.

I can’t tell you how much fun I had playing this. Like I said, I was stuck inside for a couple of days thanks to the snow and this was a perfect distraction. I always wanted to figure out my family tree but it can be difficult to figure out if the information you find is actually correct. Thankfully, in this game, you get a notification after you get all of the information for three family members. (Four later in the game and five toward the end.) The game “locks in” the correct information, turning their piece of the tree yellow, leaving you with the blue pieces. And when you get stuck, you get to talk it out with your rubber duck, which I think is adorable.

I blazed through the main part of the game in one day. Yeah, I probably should have taken some breaks but, what can I say, I get obsessed sometimes. Thankfully, there is a second part, which is a bit of a sequel. It turns out that some of the men in the family had quite a few affairs. Now you have a whole new group of people claiming to be Roottrees so they can also get their hands on the family fortune. It’s up to you to figure out who is a legitimate result of the affair and who is just a normal schlub.

If you are a fan of puzzle games, especially word puzzle games, The Roottrees Are Dead may be right up your alley. You can buy it on Steam for about $20. I don’t think this is a game you will regret buying. I just hope they make more genealogy-type games. There are definitely more family trees out there that we can build!

How I Decompress From Christmas

While I love reviewing Christmas movies every year, it does get a little overwhelming by the time the new year rolls around. That is usually why the blog ends up falling to the wayside most of the year. I get overwhelmed, don’t know what to write after the Christmas season, get stuck in my head about what to write, then by the time I know what to write, it’s October and spooky movie season. In an attempt to avoid it this year, I have spent a little more time decompressing from Christmas movies. Here is how I have been spending my days:

Playing Dreamlight Valley. Yes, I am still playing Disney’s Dreamlight Valley. I don’t get a lot of time to play it during the Christmas season so I have been spending the past few weeks catching up on everything going on in my own personal Disney world. There have been two new DLCs since I last wrote about the game. That means I got to spend some time unlocking Gaston, Rapunzel, EVE, Oswald, and Jafar from A Rift In Time, the first DLC. The Storybook Vale, the second DLC, gave us Merida, Flynn Rider, and Hades. On top of that, the main game added Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. (A list of all the currently available characters can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Dreamlight_Valley#Characters) I still have a ton of fun playing the game, even though it takes over my life sometimes.

Watching documentaries. What better way to get out of the Christmas romcom funk then a few tales from real life. Yes, I do watch a lot of true crime documentaries but I also watch ones that are just about interesting stuff. Recently I watched Jailbreak: Love On The Run, Into The Fire: The Lost Daughter, and Biggest Heist Ever. I thought about writing reviews on them, then I decided that I needed some media that was just for me.

Listening to music/podcasts. When I play Dreamlight Valley, I turn off the in-game sound and listen to music or podcasts instead. (A lot of in-game noise bugs me so I rarely play video games with the sound on.) I’ll pop on some Green Day or a random ‘90s playlist on Spotify. I’ve also been listening to the 60 Songs That Explain The ‘90s podcast. (Spoiler alert: They have covered more than 60 songs. And I think they’re currently covering 2000s songs.)

Journaling. That’s right. Sometimes I write for myself. I have a list of journal prompts that I try to do daily, except on weekends. It lets me think a little more about what goes on in my head instead of what is going on on a screen. Journaling may not be for everyone but I find that it does help me get over the romcom hump. Also, I write with fountain pens so I get extra enjoyment from picking out what type and color ink I feel like using. I particularly like shimmer inks, even though they are a pain in the butt. They are awfully pretty.

And that mostly covers it. I am going to try to get back to a regular posting schedule this week. Though I think I might do Tuesdays & Thursdays instead of Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Maybe putting a little less pressure on myself will help me keep going.