499 Words About: “Hello Kitty’s Flower Shop”
In January 2024 I built my Personal Computer(PC) with the following specs: an MSI MAG B760 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 motherboard, an Intel i7 13700k central processing unit 13th generation, a HYTE Y60 red & black chassis, a Cooler Master Hyper 212 black edition 42 CFM CPU cooler, a corsair RM750e 750 W Fully Modular ATX Power supply, 4 Corsair vengeance LPX DDR4 RAM totaling 48 GB, a Samsung 980 PRO 1 TB M.2-2280 PCLe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive, a Zotac Gaming Twin Edge OC Geforce RTX 3060 12 GB Video Card, and Windows 11 Operating System (Home edition).
Naturally, a PC with these specs is perfect for running an NES emulator.
And once I saw Hello Kitty’s Flower Shop in a list of ROM files, my verbatim response was, “Oh HELL yeah, BET.”
Hello Kitty no Hanabatake (the game’s original Japanese title) is a 2D platformer game that, apart from not having an entry on Mobygames or GameFAQs, is actually a really good videogame.
Seriously, I wasn’t expecting this game to be as good as it was.
The player controls Hello Kitty, the de facto mascot of the Sanrio corporation, who is simply trying to water her plants while being attacked by snails, squirrels, and seemingly possessed beachballs. The player can move the Hello Kitty sprite (who is so adorable that it’s frankly painful) who carries her watering can with her while jumping from platform to platform in order to reach the various potted plants situated around the level.There are 18 stages in total with the second half increasing the difficulty. While a majority of the game is just trying to time jumps correctly, Hello Kitty does carry a hammer that she can use to smash the insects and animals (and that dang beachball) which will temporarily knock them out.
I’ll be honest, the act of playing Hello Kitty no Hanabatake on a (relatively) high-powered PC was funny. It was honestly supposed to be a personal, throw-away gag about the World of Warcraft episode of South Park. But after dying several times in a row and observing the actual challenge of the game I suddenly found myself slowing down and analyzing the level layouts, determining which jumps needed to be taken and when, which enemy npcs needed to be hammered or just avoided, and even being excited once I learned there were power-ups that made Hello Kitty invincible.
At some point the meme shifted, and became genuine conviction.
I was actually enjoying this videogame.
Hello Kitty no Hanabtake was only ever released in Japan for the Famicom console in December 1992. This is, honestly, unfortunate because it’s a fun platformer that might have offered something to western players. Platformers like MegaMan and Super Mario Bros. earned their reputations as standards of the genre, but the charm of Sanrio and Hello Kitty would have surely made girls, and even more than a few boys, ready to grab their watering cans and hammer that god-darned beachball.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
9.9.2024
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