It's sometimes difficult for me to come to grips with that fact that Namco, the legendary publisher that gave unto the world Soul Calibur 2, Tekken 5, and Time Crisis is also responsible for Gumby vs. The Astrobots, Popeye: Rush for Spinach, and now, Hello Kitty Roller Rescue. What the company's essentially done is take one of the world's most popular characters and tossed her into an atrocious GameCube title that's not at all fun to play.

Tonight's marquee reads: Hello Kitty and friends versus Block-O. He's the evil villain (hailing from the planet Block, of all places), that's decided to make Earth his next target. What he didn't realize is Sanrio characters are a pretty tough bunch, especially that Hello Kitty. The hero of millions of little girls around the globe, Miss Kit-tay dons a pair of roller skates, snatches her magic wand from her home and springs into action, but what takes place is tons of monotonously typical platform shenanigans. Hello Kitty performs double jumps. Hello Kitty conks things over the head with her wand. Hello Kitty collects coins. Hello Kitty hops across platforms. These are actions that could be really cool but Namco seriously dropped the ball here. Not only does the game move slower than corn syrup down an incline (and she's wearing roller skates, no less), but the various objectives are just lifeless. Hit this switch, save this friend, beat up a few enemies, and really, some of these enemies are just going about their business. I've yet to figure out why I need to slaughter the seemingly harmless guys on skis. They're just skiing. With that being said, Hello Kitty is actually a violent little minx. She delivers concussions with her wand, she smashes creatures over their heads with her hammer, and she unleashes a powerful energy blast that takes out anything within the vicinity.

All of this sounds really cool on paper but in practice it falls to pieces. The game's just too damn easy. On top of that, levels will just abruptly end after doing something that seems unimportant. This also means that if you have just a single brain cell in your head then you'll run through Roller Rescue pretty quickly, and aside from unlocking costumes and new weapons there's not much to look forward to after you complete it.

On the positive side (and I'm stretching just a bit), I really like the 3D engine. The camera is negatively horrid but the artists have done a nice job capturing the essence of Hello Kitty and her friends and the various environments are bright, colorful, and for the most part cheery.

Then there are the light bits of enjoyable such as when Hello Kitty fires a cannon and blows up a train and leaps off springs and delivers punishing blows to a boss character's noggin. It's moments like these where Roller Rescue shows promise but they're also few and far between.

This is the moment where I'm supposed to tell you that if you're a parent searching for a simple game for yours kids OR your children just love Hello Kitty then this is worth purchasing. I suppose that's about right, and the very least it'll teach your children basic videogame concepts that'll prepare them for all of the violent action packed games that they'll play once they're older. Unfortunately, there was definitely a lot of potential here and Namco just about trashed it all. If this company has proven anything it's that it's nearly incapable of handling a license that it doesn't own. Hello Kitty deserved better.

Our Final ScoreBad

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