If you had told me when I was in my 20s, that someday I would be blogging about the Hello Kitty Shopping Game, I would think you insane, but here we are. I have to admit, my curiosity was piqued by this game more than any other when I won the lot it was included in. Not that I actually expected it to be the best, or even necessarily good, but it had to be unique. And it is! But not downright exciting or anything. But definitely the kind of thing I hope to include in my site.

It's a two-player game (the manual includes a section entitled "a note to mothers", so this is clearly a girl's game and it's the mom's job to train her daughters for wife-like tasks in the future), and you each play a friend of Hello Kitty. You each have the same shopping list and you have to traverse town and buy the items. Where do you buy them? How many of and which coins do you need to buy them, and if you don't have exact change, how much of each coin should you get back? These are the things a young girl must learn so she doesn't annoy the shop staff by asking for roses at a bakery and not being able to communicate with the store clerk how much change to give back.

If you're paying attention and don't accidentally press enter when you shouldn't, you should both be able to complete the game in the same number of turns and you both win, but if your mom I mean friend makes a mistake, you just might be able to claim victory.

Additionally, there is a picture editor/creator so you can make your own shops or shopping list items, or adjust the existing ones. I added a door to the candy shop, because my imagination runs absolutely wild.

There is also a tutorial, basically an interactive slideshow-like presentation of how to navigate the game, using in-game screens with words imposed on them.

The box is colorful and it came to me in pretty good shape overall, but the manuals had that tan tint to them that many game manuals develop over their lifetimes.