Best gifts for every character in Hello Kitty Island Adventure

To progress in Hello Kitty Island Adventure, you’ll need to rank up your friendship levels with every character inhabiting the island by giving them gifts. Doing so will unlock tons of things — like upgrades to crafting stations, recipes for certain items, and even other characters — so make sure to gift characters every day.

To help you figure out what to gift the various characters, we’ve compiled a list for you, broken up by the best gift to give them and a good early-game option when you don’t have a ton of resources. Note that as of this writing, some characters have different “best” gifts for them on the Nintendo Switch version of the game. (An update aligning the gifting point system across platforms will come to the Switch on May 22.)

We also list all the later unlockable characters under a cut for spoiler reasons. Some of these characters have shown up in trailers and whatnot for the game, but we don’t want to dampen any of the surprises for you.

Below, we explain the best gifts for the various Hello Kitty Island Adventure characters and how to make them (or get their recipes).

Badtz-maru’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Ultimate Joke Pizza (dough + pineapple + tofu at the pizza oven)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Quattro Formaggi Pizza (dough + moon cheese + coral milk in the pizza oven)

Good early-game gift: Pineapple Pizza (dough + pineapple)

Badtz-maru is one of the starting characters at Seaside Resort, most often hanging out at his comic book stand on the docks.

Favorite gift: Interactive History of Chocolate (a crafting table recipe unlocked from friendship level three with TOPHAT)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Interactive History of Chocolate

Good early-game gift: Blank Book

Chococat is one of the starting characters at Seaside Resort. He usually hangs out around the crafting table.

Cinnamoroll’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Chocolate Chai (candlenut+ chocolate coin + magma bloom/cinna bloom in the espresso machine)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Spicy Pumpkin Latte (candlenut + cinna bloom + pumpkin in the espresso machine)

Good early-game gift: Spicy Pizza (dough + cinna bloom/magma bloom in the pizza oven)

Gift reward: Candy Clouds

Cinnamoroll roams around the island, speeding off to various locations to make deliveries.

Favorite gift: Mermaid Figure (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship level 13 with My Melody)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Mermaid Figure

Good early-game gift: Rare-tagged aquatic fish (Sandy Puffler, Galaxy Grouper, Briny Clamfish)

Hangyodon is only accessible once you unlock swimming and diving.

Hello Kitty’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Red Bow Apple Pie (flour + apple + magma bloom in the oven)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): The Future of Everything (crafting table recipe found in a chest on Cloud Island, requires friendship level two with Lala)

Good early-game gift: Strawberry Shortcake (flour + strawberry in the oven)

Hello Kitty is one of the starting characters at Seaside Resort, most often found at her cafe.

Favorite gift: Critter Totem (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship rank 10 with Keroppi)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Swampy Music Box (crafting table recipe found in a treasure chest near the Nature Preserve)

Good early-game gift: Bush Fiend critter (caught from evening to night in the Spooky Swamp hedge maze)

Keroppi lives in the Spooky Swamp, though you can often find him hanging out at Badtz-maru’s comic shop.

Favorite gift: Pumpkin Spice Soda (fizzy crystal + pumpkin + cinna bloom in the soda machine)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Spicy Pumpkin Latte (candlenut + cinna bloom + pumpkin in the espresso machine)

Good early-game gift: Pumpkin Pie (flour + pumpkin in the oven)

Kuromi lives in Spooky Swamp and she’s most often found in her potion hut.

Favorite gift: Pink Clouds Ice Cream (cactus cream + candy cloud + sakura in the dessert machine)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Starry Skies Shake (cactus cream + snowcicle + starfruit in the dessert machine) or Quattro Formaggi Pizza (dough + moon cheese + coral milk in the pizza oven)

Good early-game gift: Pink Latte (candlenut + strawberry/sakura in the espresso machine)

My Melody is one of the starting characters at Seaside Resort, commonly found at her furniture shop.

Favorite gift: Mountain Soundtrack (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship level eight with Retsuko)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Mountain Soundtrack

Good early-game gift: Calming Crystal (found in the Crystal Caves)

Pekkle can be found at Gemstone Mountain, in front of the dance hall.

Favorite gift: Pochacco Energy Pop (fizzy crystal + spinip + tofu in the soda machine)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Pochacco Energy Pop

Good early-game gift: Tofu bread (flour + tofu in the oven)

Gift reward: Strawberries

Pochacco is one of the starting characters who can be found around Seaside Resort.

Pompompurin’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Mama’s Pudding (cactus cream + banana + coral milk in the dessert machine)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Starry Skies Shake (cactus cream + snowcicle + starfruit in the dessert machine)

Good early-game gift: Dessert Pizza (dough + candy cloud/sugarkelp/swampmallow in the pizza oven)

Pompompurin hangs out at Gemstone Mountain, in or around his dessert boat.

Favorite gift: Volcanic Guitar (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship level four with TOPHAT)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Sounds of Steel (crafting table recipe found in a chest in the lava caves)

Good early-game gift: Ingots, but more preferably a Volcano Soundtrack (crafting table recipe found in a lava caves treasure chest)

Retsuko is typically at Mount Hothead, lamenting her lost luggage. Once you help her out, she’ll move to hang around the hot springs.

Tuxedo Sam’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Designer Island Doll (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship rank 16 with My Melody)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): The Future of Everything (crafting table recipe found in a chest on Cloud Island, requires friendship level two with Lala)

Good early-game gift: Any tropical fish with the “rare” tag (coastal clamfish, tropical sunfish, and summer sole)

Tuxedo Sam is one of the starting characters, nearly always found in his clothing shop.

The characters below unlock via certain story quests. Spoilers will be below the image.

Best gifts for characters unlocked via quests (spoiler)

Wish me mell’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Any rare candle (creation station recipe unlocked via friendship level 10 with Wish me mell)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Rare candle

Good early gift: Any rare-tagged fish (bog clamfish, burning perch, cavern clamfish, etc.)

To unlock Wish me mell, you’ll need to hit friendship rank 11 with My Melody and complete the “Dessert-ed Boat,” “Parched,” and “Revive the Oasis” quests. After this, the questline “Curious Caverns” will unlock, eventually leading you to her.

My Sweet Piano’s best gifts

Favorite gift: Colorful Lamb Plush (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship rank 10 with My Sweet Piano)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Quattro Formaggi Pizza (dough + moon cheese + coral milk in the pizza oven)

Good early gift: Critter Totem (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship level 10 with Keroppi)

To unlock My Sweet Piano, you’ll need to reach friendship rank 15 with My Melody and complete the quest series that begins with “A Friend Indeed.”

Big Challenges’ best gifts

Favorite gift: The Greatest Challenge (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship rank 4 with Lala)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): The Future of Everything (crafting table recipe found in a chest on Cloud Island, requires friendship level two with Lala)

Good early gift: Meditations on Resilience (crafting table recipe unlocked via friendship rank two with Big Challenges)

Gift reward: Little Challenges

To unlock Big Challenges, you’ll need to complete the story quests that lead up to Icy Peak, which functionally involves “fixing” all the island’s areas and earning their respective Star Fragments.

Favorite gift: The Future of Everything (crafting table recipe found in a chest on Cloud Island, requires friendship level two with Lala)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): The Future of Everything

Good early-game gift: Candied Banana Coffee (candlenut + candy cloud + banana in the espresso machine)

TOPHAT will start showing up as a buddy once you clear Big Challenge’s storyline above.

Favorite gift: Quattro Formaggi Pizza (dough + moon cheese + coral milk in the pizza oven)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Quattro Formaggi Pizza

Good early-game gift: Almond Pound Cake (flour + candy cloud + toasted almond in the oven)

While Lala will show up in snippets of the story before you really meet them, you can only start gifting them once you unlock Cloud Island — which happens after saving Big Challenges, hitting rank 17 friendship with Hello Kitty, completing her given quests, and then completing the “Stargazing” quest.

Favorite gift: Starry Skies Shake (cactus cream + snowcicle + starfruit in the dessert machine)

Best gift for raising friendship (Nintendo Switch only): Starry Skies Shake

Good early-game gift: Almond Pound Cake (flour + candy cloud + toasted almond in the oven)

Kiki unlocks via the same method as Lala above.

Usahana’s best gifts (iOS only)

Favorite gift: Rainbow Dango (rainbow beam + 3 mochi)

Good early-game gift: Colorpillar critter

Usahana is a character locked to the Apple Arcade version of Hello Kitty Island Adventure for now, but she will come to the other versions at a later, unannounced date. Since I play the Steam version of the game, Usahana’s information is compiled with help from the Hello Kitty Island Adventure Wiki.