Cute, free MMORPG with friendly community. Strengths: cuteness,farming & events. Grows on you as you play.
The game is not cutting edge technology but it is a lot of fun. Arguably the best parts of it for me, are the farming and the special events. For farming, you start out with your own farm (think of player housing in a game like EQ2) on which you can do whatever you want and grow whatever plants you like. You can even build a house on your farm and have people over. If you like farming in other games (like farmville) try this out - much more rewarding than those "social" facebook games, and you can actually do a lot more than just farm.
The special events are fun , every month or so a new plot is introduced with some kind of event associated. The last one was some kind of operation clean-up for Earth Day, and was headed by Badtz-Maru, who asked players to help him fix some kind of environmental contraption that would clean up a run-down farm. During these events ALL players cooperate to achieve a common goal, so the spirit of community is strong. (Sometimes there are guild competitions instead of cooperative events, and then the guilds compete for first place). ANother thing worth mentrioning is that the prizes for events are really good: points to use in the item mall, limited edition items, etc.
HKO has guilds, grouping, pets, skills, a LOT of items, and combat, although it is not presented as such (there is no killing, only putting opponents to sleep). I guess the pets are worth a mention - you have to take care of your pets and they grow in power the better you handle them. If you don't take care of them they will abandon you! If there are other pets near them they may or may not get along, and their powers will change accordingly. You can have a T-Rex or a giant gorilla as a pet, its really cute.
The game is free to play but occasionally you will need to buy something from the item mall in order to progress. This has never been a problem because I have so many points to spend that I accumulated during the events (like I said they are generous with rewards). The playerbase is mixed, both males and females as well as children and adults (I met a few mother-daughter pairs and husbands who play with their wives).
I trried it for a laugh and to see what a Hello Kitty MMORPG would look like and it became my guilty pleasure. I did not expect such a full-featured game from something that is free2play. I'm giving this a high score for the fun aspect and for being different from other MMORPGs I have played.