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You might have noticed that this review looks slightly different to other reviews on VideoGamer.com. That’s because we look at games clearly designed for younger gamers in a slightly different way to other games. We’ll endeavour to tell you just what you need to know in a clear and concise way so you’ll be confident it’s the right purchase for whatever your situation.
What is it?
Ever since we first played Viva Piñata we couldn’t shake the feeling that its true home isn’t on the Xbox 360. The Nintendo DS, a handheld played by people of all ages and skill sets, home to plenty of family friendly titles, seemed like a better fit. With Microsoft owning Rare this looked unlikely to happen, but it has. Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise is Rare and THQ’s even more family friendly version of Viva Piñata.
For those not in the know, Viva Piñata is essentially an ecosystem sim mixed with some farming. Your goal is to grow and build a garden that entices new breeds of piñata animals. You start off with the lowly whirlm (a worm piñata if you haven’t guessed), but soon enough you’re trying to bring in bigger and more exciting piñatas and fending off nasty red ruffians and sours. The farming aspect comes from the produce you grow in your garden and how you can breed piñata to sell.
Complexity
On the Xbox 360 Viva Piñata is a deceptively complex simulation, asking the player to manage an awful lot of animals and a garden that is always in need of work. In essence the same is true of the DS game, but things have been made substantially easier. Primarily this is down to the stylus controls found in the DS game. Navigating menus and moving about your garden is now incredibly simple and it’s as if the game was designed with the DS in mind from the beginning.
The hardest concept for young gamers to grasp is the requirements system. Each piñata has a set of requirements that need to be met before they appear in the game, visit your garden, become a resident of your garden and romance (breed) with another piñata. Early on this isn’t all that tricky, with the simplest piñatas pleased by the smallest things, but later piñatas require numerous things, from the kind of food they need to eat to the type of other piñatas living in the garden. You also get into the situation where one type of piñata doesn’t get along with another, which ends up in fights (and piñata death) if you’re not careful.
Although there is a mode where all the game’s items are available for free (great for really young or novice gamers), grasping the various layers of depth the game has to offer will take some time. On the surface it appears to be a fairly simple gardening sim (laying grass, planting seeds and digging ponds) with some animals thrown in for fun, but you’ll need your head screwed on if you’re going to see all the game has to offer.
Suitability
A Viva Piñata TV series has aired in the UK and as such Pocket Paradise will have extra appeal to existing fans. Many of the characters from the show appear in the game as well as a handful of piñatas created exclusively for the DS game. The amount of text in the game might be quite heavy for the lower end of the 6-12-year-old age range THQ is aiming at, but once the basics have been grasped it shouldn’t be a big problem.
Production value
As far as DS titles go this up right up there with the best the handheld has to offer. The bright colours burst out of the two screens and the impressive visuals of the 360 games have been faithfully recreated. Rare has used a mixture of pre-rendered graphics for the garden and proper animated 3D models for the piñatas. It really is a charming game, full of fun piñata designs and likeable characters.
Anything for adults?
Any adults interested in a portable version of the Xbox 360 classic or a novel approach to simulation games should give Pocket Paradise a look. There’s more than enough depth here to keep experienced gamers going for quite some time and the sharing feature allows you to gift piñatas to friends or younger family members. Although not as difficult as the Xbox 360 original and recently released sequel there’s no question that Pocket Paradise has an extremely broad appeal.
VideoGamer.com’s Verdict
Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise might not be the perfect handheld game for kids and the whole family but it’s pretty close. The introduction of stylus controls makes for a far simpler experience, the presentation is spot on and the challenge is balanced enough for players of all ages. With this and the recent Xbox 360 game, Trouble in Paradise, Rare has covered as many bases as possible. If you’re still piñataless you really have no excuse.
