Viva Piñata - Review
Added June 27th, 2007 by Jason Stafford
When you think about a piñata, you probably remember at least one point in your childhood when you were blindfolded and armed with a piece of wood, trying in vain to dispatch your papier-mâché foe to snag the delicious treasures within. Rare's newest game, Viva Piñata, casts a new light on cute piñata animals. Though geared towards children, Viva Piñata has plenty of rich game-play with a veritable Noah's Ark of piñata animals to acquire that will leave even the more hardcore gamers with an experience they can enjoy. Plus, the game is so adorable it could melt the heart of the Snow Miser himself.
In Viva Piñata you take the role of a gardener starting out to make it big in the world of gardening and piñatas. At first, you're given a relatively small plot of land in disrepair, which you must first clean up. This will introduce the general mechanics of the game. The interface is surprisingly intuitive, with the left-analog controlling movement of the cursor in the garden. Clicking the left analog increases or decreases the cursor movement speed. The right-analog controls the camera, so fans of more maturely themed games such as shooters should instantly be accustomed to this method. Using the triggers to zoom in or out, the camera doesn't zoom out quite as much as it really should, though it isn't bad enough to mar the game's experience. A mere click of the right analog provides an overview camera that shows your entire garden, but it's far too high up to make anything really discernible.
You'll also be introduced to your tools, beginning with the shovel, which will be the keystone to becoming a great gardener. You'll have to smash the rundown objects in the garden, as well as smooth out any hardened soil to make it rich, usable earth. Once you've finished cleanup, it's time to use a grass packet to plant some grass around your garden. Following this, you'll receive your first piñata visitor to your garden! Viva Piñata does a good job of giving you a few relatively easy to care for animals at first, and eases you into the idea of what you'll need to do in order to promote a thriving garden. Younger audiences may be fairly overwhelmed at the beginning, due to just how much can happen in relatively short bursts at the game's start. Older gamers, on the other hand, should have absolutely no problem keeping up with everything. Fortunately, new happenings are recorded in alerts, which are quickly accessed with pressing down on the D-pad. The alerts can be cycled through and selected, showing you where the alert's event is taking place, and greatly helps with streamlining the game.
Each animal in Viva Piñata has separate requirements that must be met for it to appear, to visit your garden, and finally to become a resident of your little abode. Many of these requirements are based around having certain plants in varying amounts in your garden, or meeting topographical requirements, such as having a certain amount of water or grass. Some piñatas also require that you have specific types of piñatas in your garden, or even that they eat some of your beloved animals. The game also progresses through night and day, with species tending to be either diurnal or nocturnal. Others still want you to have particular objects in your garden, such as a light or birdbath. This all adds up to needing a great amount of experimentation to try and get new piñatas to appear.
Any time a new animal appears you'll receive an alert, its appearance will be recorded in your journal. The journal can be accessed at any time with a mere press of the Y button. This is where you'll keep track of your overall progress through the game, and becomes the backbone to acquiring new animals. Once a new animal appears, you can simply check what the requirements are to have it visit your garden, and then subsequently set up residency.
Once you've figured out how to charm an animal to stay in your garden, it'll be time to make more of them. You can only attract two of each animal to your garden, and after that, it'll be up to you to reproduce more. Reproduction in Viva Piñata is handled with children in mind. Once the requirements for romancing are met by two members of a species, which usually involves at least having a house for them, you can have them perform the romance dance. This will begin a mini-game wherein you must navigate one of the animals to the other through a maze specific to each type of piñata. With the maze bested, you'll be rewarded with a cut-scene where the happy couple will dance the dance of romance, which ultimately results in an egg being delivered containing a new member of the species.
The first few animals that you'll most likely romance have mazes that prove little to no challenge, but they become increasingly difficult as you continually graduate to more advanced piñatas. You'll have a time limit and health limit each maze, and have to avoid lurkers, which at first constitute only the maze's boundaries. The mazes gradually become more difficult to navigate as you continually move on to higher level piñatas, with the addition of lurkers that can move at varying speeds inside the maze. This creates a rather old-school arcade gaming approach to reproducing your piñatas. Unfortunately, some of the very late game piñatas' mazes can become fairly frustrating with the addition of invisible mazes, visible only when the piñata under your control is still, and "sleeping" lurkers which must be slowly bypassed. These obstacles make for a tough balance between racing the clock and keeping your health in mind. Even more seasoned gamers are bound to be aggravated by some of the mazes, and it's tough to imagine a child being able to conquer all of them easily.
Though every time you romance two piñatas you'll be forced to navigate through the maze, thankfully you won't have to continually re-meet the romance requirements for repeat romance sessions. Romance candy is available for purchase at the local store, which will allow any species whose romance requirements have been previously met to romance again. This is extremely handy for raising droves of animals to sell for chocolate coins; or for obtaining master romancer status for your animals, which is tied to a couple of achievements.
Attracting new animals to your garden and romancing your residents forms the basis to building your player level throughout your time in the garden. Leveling up has incentives that gradually open new possibilities, such as upgrades to your shovel that will allow you to create ponds or dig holes for seeds to grow plants more quickly. New items will also become available in the shop, such as new plant seeds, new objects to put in your garden, accessories to jazz up your piñatas, or even specific types of piñata pets that can only be attained by purchasing them from the local pet store. Certain piñatas even have certain requirements that are based on your level.
It's not all romance and candy in the world of Viva Piñata, however. There are a number of obstacles that will have to be overcome, although none are so dire that the sanctity of your entire garden is ever threatened. Some animals have requirements for residency that include eating other piñatas, so a good gardener has to be aware of which piñatas are being hunted to keep a vigilant eye on their precious piñata if they don't want the candivorous species quite yet. Offending piñatas can be beaten repeatedly with the shovel until they break into candy, which is actually more morbid than the developers must have intended.
Animals can also fight with each other, and if the fight isn't quickly broken up, it will continue until one is victorious, leaving the defeated sick. Any time an animal is sick, you'll need to quickly locate and designate it to be healed by the doctor, otherwise they'll end up meeting their fate at the hands of Dastardos, a wraith-like creature who relishes the candy inside piñatas. The imposed time-limit on how long an animal can be sick before its ultimate demise puts strong incentive in ensuring that your animals are well taken care of and looked after.
There are also sour piñatas which will plague your garden. Sour piñatas are tied to player level, so you'll constantly attract them throughout the course of the game. They'll come into your garden and drop sour candy, which is harmful to your piñatas and will cause them to become sick. Fortunately, there's an audio cue whenever sour candy is dropped into your garden, so you'll have time to find the offending not-so-sweets and smash them with the shovel. Sour piñatas, interestingly, have residency requirements. Making one a resident turns them into a normal piñata, and unlocks new pieces to the tower of sour. The tower of sour is comprised of species-specific blocks that deter would-be sour piñatas from ever visiting your garden again. You can also turn them off to allow a particular species to come back to your garden, which can be beneficial if you can more readily meet the requirements to have the sour version of the piñata a resident than you can the normal version.
The last of your troublesome interlopers are Ruffians, who make an appearance later in the game. Ruffians will enter your garden and make a general nuisance of themselves. They'll break buildings, ruin your garden's layout, and generally be a thorn in your side until you reach a point in the game where you can do something to curb their vandalism.
There are also weeds in the game, and unlike the beneficial plants such as trees or berry bushes that you can plant, weeds are generally bad news for your garden. Though you can plant weeds by purchasing the appropriate seeds in your garden, doing so should be done with care. You can buy fencing at the store, and fencing off weeds to experiment with them can be a good idea, for if a hapless and hungry piñata dines on a weed, it will become sick. Certain piñatas, however, have certain requirements that may rely on weeds, so you'll most likely have to experience them at least once. There are other, more sinister ways of weeds getting into your garden, and if you see one, it's best to quickly nip the problem in the bud before it gets out of hand.
Viva Piñata has a space limit in each garden, so one garden simply won't suffice in acquiring all the game's 50 achievements totaling 1000 points, which include making certain numbers of piñata species residents, gaining romancer awards for repeatedly romancing species, or having your garden reach certain levels of worth, as more obvious ones. Though many of the unattained achievements can be looked up in the game's achievements list, there are also a number of secret achievements to be had, many of which rely on general dedication to the game, or downright blind luck with a certain action. Fortunately for you, you can have extra gardens, which allow you to keep your money, equipment, level, tower of sour upgrades, and shop availability to continue your quest to become the ultimate gardener, and to unlock all of the game's achievements. To "complete" your roster of animals, which amount to over sixty species in total, you're going to need all the gardening space you can get.
You can use the town's post office to send piñatas or other items to other players over X-Box Live, or even to send items to yourself for running your other gardens. This will allow you to maintain separate housing for animals that tend to fight, to keep up with the growing needs of higher level piñatas, or merely having a breeding ground that will leave you not worrying as much about the space limit. It'll mostly be up to the player how many gardens they want to have, and what each will contain, which adds a lot of life and customization to Viva Piñata.
There are also "factory challenges" that will eventually be available, which require you to send a certain number of a certain piñata, or piñatas with a higher value, to Piñata Central. Meeting these challenges isn't necessary, although it does raise piñata value for those you send, which is useful in earning a couple achievements tied to either piñata value or for completing a number of these factory challenges. They'll be a breeze later in the game, and the rewards for completion are some pieces of candy that will improve the moods of your residents.
The piñatas are all designed to be incredibly adorable, and each has their own reactions to being happy, depressed, or simply milling about the garden. The sounds they make and much of their bouncy cuteness is extremely charming, no matter the age of the player, and this reviewer defies even the most callous gamer to watch a Macaraccoon and not giggle with delight. The game runs fairly smoothly, although there are times where the frame-rate will drop rather dramatically. Fortunately, this is only for very short periods of time while the game is autosaving, and doesn't necessarily affect game-play. There's also a slight lag with load times, particularly with the journal and encyclopedia, and though these are only marginally troublesome, it can be annoying at times as it breaks up the otherwise streamlined and fluid pace of the game.
Summary:
With addictive gameplay, varied achievements that despite a real lack of difficulty, help to keep the player engrossed in seeing more of the game, topped with unbeatable charm, Viva Piñata is definitely a fun title for people of all ages. Though it can admittedly feel fairly repetitive or redundant at times, this can be curbed by trying a new garden with new animals; or going for some of the higher level piñatas. Some players may be turned off by its childish look and cutesy theme, but if you happen to have a sister, a mother, a girlfriend, a child, or any other real or imagined excuse, use it as ample reason to check out the fun and sweet world of Viva Piñata.
In Viva Piñata you take the role of a gardener starting out to make it big in the world of gardening and piñatas. At first, you're given a relatively small plot of land in disrepair, which you must first clean up. This will introduce the general mechanics of the game. The interface is surprisingly intuitive, with the left-analog controlling movement of the cursor in the garden. Clicking the left analog increases or decreases the cursor movement speed. The right-analog controls the camera, so fans of more maturely themed games such as shooters should instantly be accustomed to this method. Using the triggers to zoom in or out, the camera doesn't zoom out quite as much as it really should, though it isn't bad enough to mar the game's experience. A mere click of the right analog provides an overview camera that shows your entire garden, but it's far too high up to make anything really discernible.
You'll also be introduced to your tools, beginning with the shovel, which will be the keystone to becoming a great gardener. You'll have to smash the rundown objects in the garden, as well as smooth out any hardened soil to make it rich, usable earth. Once you've finished cleanup, it's time to use a grass packet to plant some grass around your garden. Following this, you'll receive your first piñata visitor to your garden! Viva Piñata does a good job of giving you a few relatively easy to care for animals at first, and eases you into the idea of what you'll need to do in order to promote a thriving garden. Younger audiences may be fairly overwhelmed at the beginning, due to just how much can happen in relatively short bursts at the game's start. Older gamers, on the other hand, should have absolutely no problem keeping up with everything. Fortunately, new happenings are recorded in alerts, which are quickly accessed with pressing down on the D-pad. The alerts can be cycled through and selected, showing you where the alert's event is taking place, and greatly helps with streamlining the game.
Each animal in Viva Piñata has separate requirements that must be met for it to appear, to visit your garden, and finally to become a resident of your little abode. Many of these requirements are based around having certain plants in varying amounts in your garden, or meeting topographical requirements, such as having a certain amount of water or grass. Some piñatas also require that you have specific types of piñatas in your garden, or even that they eat some of your beloved animals. The game also progresses through night and day, with species tending to be either diurnal or nocturnal. Others still want you to have particular objects in your garden, such as a light or birdbath. This all adds up to needing a great amount of experimentation to try and get new piñatas to appear.
Any time a new animal appears you'll receive an alert, its appearance will be recorded in your journal. The journal can be accessed at any time with a mere press of the Y button. This is where you'll keep track of your overall progress through the game, and becomes the backbone to acquiring new animals. Once a new animal appears, you can simply check what the requirements are to have it visit your garden, and then subsequently set up residency.
Once you've figured out how to charm an animal to stay in your garden, it'll be time to make more of them. You can only attract two of each animal to your garden, and after that, it'll be up to you to reproduce more. Reproduction in Viva Piñata is handled with children in mind. Once the requirements for romancing are met by two members of a species, which usually involves at least having a house for them, you can have them perform the romance dance. This will begin a mini-game wherein you must navigate one of the animals to the other through a maze specific to each type of piñata. With the maze bested, you'll be rewarded with a cut-scene where the happy couple will dance the dance of romance, which ultimately results in an egg being delivered containing a new member of the species.
The first few animals that you'll most likely romance have mazes that prove little to no challenge, but they become increasingly difficult as you continually graduate to more advanced piñatas. You'll have a time limit and health limit each maze, and have to avoid lurkers, which at first constitute only the maze's boundaries. The mazes gradually become more difficult to navigate as you continually move on to higher level piñatas, with the addition of lurkers that can move at varying speeds inside the maze. This creates a rather old-school arcade gaming approach to reproducing your piñatas. Unfortunately, some of the very late game piñatas' mazes can become fairly frustrating with the addition of invisible mazes, visible only when the piñata under your control is still, and "sleeping" lurkers which must be slowly bypassed. These obstacles make for a tough balance between racing the clock and keeping your health in mind. Even more seasoned gamers are bound to be aggravated by some of the mazes, and it's tough to imagine a child being able to conquer all of them easily.
Though every time you romance two piñatas you'll be forced to navigate through the maze, thankfully you won't have to continually re-meet the romance requirements for repeat romance sessions. Romance candy is available for purchase at the local store, which will allow any species whose romance requirements have been previously met to romance again. This is extremely handy for raising droves of animals to sell for chocolate coins; or for obtaining master romancer status for your animals, which is tied to a couple of achievements.
Attracting new animals to your garden and romancing your residents forms the basis to building your player level throughout your time in the garden. Leveling up has incentives that gradually open new possibilities, such as upgrades to your shovel that will allow you to create ponds or dig holes for seeds to grow plants more quickly. New items will also become available in the shop, such as new plant seeds, new objects to put in your garden, accessories to jazz up your piñatas, or even specific types of piñata pets that can only be attained by purchasing them from the local pet store. Certain piñatas even have certain requirements that are based on your level.
It's not all romance and candy in the world of Viva Piñata, however. There are a number of obstacles that will have to be overcome, although none are so dire that the sanctity of your entire garden is ever threatened. Some animals have requirements for residency that include eating other piñatas, so a good gardener has to be aware of which piñatas are being hunted to keep a vigilant eye on their precious piñata if they don't want the candivorous species quite yet. Offending piñatas can be beaten repeatedly with the shovel until they break into candy, which is actually more morbid than the developers must have intended.
Animals can also fight with each other, and if the fight isn't quickly broken up, it will continue until one is victorious, leaving the defeated sick. Any time an animal is sick, you'll need to quickly locate and designate it to be healed by the doctor, otherwise they'll end up meeting their fate at the hands of Dastardos, a wraith-like creature who relishes the candy inside piñatas. The imposed time-limit on how long an animal can be sick before its ultimate demise puts strong incentive in ensuring that your animals are well taken care of and looked after.
There are also sour piñatas which will plague your garden. Sour piñatas are tied to player level, so you'll constantly attract them throughout the course of the game. They'll come into your garden and drop sour candy, which is harmful to your piñatas and will cause them to become sick. Fortunately, there's an audio cue whenever sour candy is dropped into your garden, so you'll have time to find the offending not-so-sweets and smash them with the shovel. Sour piñatas, interestingly, have residency requirements. Making one a resident turns them into a normal piñata, and unlocks new pieces to the tower of sour. The tower of sour is comprised of species-specific blocks that deter would-be sour piñatas from ever visiting your garden again. You can also turn them off to allow a particular species to come back to your garden, which can be beneficial if you can more readily meet the requirements to have the sour version of the piñata a resident than you can the normal version.
The last of your troublesome interlopers are Ruffians, who make an appearance later in the game. Ruffians will enter your garden and make a general nuisance of themselves. They'll break buildings, ruin your garden's layout, and generally be a thorn in your side until you reach a point in the game where you can do something to curb their vandalism.
There are also weeds in the game, and unlike the beneficial plants such as trees or berry bushes that you can plant, weeds are generally bad news for your garden. Though you can plant weeds by purchasing the appropriate seeds in your garden, doing so should be done with care. You can buy fencing at the store, and fencing off weeds to experiment with them can be a good idea, for if a hapless and hungry piñata dines on a weed, it will become sick. Certain piñatas, however, have certain requirements that may rely on weeds, so you'll most likely have to experience them at least once. There are other, more sinister ways of weeds getting into your garden, and if you see one, it's best to quickly nip the problem in the bud before it gets out of hand.
Viva Piñata has a space limit in each garden, so one garden simply won't suffice in acquiring all the game's 50 achievements totaling 1000 points, which include making certain numbers of piñata species residents, gaining romancer awards for repeatedly romancing species, or having your garden reach certain levels of worth, as more obvious ones. Though many of the unattained achievements can be looked up in the game's achievements list, there are also a number of secret achievements to be had, many of which rely on general dedication to the game, or downright blind luck with a certain action. Fortunately for you, you can have extra gardens, which allow you to keep your money, equipment, level, tower of sour upgrades, and shop availability to continue your quest to become the ultimate gardener, and to unlock all of the game's achievements. To "complete" your roster of animals, which amount to over sixty species in total, you're going to need all the gardening space you can get.
You can use the town's post office to send piñatas or other items to other players over X-Box Live, or even to send items to yourself for running your other gardens. This will allow you to maintain separate housing for animals that tend to fight, to keep up with the growing needs of higher level piñatas, or merely having a breeding ground that will leave you not worrying as much about the space limit. It'll mostly be up to the player how many gardens they want to have, and what each will contain, which adds a lot of life and customization to Viva Piñata.
There are also "factory challenges" that will eventually be available, which require you to send a certain number of a certain piñata, or piñatas with a higher value, to Piñata Central. Meeting these challenges isn't necessary, although it does raise piñata value for those you send, which is useful in earning a couple achievements tied to either piñata value or for completing a number of these factory challenges. They'll be a breeze later in the game, and the rewards for completion are some pieces of candy that will improve the moods of your residents.
The piñatas are all designed to be incredibly adorable, and each has their own reactions to being happy, depressed, or simply milling about the garden. The sounds they make and much of their bouncy cuteness is extremely charming, no matter the age of the player, and this reviewer defies even the most callous gamer to watch a Macaraccoon and not giggle with delight. The game runs fairly smoothly, although there are times where the frame-rate will drop rather dramatically. Fortunately, this is only for very short periods of time while the game is autosaving, and doesn't necessarily affect game-play. There's also a slight lag with load times, particularly with the journal and encyclopedia, and though these are only marginally troublesome, it can be annoying at times as it breaks up the otherwise streamlined and fluid pace of the game.
Summary:
With addictive gameplay, varied achievements that despite a real lack of difficulty, help to keep the player engrossed in seeing more of the game, topped with unbeatable charm, Viva Piñata is definitely a fun title for people of all ages. Though it can admittedly feel fairly repetitive or redundant at times, this can be curbed by trying a new garden with new animals; or going for some of the higher level piñatas. Some players may be turned off by its childish look and cutesy theme, but if you happen to have a sister, a mother, a girlfriend, a child, or any other real or imagined excuse, use it as ample reason to check out the fun and sweet world of Viva Piñata.
