Review: Viva Piñata Pocket Paradise

Early screens of Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise were worrying, as the last thing the DS port needed was a barrage of minigames similar to the disastrous Xbox 360 spin-off, Party Animals. Thankfully, all fears have been put to bed by this fantastic iteration of the 360 original, appearing on the handheld in its full horticultural glory and lacking only HD graphics and infuriating minigames.

Released in November 2006, Rare’s Viva Piñata on 360 was met with critical acclaim for reaching out to the four corners of young and old, casual and hardcore gamers alike. Pocket Paradise looks to follow through, aided this time by innovative touch screen control and over sixty piñata to befriend (including 7 DS exclusives). The touch screen displays a top-down view of your garden: around 4x4 DS screens in size. Once you’ve cleared away the rubble and sown some grass you’re ready to begin attracting your first piñata. Whirlms are basic worm-like piñatas that will wander through your patch before Sparrowmints and Bunnycombs let curiosity get the better of them.

Over time you can buy and sell vegetables from the local shop Costalots, create garden features and build homes for your papier-maché menagerie, attracting more piñata as you go. If certain criteria are met, two piñatas will get it on and produce a young-un. For example, Mousemallows will only couple-up once they’ve eaten turnips, while others want to eat your other piñata, just to be difficult. If successful though, you’ll be treated to a short mating dance-video and your piñatas will wander off to their bouncing burrow.

However, it’s not all plain sailing. From time to time masked ruffians and sour piñatas will turn up to mess it all up for you, but it’s nothing a quick whack from your shovel won’t see to.

And that’s essentially it. Rare have refrained from threading through any needless plot which would only dampen the experience. Instead, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise oozes “just-a-bit-more” charm that keeps the player glued to the screen and the colourfully creative character and garden designs add to the polished feel of the game. The attention to detail in the translation to DS is impressive. The touch screen makes selecting from menus and tending to your garden a joy, which is helpful when the screen can make your garden look overcrowded at times. The top screen displays the game clock, your gardener level (shown as a percentage) and various other titbits of information to help you manage your residents efficiently.

The open-ended experience is designed for accommodating all styles of play: whether you only want to spend a few minutes pottering about the flower beds or want to commit to a hardcore piñata collecting session. Elements of Pocket Paradise share in the previous successes of Animal Crossing, Pokémon and Harvest Moon and while it lacks the depth and play time of these titles, it makes up for it in originality: creating an endearing game for players looking for a novel way to pass the time.

Younger players can amuse themselves with the placid sandbox mode, with fewer game pressures. Linking with a friend meanwhile allows you to trade piñatas and items at the post office, but a complete lack of online features is a bit of a let-down. Despite this, if you are on the look out for a new sandbox game to wile the hours away, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise is well worth a look.

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