Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise
The 360 paper mache breeder gets a DS installment
Tags: Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise Categories: DS Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Oct 21st, 2008
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
 |
Viva Pinata Pocket Paradise brings the Xbox 360 franchise to Nintendo’s handheld. Having Rare back on a Nintendo system may be the moment that fanboys are waiting for but they shouldn’t get too excited. This is part of the agreement with Microsoft, and doesn’t mark the rebirth of one of video gaming’s greatest partnerships. Bringing the garden tending of Viva Pinata to the DS is ingenious in itself, the ease of control offered by the stylus is a vast improvement with a game that seemingly felt out of place on the 360.
If you are not familiar with the franchise and its concept, I can catch you up in a couple of seconds. The player is in control of a garden where they must plant flowers and more importantly attract piñatas to breed them.
The execution is more entertaining than you might think. I chalk this up to the same genre as Animal Crossing, where the game is far more than the sum of its parts.
 |
Time will pass without warning, these games don’t really have levels, per se. Viva Pinata does a better job of demarking the passage of timethan other similar titles. As the player achieves certain accomplishments, the game will send go to a tutorial level to educate the player on the tools needed to exploit this new feature. These range from the slightly interesting to the banally boring.
I’d have to say that the game has scaled down really well – if you like that simple gameplay and endless paper mache breeding. This isn’t normally my type of game. I found it to be a neat distraction, however I really wanted to get somewhere and simply adding more crap to a growing square of space just didn’t do it for me. That’s where this game pales in comparison to a title like Animal Crossing. Even though Animal Crossing is more about trading dull routine for rare objects, there was an insane amount of customization that can be achieved, and Viva Pinata is missing that customization.
 |
Granted, on some level the gardening is less about tending to a garden and more about attracting the wild piñatas and managing their existing needs. Players will have some control of their actions, but not total control. In some ways this game is like a puzzle where the exact conditions need to be met in order to progress.
This game is at home on the DS. The ease of control is an impressive upgrade to a title that essentially was awkward on the controller. It has been scaled down well, but it still isn’t for everyone. I think that Animal Crossing fans will have a nice distraction waiting for the Wii version. Fans of the original titles on the Xbox 360 that are looking to carry the game around, this will hold some appeal. All others may find a few hours of enjoyment, but ultimately get bored.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Gameplay is really easy to pick up, the stylus is pretty much all you need + This is one of those games that will steal hours of your life with little to no warning |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
| - Eventually you realize that far too much of your time is spent doing menial tasks without the payoff of titles like Animal Crossing or Harvest Room | |
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This is a nice distraction but it is missing the essential spark that makes it more than a time waster. I think that it is a weaker entry in the genre but there may be something here for fans of the genre and series. | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise
Posted by Mike "Two Tone" McConnell on Oct 21st, 2008 and is filed under DS Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
