Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise DS game

Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise

2008

Overall rating: 3 out of 5

from 144 members

If you're unfamiliar with the Viva Piñata series, it's essentially... well, it's a gardening simulation. That, we know, makes it sound like the most boring game since, erm, Ticket Inspector Sim, but it's really not. The point is to entice an eclectic range of piñatas into your garden where they will eat, sleep, frolic and...well, Rare calls it 'romancing'. We'd be tempted to go with something else. Although there isn't an end point to the game as such, the general aim is to have as many different types of piñata pass through your garden as possible. See, it's fun! The control system has been put together to enable you to play through the game using only the touch screen. Should you want to, you can bring into play the DS's old school D-pad and face buttons (with the option to switch them round if you're a leftie). Basically, you use the stylus to navigate the garden (with the help of a map - you wouldn't think you'd need a map for something as small as a garden, but it's a big help) and navigate the menu, performing tasks as you go. Once you're into the main garden you're confronted with a blank space to make your own - or terraform, if you want to get technical. You can dig, create water features, plant, and buy in items such as houses for your piñatas and other assorted garden accessories, to make the garden the kind of place you'd sit on an evening drinking G?. The point of all that hard graft is to make your garden appeal to different species of piñata (of which there are over 60, including seven brand spanking new species). One type of piñata, for example, might require a certain amount of grass to be laid to visit, but also at least two buttercups to be planted to stay. If you want one, out comes the grass seed and you'll have to head off to the shop for buttercup seeds. If you want to get your buttercup to grow faster, you'll need to get some fertiliser on there. To get fertiliser, you'll need to get a Taffly to do its business after eating the colour of fruit that matches your plant. You can see how it all rolls out?? If that all sounds horribly complicated, fear not. Your journal, complete with all the information you could need, is never more than a tap of the stylus away. If you're looking for a deep, rich and cuddly experience to share with the little 'uns, Pocket Paradise is a fair bet.

Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise details

Format:	U DS
Players:	1-2
Genres:	Role-playing, Strategy
Developers:	RARE
Rental release:	05 Sep 2008

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Most helpful review Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise

good

By a customer from Saltburn-by-the-Sea , 17 Dec 2008

[Highly rated reviewer]

wicked of what i have played on it was excellent real adventure
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Great fun and fascinating

By a customer , 09 Jun 2011

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Show review anywayHide

I am on level 9 now after a long time of playing it. At the start of the game you get a small garden and must attract new pinatas by planting seeds, getting them to eat each other and changing terrain. If you work hard you will come across sour pinatas that (some times) when you can't seem to get the pinatas they like to eat, you want to never play again. But it is quite easy the rest of the time. As well as your main garden, you get a playground so you can do anything you like. Currently I have made a small hamlet with gardens around the pinata homes. You get three accounts and you can change the language. Once at a party I had my DS with me and when I wanted to find out what peanut was in Italian I just changed the language to Italian and looked at my peanut tree in my garden. As well as all these things you can always look at the tutorials in the game that help you learn how to do things. Even I play on them occasionally (mainly for the reward of a small video clip before and after it).
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Excellent

By a customer from Leicester , 01 Mar 2009

I love this game, it is very addictive.

You are given a plot of land to make you own garden and attract animals in. Each animal has certain requirement to enter your garden and other requirements to become a resident. It also includes little videos from the kids show and stops now and then to take you through extras such as making fertiliser and how to change the colour of some of your residents.

I found it diificult to put down once I started playing it.
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good

By a customer from Saltburn-by-the-Sea , 17 Dec 2008

wicked of what i have played on it was excellent real adventure
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