The Gadgets Page

I never played Viva Pinata on the Xbox 360, but I have been looking for something fun to play ever since I finished filling my museum on Animal Crossing: Wild World. Unfortunately, Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise for the Nintendo DS isn’t anything near as inviting as Animal Crossing was for me. Here is a video describing how to play and a general review of the game:

The video clips look great. The tutorial was thorough in teaching me how to play. I was never confused on what I was supposed to do, but I just didn’t find it interesting enough to return. In fact, I’m more tempted to load up Animal Crossing: Wild World and visit my old friends there. I just didn’t feel the need to make my garden great enough to attract rare pinatas because there is no real reward to attracting them. Sure, they get on my list of pinatas and I unlock an achievement, but that wasn’t enough for me.

The reason I wanted a complete catalog in Animal Crossing is because sometimes my little animal friends wanted something. If it was in my catalog, I could order it for them and make them happy by giving it to them. That was a HUGE payoff to me. I wasn’t just checking off every item on a list. The items could be used to make my animal friends like me.

This is an aspect of Viva Pinata that just never materialized for me. WHY do I want to attract pinatas? They aren’t that cute. They don’t talk to me. I can’t even pet them or teach them tricks like I could with Nintendogs. I just didn’t see the point of investing any time in the game and this comes from a girl who played Animal Crossing at least thirty minutes a day every day for two years.

In the end, a game needs to give me a bit of relaxation and a bit of achievement. I got neither from Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise.