Back in the nineties, a company called Rareware started to garner attention for their innovative and critically acclaimed games. Examples include GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and Killer Instinct. You've probably heard of them more times than once, and any experienced gamer knows the story by now. After a while, they were bought out by Microsoft which resulted in them making rather sub par games. This game, however, is a different story.
Viva Pinata is an unusual Rareware installment. This game rose from the ashes and impressed many gamers with it's charm and overall gameplay. It was so successful, in fact, that it spawned three sequels and even a TV show. That kind of success was unheard of back then. The game is a first person garden simulator. At the start of the game, a girl named Leafos will ask you to help her restore a garden on Pinata island. This is how the game teaches you the basic mechanics. You're instructed to destroy pieces of debris scattered around the yard, and to replant the grass. You're probably thinking that it sounds incredibly mundane, but you'll be surprised by how much effort and depth went into making everything. Once you've fixed up the garden, you'll move onto bigger things like luring living pinatas into your garden, and then allowing them to mate so you can build a nest for them to sleep in. Other things include buying new items in order to furnish your garden, calling a doctor to heal sick pinatas, and planting various types of seeds.
The over world is brimming with personality. Every one has a job to do, a role to fill and their own life to live. The people you see are there for a reason. Pinatas act in a similar fashion. They'll roam around your garden as well as areas outside the boundaries, interacting with other pinatas as they enjoy your hospitality. Looking at the game for the first time was mesmerizing. I didn't play it at launch, a few years down the line in fact, and it still looked phenomenal. Overall, the graphics do a fantastic job at setting the appropriate theme for the game. It looks cheerful when it wants to, and it will look slightly darker when something unfortunate occurs. Most of the time, the sun will be beaming down from the sky as pinatas lie in the grass, but sometimes things won't be as happy. Just to be clear, pinatas do not die. They're sort of like pokemon, they can only sustain injuries, nothing else. However, a few hours into the game, a certain character will attempt to destroy a sick pinata, which then spawns them outside of your garden.
The controls are easy to get to grips with. Don't worry if you've been overdosing on Assassins' Creed, because the control layout here is much more basic. Moving around is self explanatory, placing objects and interacting with the world is done well and once you learn the controls you might never forget them. Going back to the gameplay, there is so much to do. Aside from obvious garden work, there is more than enough on offer. If you ever get bored with watering your own plants and doing chores, you can hire characters called helpers to do those things for you if you wish. Whenever two pinatas fall in love with each other, you can call a guy to build them a nest, and they look different for every species of pinata. You can accessorize pinatas with various items such as name tags or clothing to make them look different from one another. You can even upgrade your garden tools to make them more effective while working. There aren't too many restrictions in game, but there is one that can really annoy you. Your garden is tiny.
Because of this, you don't a whole lot of room to do things. It expands every so often, but even then it's still too small. I found myself looking out into the distance more than a few times wishing that there was more to see and explore. Things get even worse when you realize that there are huge desert and jungle biomes in the background. It would've been cool to have been able to traverse the landscape. There are also a few minor issues with some ideas. For starters, you'll be visited by a group of hotheaded idiots known as ruffians. These guys enjoy smashing up your garden and after encountering them for hours you'll soon get bored with them. To be honest, the AI in general is lacking. Despite having a village minutes, if not seconds away from your garden, they can sometimes take a long time to reach you. Even if they manage to get off their behind and walk over to you, they can be a bit stupid, especially the helpers. Oh, I almost forgot, don't even try to hit any of the human characters. Leafos, the girl who you meet up with at the start, will confiscate your goods if you repeatedly hit her or wash her down with your watering can. Her brother, Seedos, will resort to vandalism if you push him too far. He'll start planting thistles and poison ivy, so watch where you swing your shovel.
Along with the lush visuals and stunning atmosphere, the game has a pleasant soundtrack to boot. No matter what you're doing, innocent jingles can be heard throughout the entirety of the game. No piece of music goes on for too long, and I can still remember certain tracks even after all these years. So much effort was poured into this game, and it shows during the first few hours of gameplay. Everything in the game world has a great amount of detail, whether it's a piece of scenery or something in the foreground. I can imagine how people reacted to this when it first came out. At the time, the Xbox 360 had the graphical edge over the PS3 and I can totally see why. It's a living, breathing world, but on a hard drive. This was when many games were still trying to pull this kind of thing off, and Viva Pinata nails it perfectly. I would even say that this game looks better than some games that have been released recently. Now that's pretty sad.
Viva Pinata is a charming, memorable adventure. It's primarily aimed at younger kids, but I reckon everyone will get something out of this. Frustrating moments aside, this has a great amount of content ranging from customizing your garden to the max to breeding a wide variety of pinatas. You should really add this game to your collection if you haven't already, it's not worth missing out on.