Candy-Coated Euphoria
Viva Piñata contains amazing visuals and hardy any graphical problems. It runs smoothly and has a great solid frame rate. The color palate's diversity is one to be admired.
The Piñatas themselves are the stand-out, best part of the game. Each one, and there are many (around 50), is beautifully and uniquely created. Their names are derived from candy and each is based on a real animal. For example, the bees are called Buzzlegums, and its fun to figure out the derivatives of their sugar-inspired names.
The story mode, or really only mode, allows you to build up to 8 gardens. Each one is extremely customizable from the type of land (dirt, grass, tall grass, ect.), to the cleverly designed Piñata houses, along with fences and the like that can be purchased from the general store. There is also a variety of beautiful foliage which you can grow, water, and fertilize at your leisure.
The main objective of the game seems to be breeding, or "romancing" Piñatas, which is to say, make more of them. There are cute and fun dances in which you can watch for each species, which is just one of the many rewards for this. As you breed Piñatas, you can accumulate money and customize you garden freely. The difficulty in breeding and attracting some of the rarer Piñatas varies, leaving this game with something for everybody.
Piñatas can also be beaten with shovels until they explode into large amounts of candy to the sound of children cheering, which can be fun, but not rewarding, itself.
Experimentation is also encouraged as feeding Piñatas certain foods and plants can change their color or appearance all together.
Overall, the beautiful visuals, unique and addicting game play make this game great and a must own for anyone who is interested in the simulation genre or just wants to enjoy some family friendly game play in their spare time.