Viva Piñata

aka: Atsumare! Piñata, Your Garden
Moby ID: 25261
Xbox 360 Specs
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Description official description

You've been given the opportunity to start your very own garden - only this garden will be full of Piñata animals that are full of candy! Nurture your garden to attract a wide variety of unique Piñata species as you aim to keep your residents happy.

Viva Piñata is a simulation in the vein of a game like Harvest Moon. While there is no specific story or goal to the game, you can progress further by attracting many different types of Piñatas into your garden. At first, you'll only have a small patch of land covered in junk; however, with some cleaning up and basic maintenance, you can begin to attract many different species, starting from the tiny Whirlm, to larger creatures like Horstachio.

If you're more interested in money-making than collecting, you can get the Piñatas to produce goods, like honey or milk, for you. Failing that, you can simply sell off any of your excess Piñatas after you learn how to get them to mate. Each species has its own particular ritual and conditions for mating. Occasionally, mischievous Sour Piñatas will turn up to cause trouble in your garden. If you can cure them of their sour condition, they'll help your garden instead! You can also get the services of the local Piñata Island residents, such as shopping, garden maintenance, and Piñata capture (if you require a particular species).

Spellings

  • あつまれ! ピニャータ - Japanese spelling

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Screenshots

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Credits (Xbox 360 version)

179 People (172 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 53 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 23 ratings with 2 reviews)

Cute little time waster

The Good
Viva Pinata is a simple little Sim great for burning large amounts of time. It is non violent, generally slow-paced and relaxing. The colors are vibrant and the pinatas are nicely detailed to the point you can even see the way the strips of brightly colored paper hang down from them.

The Bad
This game chews up large amounts of time very fast. It's also a little easy to get lost in all the menus at first. It's definitely a family/kids game, so don't expect any realism here, though some people like the whimsical nature of things. The Pinata AI isn't the best and often pinatas you want to enter the garden won't find their way in if you have large amounts of water or any other obstacle bordering things. Also, it is hard to get a full collection of Pinatas without an Xbox live subscription, so if you don't have one you may want to consider it.

The Bottom Line
Even though this game is a major time-eater aimed at kids, it's actually not a bad game if you have lots of time on your hands and are looking for something fun and relaxing to do. Even though it can be frustrating sometimes and nearly impossible to complete without Xbox Live, Viva Pinata is a nice alternative to the traditional Sim for those looking for something different .

Xbox 360 · by lamoxlamae (3) · 2008

Holy cow, it's 6:30 in the morning already??!!

The Good
I'll be honest, I wasn't expecting to get into this game as much as I have. It's weird, very kiddie, and weird. I said "weird" twice on purpose. As much of an oddball as this game is, I found it nearly impossible to stop playing. I found myself spending hours trying to coax a "Mousemallow" to decide to stay in the garden so that I could use it (and its offspring) to in-turn attract a "Syrupent". It's ridiculous, I know, but I couldn't stop. Graphically, this game is no slouch either. If you zoom in on a critter, you can see their "fur" is really finely cut tissue paper. Not only that, but if you zoom in close to the ground, you can see that the grass is just as detailed. Another nice touch is how the creatures interact with the environment. Birds will perch on trees and houses, bugs will crawl up the side of plats, etc... It's actually pretty impressive.

The Bad
My biggest gripe with this game is the interruptions. They slow down after about the two hour mark, but they're really annoying. Imagine enjoying yourself, building a home for your new resident or what have you, and then Leafoss (your guide to the world) jumps in with some info, such as a new species visiting your garden. That by itself isn't too bad, but then imagine it's about 45 seconds later, and you're deciding where to place a "Buzzlegum" hive, when suddenly, she interrupts you again to tell you that visitor from 45 seconds ago just became a resident. Now, after an cut-scene you can't skip, you have to go back to the builder, select the hive, find a spot for it, etc... The fact that this type of thing happens all the time makes it pretty hard to over-look.

The Bottom Line
It's like someone tossed Pokemon, the Sims and Animal Crossing into a blender and hit "liquify". Then they took this goop and rigged it to pump directly into your veins. This game is item-collecting, animal-raising, world-building crack.

Xbox 360 · by Robstein (199) · 2006

Discussion

Subject By Date
The Party's Begun Rouge (5) Aug 17, 2007

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Viva Piñata appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

References

One of the info screens in the game states: "Use the D-pad to make a real-time tool change and wallop Seedos' weak point for massive seedage". With this sentence, Rare takes a stab at Bill Rich's speech while presenting Genji: Days of the Blade at the E3 2006 game show. He mentioned the game features "[...]Real-time[...]weapon change[...]" and said (about a giant crab) "You attack its weak point for massive damage". These have evolved into internet memes and are also referenced in other games.

During the beginning, when the player smashes junk in their garden, one of the items is a Grabbed by the Ghoulies arcade game. This is a reference to the occasional game gag of dissing the developers' previous mess-ups. The home for the Crowla is modeled after the haunted mansion from Grabbed by the Ghoulies.

TV Series

There is a childrens' television series based on the game. It was created by 4Kids Entertainment, the company that did the voices of the characters. The show airs on 4Kids TV on Saturday mornings.

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2006 – #7 Console Game of the Year
    • 2006 – #3 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
    • 2006 – Xbox 360 Strategy Game of the Year

Information also contributed by Nelson340, Robstein, and SteamTheCat.

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  • MobyGames ID: 25261
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Ben K.

Windows added by Spenot. Xbox One added by Kennyannydenny. Xbox Cloud Gaming added by Sciere.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Alaka, Stratege, Cantillon, Patrick Bregger, Starbuck the Third, FatherJack.

Game added December 6, 2006. Last modified March 4, 2024.