Viva Piņata: Trouble in Paradise Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 5 September, 2008

Join the green party.

Version tested: Xbox 360

Viva Piņata really was filled with fun, but it was a guilty pleasure for many, some of whom claimed to buy Gears of War at the same time to save face. "This? This isn't mine. I bought the one about homoerotic camaraderie in the face of exploding underground lizard aliens." Hopefully everyone's overcome that now though, because Viva Piņata: Trouble in Paradise is just as good, if not better.

More of an expanded version of the original game than a sequel, Trouble in Paradise plays in much the same way. You take control of a scruffy patch of land and use a spade and a magical grass-seed packet to carpet the soil in greenery, and then plant seeds and dig ponds to attract a range of vibrant wildlife to live within the garden's borders. All the animals - including more than 30 new additions - want different things in order to take up residence, and different things again in order to mate, and once the tutorial phase is out of the way the game settles into a madcap rhythm of watering, sculpting, buying and selling to make and keep them all happy.

The piņata animals remain the stars, with new additions introduced at various points throughout the game. There are cuddly ladybirds, beetles, geckos, yaks, vultures, crabs, penguins, gorillas and others, all of which have been brought to life in gorgeous fashion thanks to Rare's beautiful pinecone paper finish, complemented by personalised animations, emotive faces and cute sound effects. The original piņata return with tweaked behaviour and requirements to integrate their new friends, and there are a few new ways to interact with them, including the Trick Stick, which allows you to recall a couple of showpiece moves for each piņata once you've fed or coddled them into performing for the first time.

'Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise' Screenshot 1

The arctic and desert regions are a bit lightweight, but worth it for the piņata and being able to carpet your main garden in snow and sand.

The first Viva Piņata eventually won enormous praise for its charm and compulsive gameplay, but only after it fought off the memory of a sluggish introductory period, and the steps Rare has taken to improve the start of the sequel go some way to alleviating this. The initial garden plot is already home to a few plants and one or two animals, with a fair bit of garden furniture that can be utilised or sold to give players a helping hand. There's also a three-part tutorial that introduces you to the basic concepts and a couple of new ones, including Langston, who sets out challenges that encourage you to play with your piņata to make them happy before sending them off to distant parties. The interface has also been nipped and refined in places to provide shortcuts to useful information and tools.

It's still not quite there though, and wants for a PC mouse or something akin to the excellent DS version's stylus-driven, dual-screen interface. Unable to replicate that on the Xbox 360, of course, Rare's compromise is effective once you've learned your way around it, but feels as though it could have been streamlined further. Piņata information screens are densely detailed; seeds, accessories and other commodities and services bought from the neighbouring town send you through too many menus and screens; and the X-button radial menu and d-pad shortcuts are slightly unresponsive. We could also do with more visual feedback on whether seeds are being planted too close together, in which case their growth is stunted. There are various quirks and niggles.

Persevere though and it's hard not to fall back into the old rhythm - or a new rhythm if you've never played before - and become enslaved by the urgent patterns of gardening, piņata collection and breeding, the latter now with a tougher expanded mini-game that even has its own leaderboards. New desert and arctic regions allow you to trap more exotic piņata, and unlock sand and snow bags that provide alternatives to short and long grass underfoot, Langston keeps you coming back with new challenges, and the twinkling voice of your passive guardian Leafos keeps you up to date with new additions to shops and other areas of the game as you fill the flower-petal experience bar in the top right and gradually level up, accumulating new tools and techniques and expanding the size of your garden in the process.

Not everything comes off smoothly. Four-player co-operative play is included for gardeners who want to invite their friends to join in over Xbox Live, but while this functions well and you can set access levels for guests, the absence of an in-game avatar lessens the feeling of connection with other players, and gardens - while often beautiful and filled with exotic animals - are relatively small and so show-and-tell sessions will be over in seconds. Perhaps a co-operative system where players created discrete gardens and allowed them to cross-pollinate organically, like Spore or Animal Crossing, would have been preferable.

The inclusion of local co-operative play, giving a second player limited options to interact with and entertain creatures - to lend a helping hand, effectively - is a smarter choice, and potentially gives parents a better way to play the game with children, who may find the interface and options slightly overwhelming. The Xbox Live Vision Camera can also scan specially made trading cards, one of which is included with the game, and immediately provides access to a piņata with a set name and various accessories hidden in a dotty code that runs up the side. The card included with the game is cheaply produced, but you can take your own pictures and upload them to a special website to create piņata cards, giving that feature a bit more depth for devoted players. The option to ship animals and other items to your friends is also retained.

'Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise' Screenshot 2

The new piņata are a splendid bunch with excellent names. Remember to give them all hats.

Overall, returning fans of the first game who mined its surprisingly extensive depths for hidden variant species, growth bonuses, tinkered items, top-level tool upgrades and Achievements won't be disappointed, despite the initial feeling that this is simply the same game with more options. That may be true, but having won us over the first time by filling the game out with hundreds of beautiful animations, romance videos and hidden bonuses, Rare's decision to repopulate, extend and refine the game's inventory of the same treats replicates the effect while offering a better version of the same core experience to people whose heads weren't turned by the first game's legions of slightly disbelieving advocates.

Viva Piņata is still compromised, paralysing newcomers in places with its hyperactive progression and competing activities. If anything, the balance of the first game, which sometimes slowed to a crawl as you waited for a number of lengthy processes to complete, has shifted too far in the other direction. Elsewhere it still struggles to blossom under the weight of an interface that feels one or two layers too deep, and some of Rare's revisions are slighter than they first appear, including the trapping sub-game in desert and arctic regions, which is little more than an additional layer of mechanical obfuscation. Gardens are also flat land, with no option to change levels apart from digging ponds, and we had hoped this would change for the sequel.

But it's easy to forgive these things when the whole is deep, compelling, personal and capable of so much incidental humour and charm: your first set of twins, the first time your sparrow catches fire, the first time you realise you've mated parent and child. Rare has said it will take a break from Piņata Island for now after six years of almost constant development. We only hope it's not a permanent vacation, because there are very few series that do such a good job of infusing compelling gameplay with infectious personality. And we're really f***ing sick of underground lizard aliens.

8 / 10

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (65) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • viper_h #1 3 years ago

    Shame I didn't like the first one. Probably would've loved it if I was 8 again.

    Shouldn't this have been on nintendo?

  • Xerx3s #2 3 years ago

    "Shooterbox360"
    "This should have been on a nintendo console"

  • Negotiator #3 3 years ago

    Rare's back baby, when Nut's and Bolt's gives them that elusive 9/10 they will be back where they belong.

  • Dizzy #4 3 years ago

    /orders

    VP1 was one of the best games on any console. Looking forward to returning to the gardens!

  • login_name #5 3 years ago

    And we're really f***ing sick of underground lizard aliens.

    You're not the only ones.

  • muscleblade #6 3 years ago

    @Dizzy

    You said it! Ive got this early and have played it all week. Its even better than the first and not at all a game for children only. You need to be pretty strategic to get the achievements this time around. This game is actually harder than most FPS out there imo.

  • mattigan #7 3 years ago

    1000% buying this, the 1st one was genius.

  • FreakyZoid #8 3 years ago

    I can't believe they managed to get the interface wrong again. I spent longer waiting for shops to load on the 1st one than I did tending to my animals.

  • mattigan #9 3 years ago

    yes, i'm hoping the new 'run games off the HDD' feature will take care of the loading thimes.

  • Dizzy #10 3 years ago

    >Spore or this?

    Good question actually... had both in my hands today. I am gonna wait a bit for Spore and see what general vibe is. VP2 I can't go wrong.

  • DUFFMAN5 #11 3 years ago

    Hardly touched the first game, although just started again. Only on the first garden, can't decide if I like or not!
    This second one does sound good, as does the ds one.

  • Eighthours #12 3 years ago

    I have no idea what I'm doing yet, really, but this is great fun.

  • DB2k #13 3 years ago

    isn't this the sort of game Ellie normally reviews?

    My launch day console died 2 days ago. It's boxed up ready for Ms to fix the fuck out of it and send it back to me - hopefully will arrive the day i get back from my hols :)

  • Dr.Mott #14 3 years ago

    "isn't this the sort of game Ellie normally reviews?"

    No, she normally reviews shit games.

  • linksdad #15 3 years ago

    I played the first for a while but it was to much hassle and felt limited in scope. Looks like more of the same with a few additions. If they had addresses these concerns then I might have been tempted. Looks like more of the same with a few additions.

  • ParanoidZombie #16 3 years ago

    I have to decide between this and infinite undiscovery.... Where is IU's review?

  • neilka #17 3 years ago

    @link'sdad
    So to sum up... more of the same with a few additions?

  • Madafunkola #18 3 years ago

    Spore, this or Beer for the next 2 weeks?

  • muscleblade #19 3 years ago

    @ParanoidZombie and Madafunkola

    Easy. Buy this.

  • Psychotext #20 3 years ago

    I have this sat on my table... but I promised the missus I'd wait for her to finish work so we could play it together. =/

  • ParanoidZombie #21 3 years ago

    @arbiter: i don't know, because i noticed that the US reviewers seem to be tired of JRPGs... Even when they admit that the game is stellar, they give it nothing more than 8 (ex: tales of vesperia). IU is a 7.2/10 so far according to metacritics, but the reviews themselves are kinda shallow.

  • miiiguel #22 3 years ago

    This just arrived, will be wating for me to get along with Too Human 1st. I don't understand the "this should be on Nintendo"... why? does the brand maters in your "fun meter", or it ruins your sense of "world order" ?

  • johnboy_johsnon #23 3 years ago

    This is currently winging its way to me via videogameplus.ca. Region free and nice n' cheap!!!

  • mazzl #24 3 years ago

    so.. all it neads now are some serious marketing $$ . euro's from ms.

  • menage #25 3 years ago

    I like this better than the first one already. At least the game gives me more hints on what the fuck I'm doing. It's also more like a videogame than the first. 1 was rather free form, using a lot of experimentation which was fun in the beginning but became more like work after pinata 20. Here at least you get some goals, hints, added bonusses in minigames, etc. Great fun.

  • septimus #26 3 years ago

    Well, my wife will love this one also then. She seemed addicted to the first.

  • DrR0b3rts #27 3 years ago

    I loved the first one, but this doesn't sound different enough to justify the 40 notes.

  • Dizzy #28 3 years ago

    33 quid on Play ;)

  • Wash #29 3 years ago

    29.98 on amazon.

    One to pick up for sure.

    As is IU, for 29.98 why cant all games be introduced at this price.
    Edited by 1 at 05/09/08 @ 15:09

  • Doctor_What #30 3 years ago

    I'll third (or more) the motion of being sick on underground lizards. Bloody things.

  • BTBAM #31 3 years ago

    I bought it this morning. Currently playing Saturn Bomberman to death at the moment, but when my girlfriend's round tomorrow night we'll crack open this new Viva Pinata. Seeing as we're both broke this is the only entertainment we can afford.

  • eurocloak #32 3 years ago

    Still waiting for me preorder doomit!!!

  • Tomo #33 3 years ago

    Should I get the first one, or plump straight for this?

  • DrR0b3rts #34 3 years ago

    ^ Nice one, bargain hunters. I shall go forth and exquisitely accessorise my Badgesicles.

  • viper_h #35 3 years ago

    God forbid I give my damn opinion. I love getting flamed for disliking a popular game.

    Please, more flames.

  • The-Bodybuilder #36 3 years ago

    Is it not possible to like this game without bashing shooters?
    Better yet, are EG professional enough to review this game without thier resentment of GOW selling more, oozing through the review.

    I can'[t wait for EGs "unbiased" review of GOW2.

  • The-Bodybuilder #37 3 years ago

    Is it not possible to like this game without bashing shooters?
    Better yet, are EG professional enough to review this game without thier resentment of GOW selling more, oozing through the review.

    I can'[t wait for EGs "unbiased" review of GOW2.

  • miiiguel #38 3 years ago

    "God forbid I give my damn opinion. I love getting flamed for disliking a popular game."
    I mean no flaming. But I do find it odd, what BB said. Can't one enjoy Halo and VP and then Lost Odyssey with a litle of Xevious before diner ?
    I mean, I know it gets harder to call Xbox the "shooterbox" or other less polite names. I do like all kinds of games, as long as they give me pleasure to play with. And I want my colection to be as eccletic as possible.
    The segregation (or the wish of) gives me the creeps.

  • menage #39 3 years ago

    @Tomo

    Depends. This does more handholding, but seeing as how I figured some things out after I got tired of finding them out, that might be a +.:p

    I would go for this, more = better in thisi case.

    Oh and the minigame is actually less lame than in the first, seeing as you got laptimes, scores, leaderboards, extra bonuses and such. In the first they where all practically useless timewasters. It's still not great but it is a step forward.

  • menage #40 3 years ago

    @Tomo

    Depends. This does more handholding, but seeing as how I figured some things out after I got tired of finding them out, that might be a +.:p

    I would go for this, more = better in thisi case.

    Oh and the minigame is actually less lame than in the first, seeing as you got laptimes, scores, leaderboards, extra bonuses and such. In the first they where all practically useless timewasters. It's still not great but it is a step forward.

  • menage #41 3 years ago

    @Tomo

    Depends. This does more handholding, but seeing as how I figured some things out after I got tired of finding them out, that might be a +.:p

    I would go for this, more = better in thisi case.

    Oh and the minigame is actually less lame than in the first, seeing as you got laptimes, scores, leaderboards, extra bonuses and such. In the first they where all practically useless timewasters. It's still not great but it is a step forward.

  • Zomoniac #42 3 years ago

    I've played it for about 5 hours today, and have come to 2 conclusions:

    1. It's 99% identical to the first one. Apart from the new species there is nothing of note. The trick stick is pointless, the heart-collecting romance games are silly and the sand and ice, while a little different, aren't particularly enthralling. All the voice-over recordings are re-used from last time, which is really annoying ("do you want any seeeedy? No, I don't mean like that" over and over again. Again.), and makes the yearly sports updates look like complete revelations in comparison.

    2. I love it to bits and I can't stop playing it.

  • Botty4Hyre #43 3 years ago

    This looks like a pile of tosh to me, LBP will defecate upon this from a great height. Why bother with it all????? PS3 will be reigning supreme in a year anyway.

  • iago71 #44 3 years ago

    I havent played the 1st but I am tempted to have a bash on this .... is it the kind of game that you keep and go back to or do you have to stick at it as I dont have a lot of time these days. Speaking of Rare - Jet Force Gemini remake please! Though I guess that a Nintendo property right??
    Edited by 1 at 05/09/08 @ 19:27

  • WestBullet #45 3 years ago

    I've just bought the original (finally) and I must say that I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'll probably pick this up once I've made my way through the first.

    I'm really hoping that Banjo is going to be awesome as well though.

  • miiiguel #46 3 years ago

    scratch what I said, segregation FTW. Get that botty weirdo away from me, lol! freak.

  • RedSparrows #47 3 years ago

    JFG would be a Rare property, not Nintendo. It was just released on N64. And a new one would be sooooo sweet.

    Liked VP1 a lot, it's nice to dip back into everynow and then.

    Oh and the sweets arn't expensive. They 6 coins. Given you earn thousands, what's the issue? I didn't enjoy the minigames that much though.

  • yagisencho #48 3 years ago

    Interface-wise, I imagine this would be a good match for the Wiimote. I enjoyed the first one on the 360, but if they're going to release VP:TiP on the PC at some point in the future, I'd rather go for that version.

  • patchbox360 #49 3 years ago


    join the pink party more like

  • ardamillo #50 3 years ago

    Loved the first game, but having played Civ Rev recently I have to ask:

    Is there a way to cycle through your pinatas this time, maybe using the bumpers?

    And do I still have to endure shopkeeper banter every time I want to buy a seed?

  • iago71 #51 3 years ago

    Cool.... Maybe Im gonna get this at the w/e hv had it recommended as a great game by a respected friend of mine who had the 1st. My better half will love it. Jet Force Gemini not being Nintendos sole property sounds good - seems strange they hv never made another as it really was a great game with great mechanics, audio and characters. Finished it 100 % and loved every minute.

    Botty 4 hyre - It would seem the only thing that you and the XBOX may have in common would be a red 'ring' of death on a Fri eve. Take your nocturnal activities and blind opinions elsewhere please.


    Im sure Little Big Planet will be great and I intend to make a purchase (Reviews permitting) but seriously, get a grip. I wouldnt be surprised if the PS3 reject bin in Game is as full as your backside on a Sat evening at Heaven or where ever it is you choose to frequent. Im a PS3 owner too BTW and have no interest in laying into 360 related affairs as it is my console of choice at the mo - as far as games go at least.

    Move on with decent discussion of gaming shall we??

    Edited by 2 at 06/09/08 @ 05:10

  • chrisjm #52 3 years ago

    i cant wait to defecate in the LBP review.
    botty4hire: even your username makes you sound ready to be shafted: a true sony fanboy, congrats.

  • chrisjm #53 3 years ago

    actually i was joking, yea it wasnt obvious- my bad.
    even if LBP gets a 9 it doesnt make VP or the 360 crap. its about time the ps3 got a desent exclusive.

  • dryden555 #54 3 years ago

    the delay whenever moving in and out of the stores (which you have to do a lot) was a gamebreaker for me.

  • Bezzy #55 3 years ago

    Holy shit is that a tigsource owl on the front page?

  • miiiguel #56 3 years ago

    simakperrce: that's silly, imo. There's no such relation between behavior and an eletronics device ownership..., I canīt believe you realy believe that someone is this or that if owns a 360 or something else. Thatīs way too far out... .

    I know that there's that urge to "bond" and "segregate" but itīs just silly. Not even citizenship can do that nowdays let alons *consoles*. People are people, end of.

  • Martin #57 3 years ago

    Not for kids, grown ups have problems handling all the stuff that goes on in VP from time to time so if anyone thinks that this should be on the Nintendo then yes, it should because I think everyone should be able to enjoy VP, but it should also be everywhere because it's great.

    Too many games to buy right now. Fable 2 looms...

  • fleischer #58 3 years ago

    Lets hope this game doesnt have as many bugs as the first. Had to redo my garden 3 times later one becouse of all the faults.

  • BTBAM #59 3 years ago

    Played it for a little while last night. Remember when you first saw the Whirlm in the first game? None of that magic when the 'Bispotti' appears. I resented having to jump through hoops in 'Langston' to be told what to do. I want to build a Whirlm home and get cracking. The races are shit, the new regions are tokenistic at best, and I resent having my hand held for the duration of the time I spent playing it. I trapped a Pinata before I was instructed on how to do so, because I read the challenge and went for it, then accepted. The game made me do the whole thing again!

    Flawed as fuck. It's got none of the magic of the first game. All that needed to be done was the pacing to be sorted out so that the beginning isn't so overwhelming and the end isn't so bloody boring and spaced out, and the irritating 2 dimensional shop characters given a couple more lines to say and I'd have been happy. If it ain't broke don't fix it.

    Awful game.

  • BTBAM #60 3 years ago

    I've just read some more reviews and I'm starting to think I'm going mad. I'm going to play it again today and spend some more time on it and if it hasn't recaptured my imagination after a few hours like the first one did then I'm giving up and throwing it at my local Game store employee.

  • 3william56 #61 3 years ago

    So Pokemon is about capturing wild animals, then training them to fight in pits for audience amusment. And this one is capturing wild animals so that you can sell them to small children to beat with a stick until their guts fall out.

    What sort of message does this give the children?

    Call the RSPCA! Call the hippes! Call the vegan shock troops! Ban this sick filth now!

  • BTBAM #62 3 years ago

    Nah, still no good. Viva Pinata has lifted her skirt, bent over and showed me her arsehole. There's nothing more to do or to see, and the rewarding is limited and frustrating. Played it with my girlfriend and we both found that the novelty and charm has gone. If I hadn't played the first one it'd be okay. Returning it today.

  • Amicus #63 3 years ago

    I too wish Gears has included more metrosexual, feminine, sentimental settings. Why wasn't there a level with a beseiged women's refuge? Where was the hilariously unfeminine token female character that, unlike most women, couldn't be decked with one punch? Where was the representation from the gay-bi-trans gender community? Well, apart from Marcus and 'Cole Train' obviously.

    Marketing a shooter at lonely heterosexual teenagers? What were they thinking?

  • XdarXideX #64 3 years ago

    BTBAM... it's a shame you're not enjoying it as much as the first. But you do realise the "magic" isn't there because it's a sequel and you've seen this all before? Were you expecting to have completely forgotten everything about the first game and be taken by surprise by the sequel?

    It's a brilliant game in my opinion. I didn't enjoy the first game as much as I'm enjoying this one... even though my garden (and pinata) was once destroyed by never ending weeds!

  • BTBAM #65 3 years ago

    XdarXideX - I know what you're saying. I've kept playing it because the trade in price wasn't worth it, so I'm just muddling through. Level 20 now and starting to get more in the groove - I'm getting a bit fed up of the game itself but the fact I can have a race or make my Pinatas stars or go to the desert and pinarctic is keeping me playing, plus because I played the first game to death I'm now realising the benefits of taming the sour creatures and saving money and selling. I have over 60 grand, and it's quite fun really. Just taking a while to get into the swing of it, but it's a sweet natured game.

  • jlaakso #66 3 years ago

    I never could get into the first game. The numerous, effectively "version 1.5", tweaks and fixes work wonders, though - I've been enjoying this a lot. The same-couch co-op is great fun after the initial confusion.

    Yes, it's baby steps and yes, the interface isn't quite there, but it's not broken anymore, as it was for me the first time around.
    It's just charming, I'm all warm inside, like after a good session of Animal Crossing.