Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise

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Let's not beat around the bush here. As concepts go, Viva Piñata's is pretty bold and pretty bonkers. Any game that basically revolves around encouraging bizarre papier maché creatures to fall in love and make the proverbial beast with two backs is pretty out-there in our books, and most certainly in a good way.

Let's back up though, as maybe we're underselling it. Viva Pinata aims to follow in that grand Harvest Moon/Animal Crossing tradition of open-ended life-sims - strange, charming, liberating little 'games' that, despite often having you do almost nothing for extended periods of times, are irresistibly immersive. And we're happy to report that it fully deserves its place amidst such celebrated company.

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The title might be new to many Nintendo gamers but it has in fact been around for a while, in the form of an underperforming but critically acclaimed Xbox360 title. It's being given a second crack of the whip on the DS, a platform that on the surface seems better suited to its cute, whimsical stylings.

How Does Your Garden Grow?
The game sees you take control of a garden, which at first is just a rocky patch of wasteland. Once you've taken a shovel to it, cleared the weeds and planted some grass, you'll attract your first piñata - a couple of worm-like critters. Satisfy their dietary needs by planting seeds and they'll become residents. Build them a house, keep them well fed and generally bend to their whims and they'll get in the mood for 'romance' and retreat to their homestead to do their thing, rewarding you with a new piñata for your garden.

As time goes by you'll attract other piñata to your garden. Different creatures are attracted to different plants, so you'll need to keep your garden well-tended by buying, planting and nurturing various different seeds from Costalots. The more piñata you attract to your garden, the bigger your plot gets.

Aside from the central goal of breeding piñata, there are a number of side projects to keep you busy too. From time to time, sour piñatas will wander into your garden and threaten to mess things up. You'll need to fend them off with your shovel or learn how to 'turn' them into regular piñata and put them to work in your garden.

You'll be dressing your piñatas up in all manner of crazy outfits and sending the finest specimens off to 'parties'. Fear not though, they're returned to you in one piece. You'll also be trying to 'evolve' your residents, Pokémon style, into new forms, which takes plenty of trial and error. For example you can get Tafflies to transform into Redhotts by setting fire to them and then putting out the flames with your watering can.

Viva Forever
And that, essentially, is it. Sound boring? It isn't. There are hundreds of different piñata to track down and numerous different forms of each type. Tending to your plants; customising your garden with ornaments, fencing and paving; breaking up inter-pinata squabbles; buying and selling goods at Costalots... there is masses to be getting on with here. That Rare have managed to squeeze almost everything from the game's (much) bigger brother into a tiny DS cart is remarkable.

Alternatively, you can just revel in the unique, laid-back loveliness of it all. The presentation is absolutely gorgeous. When you succeed in encouraging a new type of piñata to mate you'll be treated to a heart-crumpingly funny cutscene of the two beasts in question performing their mating dance. The various characters that push the story, if you can call it that, along are brimming with character too and the dialogue is a hoot.

In terms of negatives, there's really not much to complain about. Things can get rather cluttered on the small DS screen and at times your garden can seem more like a mass political rally for the Piñata Party, with heaving crowds of Bunnycombs, Sparrowmints, Buzzlegums and Shellybeans vying for attention.

Of course, it won't be everybody's cup of tea. If you didn't get Animal Crossing's seemingly endless collecting, customising and general mooching about, you'll probably fail to find much to please you here either. However, if you can get your head around something a little bit different, a little bit low key and a little bit stark raving bonkers then this is an essential addition to your DS collection. There's no explosions, no head shots, no double KOs - just joyful unhinged eccentricity.