Okay, confession time: I never played Viva Piñata the first time around. The allure of festive animal husbandry was insufficient to entice me into the console purchase required. I've researched the original (by, uh, watching some YouTube videos and such), but I went into my quick demo of Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise without a real preconceived notion of how Viva Piñata is supposed to look or play.How was this ever anything but a DS game? The tasks involved in playing Viva -- watering and planting plants, clearing land, building structures for critters -- make so much sense in the top-down perspective of Pocket Paradise that it's hard to imagine this game in a different perspective on a different system. It would be so much harder, I think, to manage a large-scale garden in a more zoomed-in view. Having a larger, wider look at the goings-on in the garden makes the game seem more natural and easier.
Not to mention the fact that the stylus is a natural for a menu-driven game. It's a very point-and-click kind of game. To build, you drag a square representation of the structure into the area you want it to be built, then click an 'okay' button. Every in-game tool and maintenance action -- digging, buying new Piñatas, watering, etc. -- is controlled via a pop-up menu in the upper-right corner of the screen.
The THQ rep assured me that all of the content in the 360 game (minus romance minigames, because they were apparently annoying) is in the DS game, and that she was already 10 hours into the new version after sinking about 100 into the 360 game. She emphasized that the same obsessive encyclopedia-filling that players undertook in the original game will be present in this remake.
The familiarity and ease of use of the new interface should turn out to be a boon to the title: while the game is still expansive and ridiculously in-depth in terms of the number of animals to take care of and the care required to operate the garden, it is now in a much less intimidating package that should make the experience a little more inviting to the casual and young audiences that Rare no doubt had in mind when they came up with the property. Also it will be cheaper.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-20-2008 @ 5:44PM
Katha said...
I'm looking forward to this game. Hehe
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7-20-2008 @ 5:55PM
Ashley said...
A very nice article, thanks for that.
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7-20-2008 @ 6:04PM
drewisgenki said...
you actually get to control your zoom on the 360 and the D pad is a hotkey for all your tools. It has a navigation similar to the navigation in Bioshock and it's really easy to use but I also think the stylus will be a nice relief in the end.
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7-20-2008 @ 6:52PM
cheesecakes said...
I have actually played the console version. The romance minigames would get really annoying especially if you're planning to go for a master romancer award.
Strangely enough even with the maximum garden size on the 360, I've got 3 gardens already and I haven't gotten all species yet.
The info in the top screens look really handy. If only the 360 had that, I didn't have to keep going to the encyclopedia.
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7-21-2008 @ 6:11PM
Saria the Cat said...
I can only hope the DS version won't be as annoying in terms of tutorial and "helpful" on-screen suggestions and "tips" that interrupt gameplay every 5 seconds.
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7-25-2008 @ 10:57PM
allofdelta said...
this would be a welcome addition to the Wii :) . I had this on 360 and got all the pinatas and achievements and there wasn't much to do after, idk if I'll be getting it
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