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Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise (Nintendo DS) | 
| From: THQ
Category: Video Games
List Price: £29.99
Buy New: £15.97
You Save: £14.02 (47%)
New (18) Used (2) from £15.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 218
Format: Unknown Format
Platform: Nintendo Ds
Media: Video Game
Operating System: No Operating System
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 5 x 0.8
EAN: 4005209113984
ASIN: B001D26PKI
Release Date: September 5, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not as relaxing as Animal Crossing - but good value gameplay October 19, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have never played this game on any other console so can't compare but I was pretty impressed by this game.
You start off with a very small patch of garden and 1 wormlike pinata that you then breed. More pinatas will enter your garden when you have reached their various conditions. i.e some will only come if you have a certain amount of grass in your garden or a certain number of worms, so it's all a balancing act. You tempt in new pinatas, sometime by sacrificing your current pinatas as food for the new ones.
I can see how there is a lot of gameplay in this game as I have played a lot of hours and am only about 20 percent of the way through. I can also see how it is a game that I will will replay a lot as there is a lot of choice in how you build your garden and variations in breeding that it would feel like a new game with each play.
It makes me feel a bit stressed when I play it and it's not something I would play before bed. The garden can get overcrowded and an evil pinata breaks in and starts killing all your pets. I always like animal crossing as it's a game I could dip into, do a little bit and come out feeling calm and relaxed. Viva Pinata however feels much more like you are running the game and a sense of godlike power - so I guess it depends what you are in the mood for.
All in all tho this is well worth the money and it will be staying in my collection. I just bought a copy for my 12 year old step daughter for her birthday as she loves it and I can't get her off mine.
 Just couldn't get into this... October 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got Viva Pinata as I loved Animal Crossing and fancied a new challenge for my DS. This seemed like a great option, as it had good reviews and also looked pretty cute!
I am sad that I just couldn't get to grips with it at all. The controls are easy to use but when it comes to actually doing something, to grow your garden or get new animals, I just couldn't get them to do it. The screen is quite small and I also found it could be really dark, making it so hard to see what was happening. Also I have never seen the TV show so didn't really understand the whole story.
I think if you maybe have more patience than me, you will get on with this. It definitely requires persistence which I just don't have. I like things to come with some initial successes or a story that just sucks you in, and this didn't give me either of those things.
The pinata are very cute though!
 Great fun September 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I played this game shortly on Xbox 360 and I wanted it ever since. I wasn't going to buy the Microsoft console for just one game so I was delighted to know it was coming on Nintendo DS. Compared to the Xbox the pinatas are less cute but it is compensated by more playability with a drop down screen. The game is really addictive and unlike animal crossing or nintendog, this is more challenging; when the nasty pinatas start infecting your garden with diseases, you have got to find a solution fast. Always a million things to think about, between which plants to grow, to attract which pinata without it being eaten by a pinata you have already...
Lots of hours of fun to come!
A Creature Garden Paradise September 13, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
If you liked Animal Crossing, you are almost certain to like this game.
You start off with your own little garden and a few creatures and items. If you treat your creatures well and tend to your garden, you will attract new species and new items and features to play with. Your garden also gets bigger and bigger over time.
What seems like a simple game starts to get more complex if you want (go at your own pace) as you can breed creatures, grow more exotic plants, collect different items for your garden and design a really fab landscape. It becomes an amazingly absorbing game which both kids and adults can enjoy - much like Animal Crossing in that sense.
The sound is good and the graphics are excellent. Amazing what they have packed onto a small cartridge.
Highly recommended.
Create your own paradise. September 12, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I've never owned an Xbox360 so can't compare this to the original version, but on it's own as a DS game it is cram packed full of stuff.
Building and managing your own pinata garden is a lot tougher than it looks. Keeping pinatas from splitting each other apart (unless you want them to of course), managing space, building pinata houses, and making sure sour pinatas don't cause any trouble.
But despite the sometimes rather hectic pace of things the controls are perfectly designed to help you. The interface is intuitive and the drop down menu system makes the most common tools and commands a few screen taps away.
The game also looks great. Played from an almost top down perspective the pinatas have excellent 3D models and fluid animations. The backgrounds are 2D but are really detailed and the game plays in a pseudo 3D style overall because of the fixed camera. The pinata romancing videos look to be ripped straight from the Xbox version (based on videos' of the Xbox version I've seen online) and there are even clips from the TV show included in the tutorial mode.
With a playground mode and some excellent tutorials it is a wonder the whole package managed to fit onto a DS cart.
I cannot recommend this game highly enough. It's brilliant.
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