Viva Piñata (Xbox 360)

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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).

Screenshots

Alternate Titles

• "Your Garden" -- Working title
• "Atsumare! Piñata" -- Japanese title
• "あつまれ！ ピニャータ" -- Japanese spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• Games made into TV series
• Viva Piñata series

User Reviews

Holy cow, it's 6:30 in the morning already??!!	Robstein (175)
Cute little time waster	lamoxlamae (5)

The Press Says

PlayDevil	Feb 08, 2007		90
Video Game Talk	Nov 30, 2006		90
4Players.de	Dec 01, 2006	85 out of 100	85
GameSpot	Nov 15, 2006	8.3 out of 10	83
Gamers.at	Dec 06, 2006	82 out of 100	82
TTGamer	Dec 10, 2006	8 out of 10	80
Eurogamer.de	Dec 01, 2006	8 out of 10	80
Tap-Repeatedly/Four Fat Chicks	Feb, 2007		80
G4 TV: X-Play	Dec 15, 2006		80
Gamezine	Feb 13, 2007	15 out of 20	75

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
The Party's Begun	2	Katara (2) 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.

Related Web Sites

• X360A achievement guide (X360A's achievement guide for Viva Piñata.)