Viva Piñata

2024-11-30
Viva Pinata is a weird one. It has all the makings of something I'd love. Insanely gorgeous, bright, classic Rare visuals, a really cozy, cheery vibe and a simulation game about raising animals. Yes, yes, yes. But back in 2006 my 15 year old self bailed.

I dug this one back out on Xbox One in 2021 seeing it was on GamePass. Booting it up and playing for the first couple of hours I couldn't help but ask why would I bail on this 15 years previously. And then those couple hours pass and I'm realizing it's because it paints this picture of this cheerful cozy little world you can creatively control. But the cheerfulness is soured by at-times actually punishing mechanics like the whole "bad pinata came in and ate my favorite pinata because I was paying attention to something else and couldn't stop it in time" thing. And the creative control isn't really there because there are a bunch of gates and prerequisites to do fucking anything. Oh you like that cool bear pinata? Well first you gotta get 3 of THESE pinatas so you can get 2 of THOSE pinatas and then well you gotta build this house for those and then and then and then--fuck OFF man I just want the bear. And you know what, having a tech-tree of sorts wouldn't be so bad but having pinatas show up is dictated by two things: RNG and waiting. Fucking waiting man. You just sit there and "OOOhh notification for a new pinata--nope fuck you it's just another Whirlm. God dammit." Even at 15 as a teenager with fuck all to do I was like "Yeah I got better things to do."

Frustrating because all the ingredients are there for something wonderful but I just found the overall structure and the RNG-waiting-ness of it all to be much to bear...I'm not sure I ever did get that bear /sigh.

???
I remember liking this game when it came out on 360 but bouncing off after a bit. I went back to play on my Xbox One after seeing it was on Xbox Game Pass and remembered why I bounced off.

It's a fun little simulation game where you manage a little garden. You can place down different buildings and try to attract different types of animals. Each animal has different conditions that draws them in. Bringing in one type of animal might attract another and so on. The big problem is it's really hands off. You spend a lot of time just waiting for the RNG gods to send a specific type of animal you want. Even if you fulfill the criteria there's no guarantee that they'll show up. Which means unless you like to just play aimlessly and kind of watch what's happening it can be frustrating.

Add to this there's no technical win condition or end goal at any point and it was a little too aimless for my tastes.