Graphics: I was pleasantly surprised with the graphics quality of VPPP, especially the clarity and smoothness of the cartoon-clip cut scenes. Each type of piñata has its own style of movement, and when a large number of different ones are on the screen at the same time, the frame rate doesn’t seem to be affected. Also, the visual representation of the day-night cycle is nicely done, as are the occasional rainstorm and the fine cloud layer that sometimes wafts through at dawn. Some of the piñatas don’t seem to be able to bend in the middle, forcing them to make wide U-turns to reach their destinations, but this is a minor quibble in an otherwise excellent visual package.

Interface: The problem with most DS HUDs is that the small screens force the graphics in the icons to be too small to obviously indicate their function. This is where good tutorials and clear documentation raise a good title to a great one and in this, VPPP is batting .500. The Episodes give a very clear accounting of the purpose of each icon and how they are used; newcomers should make sure to take the brief time required to run through the four tutorials, lest they spend their first moments fumbling around with the three types of shovels used in the early part of the game and the steps used to buy and plant seeds and build houses. The manual, on the other hand, fails to provide any more than the most basic information, leaving you to find out things on your own in the Journal.

Gameplay: VPPP gameplay is based upon two factors: happiness and commerce. Your mission is to make as many piñatas happy as possible, then sell them off to have their guts blasted by temperamental pre-teens. This is done primarily by coaxing the creatures to visit your garden, providing them with the things they need to become permanent residents, then building them a home in which they can reproduce, which provides you with piñatas to sell. All of this requires a surprising amount of patience, since you get very few hints about what needs to be done to level up. I spent a considerable amount of time doing the piñata version of the World of Warcraft level grind, continually breeding piñatas to make enough money to build the more expensive homes that other piñatas need. Also, there are certain piñatas found in the early part of the game that must interact with piñatas that don’t appear until you’ve leveled up several times, which adds to the frustration factor; after several hours of play, I was only able to progress to Level 4, which is only about 15% into the game. On a positive note, VPPP forces you to save before exiting, and it autosaves at intervals of time instead of progress, so you’ll never have to replay a scenario once it has begun.

Sound FX: Background sounds are a vital part of VPPP, and they are handled with great skill and realism. As I sit typing this review, I can hear various species of birds and insects present around and in my garden. Occasionally a visitor makes a squawk or a snore, and I can hear rainfall increase and decrease in intensity. These all sound surprisingly detailed coming from the DS’s tiny built-in speaker, but they sound even better with headphones.

Music: There is no music score playing as you go about your gardening tasks, but each of the other parts of VPPP has its own theme, from the bouncy tune that plays in the sales screens to the almost menacing melody heard while rival piñatas have their “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” moments of aggression (the doomed wildebeest surrounded by the pack of hungry hyenas has nothing on the poor Whirm’s life-or-death struggle with the fearsome Sparrowmint). These tunes are a nice addition to a soundtrack already filled with excellent background effects.

Difficulty: The only difficult thing about VPPP is staying with the game long enough for interesting things to happen. Enemies are few and far-between and are easily dispatched, the needs of some of your piñatas can only be met by patience and perseverance, and the open-endedness of the game world forces you to be more creative than other games with linear plots. But it’s fairly fulfilling when your patience is paid off by the appearance of the one creature you need to get over the level hump.

Overall: At first, the idea seemed like a feverish nightmare caused by some bad guacamole: a game featuring the care, feeding, nurturing and breeding of papier-mâché party targets, but as I progressed through Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise, I found myself gradually drawn into the game’s colorful look, its vast variety of interesting creatures and its simple mechanics. Characters vital to the progress of the game take a bit too long to appear, and its lack of a campaign mode could be a turnoff to players with a twitch in their gaming hands, but VPPP‘s pleasant and inviting aesthetics are sure to delight the youngsters for whom it was designed. Now, I’ve got to go—I have to break up a fight between a Lickatoad and a Taffly before someone gets hurt.