When Rare developed Viva Piñata it was a cute game for the Xbox 360 to rival Pokémon. It shipped, wholesome and lurid, with every new 360 for basically the console’s whole lifespan and spawned a co-operative play sequel, Trouble In Paradise.
Which is an apt name because although I love my boyfriend and am glad he wants to join in playing with me, he is nowhere near as good at Piñata wrangling as I am and I am probably going to have to sell him for chocolate coins. Welcome to Piñata Island, where you’ll find out what you’re really made of.
Viva Piñata is fiendishly complicated, with the premise being that you plant special flowers or develop garden features to attract cooler and cooler Piñata to your garden. You can play it as a slow, sweet exploration game, but it doesn’t reward you for that. It recognises relentless, precise brilliance and rapid action. It’s maybe the only game where the kind of business psychopathy preached on Huel-based wellness retreats outside San Francisco will actually work.
You start off in the game by inheriting some land – which is sort of treated as a nothing and as if this is a fair starting point but, let’s be real, this is some bougie startup stuff. You then get given your primary weapon and the game’s true dark heart: a ruddy great spade.