Editorial: A Rare Gem: Celebrating a decade of Viva Piñata

A Rare Gem: Celebrating a decade of Viva Piñata

          When you ask someone what the best games on the Xbox 360, you often hear the usual suspects: Halo, Gears of War, and several third party releases like Fallout, Grand Theft Auto, and Mass Effect.

          My personal favourite game for the 360 is, in fact, none of these. It’s a franchise that had 2 games, 2 spinoffs, and even a CGI animated cartoon series, all within the span of a couple of years before vanishing entirely. With Wednesday being the 10^th anniversary of the first game’s release, I feel now is the perfect time to talk about the best Rare game nobody played: Viva Piñata.

          Even if you don’t know Rare by name, you’re probably familiar with their work. They were Nintendo’s quintessential partners during the end of the Super Nintendo era and throughout the N64’s lifetime. They developed games like the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Battletoads, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, Killer Instinct, and Goldeneye 007. Nearly all of their work was of stellar quality, and the release of a new Rare game was often regarded as a major event by many.

          Things changed in 2002, when Rare in its entirety was purchased by Microsoft in order to develop games for the new Xbox line of consoles. It was a decision that left many upset, as Rare started making relatively forgettable games like Grabbed by the Ghoulies and Kameo: Elements of Power.

          With the dawn of the Xbox 360, Rare had a new surprise up their sleeve. Borrowing elements from games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, this was to be a game in which you gathered various flora and fauna into a garden, raising and caring for them as you rise up the ranks, and attract newer, more exotic critters. The catch? All the animals were piñata, with punny hybrid names of candy and animal (Cinnamonkey, Horstachio, Bunnycomb, I could easily go on) and colourful papery exteriors that pushed what the 360 could do at the time. Even better, the music was to be composed by Grant Kirkhope, the legendary Rare artist responsible for the soundtracks to games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. This game was to be known as Viva Piñata.

          At first glance, the gameplay behind Viva Piñata is deceptively simple. Visiting piñata enter from outside your small garden, you fulfill their needs, and then they become permanent residents. At the same time, you grow new flowers, trees, and vegetables, as well as managing your budget of chocolate coins. But don’t let the game’s colourful exterior fool you; in the later levels, things get difficult. Malevolent forces from outside the garden attempt to mess up your hard work, knocking over decorations, filling in ponds, and even smashing valuable piñata and running off with the candy inside. Add in increasingly difficult to attract piñata (I distinctly remember spending an entire week attempting to make the lion-themed Roario stay in the garden), and you’ve got yourself a game that’s easy to play but hard to master.

          That is to say nothing of the aesthetic. Each piñata is distinct in what real-world animal it’s lampooning, but at the same time the designs are memorable enough that to this day I remember them all. For years I was even able to recite the names of all 100 species of piñata with no problem. Each creature is incredibly colourful and lively, with different animations and voice clips bringing the characters to life. Grant Kirkhope’s music is also incredible, and one of his best overall soundtracks if I do say so myself.

          Microsoft was quick to notice that they could have something special here, and they quickly began to market the game as much as they could. 4Kids chose the series to adapt to a cartoon, which ran from August 2006 to January 2009. The cartoon starred anthropomorphized, talking versions of the piñata from the game, and even hinted at secrets in the games and even tease new piñata from the sequel. I’m sure it doesn’t hold up at all these days, but as a 10 year old kid at the time, this was one of the few examples I had of a cartoon based on one of my favourite video games (aside from the Pokémon anime). I never missed a new episode, and when it unceremoniously went off air, I was pretty upset.

          The series also saw a sequel in the form of Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise in 2008, two years after the launch of the original. This second game upped everything, from the difficulty, to the different species of piñata and plants, to the UI in general. While Trouble in Paradise has always been my game of choice when replaying the series (it’s basically the first game again but with more stuff), it’s still far from perfect. In raising the difficulty, the game can become pretty frustrating at times. The most deadly enemy in the game, the nefarious Professor Pester, now first appears at a far lower level than he did in the original game, and he pops in for a visit once every 20 minutes, requiring you to either sacrifice your most valuable piñata to him, pay his 1,000 coin tax every time he arrives, or exploit a glitch that traps him just outside your garden. Despite this gripe, Trouble in Paradise is a difficult, yet rewarding game that I’d recommend those who don’t mind a challenge check out.

          But after Trouble in Paradise, and continuing to this day, that was it. There was a Nintendo DS version of the game called Pocket Paradise released later in 2008 (the less said about that game, the better), and the cartoon took its final bow January of next year. It didn’t help that the games only had a cult following at best, with many dismissing the series as “kids’ stuff” merely because of the bright colours. At the time, grim, gritty and grey games like Gears of War and the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare games were all the rage on the 360. Rare’s colourful gardening game stuck out like a sore thumb. Trouble in Paradise was also one of Rare’s last real games for a long time, before Microsoft forced them to make tech demos for the Kinect, a task wholly unbefitting legendary developers like them. Since then, many of the original development team from Rare left the company to form Playtonic, where they are working on Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor Yooka-Laylee. Rare itself is also returning to making real games, showing off pirate game Sea of Thieves at E3 last year. While Viva Piñata may have become a thing of the past, those who created it are continuing on to bigger and hopefully better things.

As much as I’d like to continue to play these wonderful games over and over again until the end of days, my Xbox 360 isn’t getting any younger, and as the years have gone on I’ve noticed the games have become harder and harder to play. Glitches and graphical errors that weren’t in the games before have become to creep in, making visitor piñata fail to appear and the game stuttering a lot more than it used to.

Fortunately, Rare offered a solution. Released in August 2015, Rare Replay brought both Viva Piñata and Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise to the Xbox One, complete with remastered graphics. While I’ve yet to try this version of the game myself, I hear it runs beautifully. If you haven’t played the Viva Piñata series yet and you own an Xbox One, I’d wholly recommend buying Rare Replay and trying them out. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

So that’s the story of the best 360 game nobody played, and I always find it a shame that it’s as short as it was. The games could’ve continued on with new piñata (there’s even concept art for a shark-themed piñata that never made it into the games) as well as fixing the problems Trouble in Paradise had. Still, when E3 rolls around every year, I never lose hope during the Microsoft conference. I know it’s a longshot and that it’s been 8 years since the last one, but as they say, anything can happen on Piñata Island.

Song of the Week

It wouldn’t be a Viva Piñata retrospective without featuring what is undeniably the best track in an already fantastic score. Grant Kirkhope himself has claimed that this piece, Bedtime Story, is his favourite one he’s ever written, as it was the last one he ever wrote for Rare before leaving the company. It plays occasionally during nighttime in your garden, and fits the mood of the end of a long day.