Reviews// Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise

All these goodies can be had from the likes of Madame Costolot, the shop keeper, Willy Builder, the... er, builder and Gretchen who will, if you so demand it, snare certain piņatas. All this in exchange for your lovely coins

As you steadily improve your garden, piņatas will start to be drawn to it. As certain piņatas appear certain other piņatas will be drawn to it. A Mousemallow, for example, will turn up for just a turnip. It'll stick around once it's eaten that turnip. A Syrupent will turn up for just a spot of grass, but it ain't going to live there until it's eaten a Mousemallow. Yes, it's a Syrupent eat Mousemallow world. It also feels a bit wrong sometimes, but... you know, circle of life and all that.

A key aspect of populating your garden is romancing. Get a couple of the same species together under the right conditions (you will be needing a house for them) and they will trundle off to do something that Rare has assured me is perfectly clean, lovely and innocent but still somehow produces another piņata.

You might be wondering just how you're supposed to know what conditions you need to meet. This is where we meet the wonder of the journal. The journal sits on the DS's top screen and can be accessed with a quick tap of the appropriate icon on the touch screen. In it is easy access to all the information you're likely to need to deal with your garden. You'll find info on what's in your garden, what the different species need, different tools and new happenings in your little corner of the world.

This and the overall presentation of the menu system is one of the beauties of Pocket Paradise. I had previously dabbled briefly with the original Viva Piņata on the Xbox 360. I found the menu system in it to be a tad cumbersome, but on the DS nothing is ever more than a couple of screen taps away.

Had the menu been more awkward, playing Pocket Paradise on the go would have been tricky. As it was, I was delighted to find how easily I could play the game on my morning commute - one of the things that stood out to me while playing the game outside the comfort of Rare's studios. Throw in the option to just snap shut the DS at any moment and have it pause and I was successfully nurturing my Piņatas on my commute to work. (I didn't even get beaten up for it!) Next, I plan to play it on the train to Leeds and see if it makes me look attractive to girls. 'Cos I'll look all sensitive and that...

Another thing I realised while playing the full game is that it may prove too challenging for younger players. At Rare, I was presented with a saved game that had already been progressed quite a way, so I got to dabble to my heart's content without really facing the meaty challenge of building my garden up from scratch. In the brutal reality of the full game, it wasn't quite so easy.