Customer Reviews

Viva Pinata: Prima Official Game Guide (Prima Official Game Guides)

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Until a few years ago, the last video system I owned was an Atari 2600 when I was a kid. But, my partner has recently gotten me into the current crop of console games. Shooters? Not my thing. Gore? No thanks. Racing? Not unless it's Mario Kart. The first game I ever became addicted to as an adult was Katamari Damacy on the PS2, followed by its sequel, We Love Katamari. (If you know those wacky games, you understand the kind of gamer I am.) Not surprisingly, then, Viva Piñata was right up my alley. I've been playing off and on since January and have almost completed the game -- I've earned all 50 achievements and am currently a level 89 gardener, with plans to not quit until I max out at level 108 and have every box checked in my journal. I've gotten this far with the help of the pinataisland wiki and can't imagine having played the game without this invaluable web resource.

That is, until now. Piñata junkie that I am, I raced out and bought the Viva Piñata strategy guide yesterday (April 10, 2007, its release day) and have been absolutely delighted with it so far. Even though I have a laptop and can therefore access the pinataisland wiki fairly easily when playing the Xbox 360, I've found it rather annoying to retrieve the laptop everytime I want to play.

For folks who can't easily surf the net while playing, this strategy guide should be invaluable. Much of the information available at the wiki is including in this guide -- full descriptions of each piñata species, how to attract and romance them, who they fight with, how to create their variants, how to transform one species into another, etc. Island inhabitants also get bios, and plants get full descriptions as well, including their uses, which fertilizers they take, and so on. Some information seems more detailed at the wiki (e.g., how to best fertilize some plants); and an index in the back of the guide would have been nice. However, the extensive, detailed information that's there is well organized and presented in an accessible manner.

Even as an experienced player, there's information in this guide that I haven't yet seen at the wiki. For example, the guide include maps showing two routes for each romance mini-game -- the fastest way through and the way to get the most money. (The former is nice for trickier mazes, though the latter doesn't seem really necessary unless you're trying to reach the top of the Xbox Live leaderboard.) After owning it just one day, I've already learned new tricks from this strategy guide that I hadn't discovered on my own or at the wiki -- e.g., according to the guide, you can accessorize piñatas that would normally fight with gas masks to keep fights from breaking out in your garden.

So, whether you're still busy romancing Whirlms or are already well on your way to creating every possible variant of the Dragonache, I highly recommend this guide.

Although Viva Piñata is an easy game to play, there are quite a few undocumented features to make the most out of it. I would never have guessed how to get a Twingersnap or a Fourheads for the Master Evolver achievement. And how about all the guesswork involved to get the Variants Master?

There are many helpful sites on the Internet, but you either have to use a separate monitor to view the hints while you play or have to spend time organizing printouts from different sources.

This handy reference is a cost effective alternative that includes everything you need to be a good gardener and piñata romancer, get all the achievements and collect every piñata there is. It is well organized, with lots of helpful diagrams, detailed tables and lots of good advice. I was a Level 50 gardener already when I opened this guide but I have to admit that I got quite a few tips that would've made my life so much easier in the early levels, especially with the romancing and collecting activities.

I'm currently a Level 65 gardener and I've already gotten my 50 achievements but I'm still using the guide to help me get 5 piñatas to complete my collection and I also use it to keep track of additional activities such as master romancing other species and making other piñata variants.


Chapter 1 - Piñata Preparation - Everything about gardens and how they grow, all about experience, making money and garden planning.

Chapter 2 - Inhabitants - All the characters, service providers, ruffians, Prof. Pester, etc.

Chapter 3 - The 60 Piñatas - The most useful chapter for the collector. This is what the game is all about. A list of all Piñatas and all their possible requirements (appear, visit, resident, romance). It also shows the recommended romancing-game paths, the housing costs, piñata base values, variants, fetching and healing costs and additional information specific to each piñata.

Chapter 4 - Garden Tools - All about gardening, shovel and and watering can updates, fertilizers, bushes, trees, flowers, weeds, vegetables, seeds, etc. There's also information on buildings, candy, ornaments and produce.

Chapter 5 - Appendix - This is where all crucial information is summarized in tables. It shows all possible piñata variants, a summary of piñata requirements, all possible achievements, unlockables (what things are available at every level), even the food chain is tabularized, who eats who and which species tend to fight.

I bought the Viva Piñata game when it came out and inmediately loved it, but sometimes I found myself in the middle of piñatas fighting each other, or dying or just leaving my graden, so when I saw this guide was coming I inmediately bought it and I just can say it is a great guide, it is a great help for all of us who whish to become great Piñata gradeners.

One can get quite far in the game by just paying attention, experimenting and luck; however, sometimes it's nice to have a reference when you want to attract a particular Pinata or produce a particular variation. While a lot of this information is freely available on the web, I find having a book to flip through, more practical while playing the game.

Overall, I think this book is worth the purchase. Most of the information in it can find online (for free) at the pinata island website, but I find having it all organized on paper is much more helpful and easier to follow. The book is very colorful, which I like, and it breaks things up into useful tables. The only things I don't like is that it doesn't have an index, which would have been very useful. A straight list of all the different pinatas would have been nice too, as I'd like to check off the types as I encounter them. Plus, I've found several typos in the book. Sometimes the errors are in spelling and sometimes the wrong word is used (for example, in the types of paving section, the paving is referred to as candy).

There's not much to complain about in the strategy guide. Detailed steps on how to evolve your pinata. Also tips on how to level your garden and various random tid bits! Awesome.

i bought this book for my mom who loves this game but needed help trying to do certain things and i had no idea how to help her since i dont play this game, after she recieved this book she stopped asking for my help so now i can play gears of war in peace.

The book was in great shape with only minimal wear on the cover. It also arrived in a timely manner. I would definately recoment this seller.

The kids just love the book. It really helps in figuring out the game and more details on all the Pinatas. Came in great condition sealed in plastic.

As far as game guides go this is one of the most complete I have encountered. It makes a great book to have handy when you are sitting there and playing. It's not laid out as a walkthrough, but rather as an encyclopedia of sorts. Because Viva Piñata is so open-ended, it makes this layout the best method. You can easily glance through the book and if you see a piñata you like, you can see all the prerequisites that go into attracting it and getting them to stay, plus any of the extra color variations of them you can obtain. The book also makes it a whole lot easier to go buy items when you can look right in the book and know the cost and variations before you even head to the village to shop. Some guide books can ruin the experience of a game by providing you every step that you should be taking, this book on the other hand becomes that ultimate game manual that you never had. So grab yourself the Piñata bible and go out there and get gardening!