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It's strictly luck of the draw as to what minigames you'll play in a standard match, though you can jump straight to your favorites in a practice game. As with any minigame collection, some are more entertaining than others. They're mostly simple, single-button affairs that you can pick up and play with no explanation, and they involve plenty of piñata-appropriate activities like apple-eating contests, squishing raisants, letting loose with soda-fueled belches, and collecting loads and loads of candy. There are six types of minigames, and several variations within each type, but the variants end up feeling so similar to one another that the game might as well just have six minigames. Your average game of Party Animals has you alternating between playing minigames and competing in single-lap races, and how you place in the various events will determine your score throughout. The four players are mandatory, so if you're short on live players, you'll end up saddled with some pretty meek game-controlled opponents. Your play options are to either "play at home" or "play online," and beyond that, there's little you can do to customize the experience.
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Viva Piñata: Party Animals is a pretty straightforward four-player party game that's exceptionally light on features. The simplicity and familiarity of Party Animals probably makes it a better fit for Viva Piñata's target audience, and the party-time visuals are still busy and vibrant, but the gameplay is so rote and so uninspired that the charm wears off pretty quickly.īeyond the visuals, there's just not a lot to Party Animals. By contrast, Viva Piñata: Party Animals is neither deep nor sophisticated, transplanting the anthropomorphic piñatas into a game that wants to be both a kart-racing game and a minigame collection, but it's not very good at either. The game itself, however, was a relatively complex and slow-paced strategy game, featuring a level of depth and sophistication that was at odds with its cute, lively persona.
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The candy-colored visuals, highly marketable characters, and animated TV series that accompanied the game made it pretty apparent that Microsoft was looking to conjure up a kid-powered, Pokémon-style franchise.
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Even a year after its original release, Viva Piñata remains an inexplicable game.