Rare’s Viva Piñata was a cute, quirky little game, released on a system known mostly for M-rated first-person shooters—if there was one console that epitomized everything that Viva Piñata wasn’t, it was the 360.  But somehow, the game found a following to the point that now, two years later, the games one of Microsoft’s Platinum Hits. The tie-in Saturday morning TV show is successful as well and there’s a version coming soon for Nintendo DS, along with the 360 iteration, subtitled Trouble in Paradise.  Like the first one, TIP is an adorable, relaxing breath of fresh air.

As before, players take control of the disembodied entity tasked with the care and upkeep of a (initially disheveled) garden.  In improving the garden, you draw in ambulatory piñatas, who can be imbued with “Candiosity” before being sent out to fulfill their piñata destiny—that is to say, being broken with a stick by blindfolded children.  Disturbing storyline implications aside, the series draw frequent comparisons to games like Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, and with good cause—like those titles, VP is an open-ended game with a lackadaisical pace and a peaceful vibe. 

There are a couple of big additions for Trouble in Paradise, though.  Right off the bat, you’ve got two new areas to travel to and explore—the Dessert Desert and the Piñarctic, where you can go to catch sand- and cold-based piñatas, respectively.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty nice to be able to get out of the garden every once in a while, and these two new areas (and the piñatas you can get there) add some variety that was missing in the first game.  That said, other that baiting traps and sending piñatas back to the garden, there’s not a whole lot to do in either place.

That’s not the only additions in TIP, though.  Rare has cleaned up and streamlined the front-end and in-game menu systems, so navigation is less of a hassle.  They’ve added Just For Fun mode, which removes the few antagonizing elements (limited cash and supplies, “sour” piñatas that can wreck your garden and strict requirements to improving your piñatas’ Candiosity) that are present in the “main” game mode.  They’ve given players a drop-in, drop-out co-op mode, which is a serious improvement over the half-hearted multiplayer attempt found in the original.  Photo Mode lets you take snapshots of your garden and piñatas to share on Xbox Live, so you can show all your buddies just how awesome your Pieenas are.  And from the “interesting, but totally unnecessary” department, they’ve included Piñata Vision, a system that lets you use your Live Vision camera to scan in bar-coded cards (not unlike PS3’s Eye of Judgement, or Nintendo’s e-Reader, for that matter), which can bestow special items, effects, and piñatas.  It’s a neat idea, but I wonder how many people will use it once (the game comes with one card to start you off) and then forget it forever.

One area they didn’t really make a lot of changes to is the game’s presentation.  Graphically, the game is almost unchanged from the original, although the new areas and piñatas add some much-needed visual variety.  The piñatas’ animations are smooth and lifelike, and some of my favorite moments from the game involved watching simple interactions between different species—each time it was unique and engaging.  The audio, too, takes its cues from the original, with a minimal soundtrack adding to the tranquil tone and environmental effects reinforcing the peaceful outdoor atmosphere.

Trouble in Paradise is a fine follow-up to Viva Piñata, but its changes and additions are more evolutionary than revolutionary.  They’ve taken care of some of the first game’s more obnoxious shortcomings and added a few neat features, but for the most part it’s more of the same.  Die-hard fans of the first one will be in heaven with the new additions, and series newcomers would do well to start here, but if the original didn’t do anything for you, don’t expect this one to rock your world.