Like many adult male gamers who are comfortable enough in their masculinity to stop playing Gears of War while eating live chickens by the handful for a moment, I was charmed and delighted by Rare's Viva Piñata. Sales figures suggest that the general public was not, and that the average Xbox gamer is happier creating exit wounds than looking after paper animals. Nintendo consoles seemed like the ideal home for Rare's imaginative, colourful gardening simulation (indeed, the original Viva Piñata was supposed to appear on the N64 before Rare were bought up) and it seems appropriate that the game would appear on Nintendo's dual screen handheld. Microsoft's ownership means that the game will never appear on the Wii, but with the handheld division held with no such restraints, Viva Piñata finds a perfect home on the DS, without losing much of the content that made the Xbox original so damn hard to put down.

For those who don't know, Viva Piñata is a farming sim for want of a better genre to crudely align it with. The twist, of course, is that the animals you're profiting from are not the traditional cows, sheep and pigs that farms tend to own, but piñata equivalents, paper animals filled with sweets that grown ups buy their children to destroy at parties, to prevent them doing the same to the DVD player or toaster. Somewhat perversely, the paper critters in Viva Piñata (which range from worms to horses to bears, oh my!) seem rather keen on the rough treatment that children give them at parties (which is more than a little creepy if you spend too long thinking about it), and it is "every piñata's dream" to be selected, packed up and sent to be smashed to pieces. Mysteriously, they come back in one piece at the end of this ordeal, in a nod towards child friendliness.

The game is aimed at children, but despite its looks it has a fairly dark centre at its heart. Loveable animals eat other animals, they get sick, and sometimes you can't afford their medicine (Piñata Island has no National Health Service, it appears) and they will die. It's an alarming bit of gritty realism thrown into proceedings and it's far easier to become attached to your paper pals than it would be to befriend 'Generic Grizzled Marine 2452' from Gears of War. I prefer this approach than the purely saccharine approach of lesser children's games and it's not like there's anything graphic (dead piñatas respawn outside your garden pretty quickly), but it's a surprise none the less. As you progress through the game, you get new plants, accessories and animals to attract. The original was wonderfully compulsive (if a little aimless) and the DS remake is almost exactly the same in most ways - and better in others. Considering the relative horsepower of the two machines, this is nothing short of incredible programming.

You see, as much as the original made me want to start breeding paper animals in my own house (a quick check of my biology textbooks sadly alerted me that this was impossible), it wasn't without its problems. The biggest of these were technical; the analogue stick on the 360 controller was no good for navigating menus or accuracy from your green fingers. The game felt in many ways like a PC title shoehorned onto a console (which was strange, because by all accounts the PC version felt exactly the opposite), and as many people have noted, the stylus control of the DS should be perfect for the control of strategy games. Despite the console's history of shoddily made ports suggesting limited success, the game makes the jump from big screen to small like a prize-winning thoroughbred piñata. The stylus control is sharp, accurate and perfectly suited to casually tending to your crops and critters. Whether encouraging your pets to eat the fruit they need to get in the mood for looooove (I told you it was creepy) or navigating the shop menus, the game feels almost better suited to the handheld than Microsoft's powerhouse - even down to the lack of annoying loading screens and irritating character voiceovers. There are sacrifices of course, most notably in the screen space; it's often tricky to find exactly what you want, thanks to the zoomed in camera, an area that the game attempts to rectify via a mini-map, with some success.

Pocket Paradise is at times a little easier than its bigger brother. One major issue is that romance sweets are very easy to come by and work a lot better at getting your piñata in the mood than in the original; you quickly grow a stockpile of these every time you send an animal off to a party and they allow your piñatas to breed even if you haven't met their romance requirements. This might sound excellent, but if it does then you're probably not the kind of person who will find the game engaging in the long term; the whole point of Viva Piñata is micro-managing your garden's ecosystem to appeal to the animals, and if you don't enjoy that part then you probably won't be as hooked as others. Also, unlike the latest 360 version, there's no multiplayer to speak of, though you can trade animals with likeminded individuals locally, which is a nice bonus though perhaps one that won't be used by most players too regularly.

I think my biggest worry about the piñatas in my pocket (other than a hungry paper-fox's precarious position next a sensitive part of my anatomy) was how well a beautiful game like Viva Piñata would make the jump from the Xbox 360 to a machine with a fraction of its power. I think it's fair to say that I am pleasantly surprised; animals are all sharply drawn with unique animations that reflect their personalities, despite their less smooth appearance. The quackberries waddle endearingly, the pretztails sneak cunningly and the buzzlegums drift dreamily, just like on the 360. The backdrops fare less well, with the grass looking particularly unsightly, but in general terms the game looks very nice and is easily up there with some of the handheld's other visual triumphs. The only downside is that because the animals are much smaller, it's hard to tell that they're made from paper rather than, say, a duck that's been covered in gaudy paint. This is hardly the fault of the developers, who have performed miracles to get it this close, but a great deal of the appeal of the original was just how relaxing it was - and that was in no small part thanks to the gorgeous graphics, animation and personality that was lovingly drawn into each paper animal. The sound fares a little better, with one massive plus: you don't have to deal with the annoying voiceovers for the (putting it charitably) irritating human characters. Other than that, the animals make suitable noises, though the soaring orchestral soundtrack of the original is understandably compromised. As a result, I don't see the game as a replacement for the 360 original, just a pocket sized version for those who can think of no better way of passing a train journey than by watering virtual plants.

Viva Piñata: Pocket Paradise is anything but a loveless port. If you loved the 360 version then you'll love this, despite the drop in graphical quality. As for which version is better overall, they're pretty much on a par, with the beauty of the 360 version (being able to see each paper ruffle really makes a difference!) offset against the better controls of its handheld cousin. Impressively, Pocket Paradise offers an almost identical experience to Rare's critically acclaimed original; there's been very little cutback and the experience is compulsive as ever. I would happily rate the original a 9 for its sparkling originality, charm and compulsiveness, and I see no reason to rate this any less.

Reviewed by Alan Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).