Guide to Getting all the Viva Pinata Achievement Points Really Super Fast By derobins (gamertag: FTICRMS) **************** * General Tips * **************** Summary Most of the achievements are really easy once you know about them. Some are time-consuming, though. Essentially, getting 1000 points in a short period of time boils down to leveling up as quickly as possible. You can probably get 980/1000 in a weekend but the 50 hour one will take some time. Specializing Ideally, you want to keep about three species of pinata in your garden at one time (fewer in the early game). This will allow you to optimize your romancing and reduce conflicts between species. Interloping species can be smacked with the shovel until they die. Most of the game will go like this: 1) Set up your garden to attract a desired pinata. 2) While waiting for it to show up, romance your other pinata or grow plants for cash. 3) When it becomes a resident, send the hunter off for another one and start building its house. Use the express delivery or it'll take forever. You'll also want to start growing any special romance plants it needs. 4) When the second one shows up, start romancing them (more below). Also do as many of the variants and evolves as you can. Romance the new species until you get the master romancer award. 5) Sell off the completed species and optimize for the next one. Waiting for some of the species to show up will sometimes take a while so make sure you optimize on that. You need 50 species to enter your garden for one of the achievements, which is about 75% of them. Romancing Romancing gives you lots of experience points and is key to some achievements. There seeems to be a lot of confusion on the boards, though, so let me point some things out: - You need SEVEN pinatas to get the master romancer award. Two initial critters (from the hunter or the wild) and five children. These animals MUST exist at the same time. It does no good if you make five kids and other pinatas eat three of them. You'll still have three to go. Be sure no other pinatas are eating your hard work! - A variant pinata is still considered towards the master romancer award. - The colored butterflies are special. See my flutterscotch guide for breeding tips. - You can ignore the coins in the romance minigames. There are much better ways to make money than that. They are only helpful for the first hour of gameplay or so since the coin values don't go up significantly throughout the game. - Don't rush in the romance mazes. You have plenty of time and rushing will just make you more likely to overshoot and crash into a loather. - Your pinatas sometimes have a lot of intertia in the romance mazes so they speed up and slow down slowly. If you don't take this into account it'll be hard to run past the moving loathers and you'll crash into things. - The romance candy is only six coins, so it's way cheaper and faster than the regular romance requirements. There are a few exceptions to this, like flutterscotches, which only require fruit. Just plant a few berry bushes nearby for those pinatas. - Pinatas romance most easily when they would normally be awake. If you try to wake up a diurnal animal at 3am for some romancing, they'll probably go right back to sleep. Just like in real life! To romance quickly: 1) Take care of the initial romancing requirements for your first two species. 2) Romance them together to make their first egg. While it's hatching, go get some romance candy from the store. Buy eight at once. 3) When the egg shows up, there will be a short delay where you can't control them. As soon as that's over, direct the two parents to the romance candy so they are ready to go again. 4) IMMEDIATELY romance them again. Go to step 3. The key point here is to go between steps three and four as quickly as possible. Not only does this save time, the romance mazes are a lot easier. Notice how the number of allowed collisions goes down as the number of that type of pinata in your garden goes up? The game only counts the ones that have been hatched. If you are quick, you can run the last maze with two eggs waiting to hatch and get two 'free' collisions you shouldn't get. This is a really big help in the later part of the game, especially since the high-level pinatas have eggs which take a long time to hatch. 5) Once you are totally done, just get a cluckles and quick-hatch the last eggs so you can move along to the next species. I sell the cluckles back right away since otherwise a pretztail will usually show up to eat it. If you are quick, you can have 2-3 species going at once. For high-level pinatas, the master romancer awards will pump your level very quickly. Remember, you only need to do master romancer for 20 species. Water, long grass, short grass At some point you are going to need a lot of water or long grass. Digging and filling lakes and planting long grass is time-consuming. To optimize this process, try to do it as infrequently as possible. Use short grass and keep a small pond for most of the game. Then, when you are at high level (the swanana requires level 27), dig a huge lake covering >60% of your land to get all the water species. Romance them to master romancer, make their variants, sell them off and fill in your lake down to a small size. Same thing with long grass. Don't forget that cutting grass with the shovel sucks and takes forever. Just pull it up with the X button and replant with short grass. Long grass is only needed for a few species, none of which are crucial. You'll always want a small lake or two handy for growing water plants and for attracting the early water species. Experience Experience comes mainly from attracting and romancing pinatas and growing plants. The point values go up markedly as pinata level increases so you should optimize on attracting and romancing the highest level pinatas as you can. Don't forget plants, either. Just growing them to completion gives a lot of experience and fertilizing them to full bonus growth is also worth quite a bit for the later plants. Money There are several easy ways to make money in Viva Pinata. There are, of course, many other ways of making money in this game but these appear to have the highest return on your time investment. - Breed low-level pinatas that evolve into expensive pinatas. The redhott is a cash factory in the early game. Just buy a torch and plant some flowers. You can either buy a taffly house and generate a supply of tafflies or just wait for them to show up. A redhott takes five seconds to make and sells for 2100 coins, which is a fortune early on. - Grow plants, especially with fertilizer. Plants are worth a lot more than the price you paid for the seed. Chilis are good early in the game. Gem trees and some flowers are good later on. I like orchids and bullrushes because they are worth a lot of money, can be fertilized all at once and take up less space than trees. Whatever works for you. Oaks are worth a lot but take a long time to mature. Gem trees dispense gems which are worth less than you'd think (75 coins) but can be upgraded by the tinker for a small fee. The resulting rainbow gems can be sold for 550 coins, which turns a decent profit. Don't forget about the mixed fertilizer from the trader which is only 9 coins a hit. - Breed high-level pinatas and sell them off. If you sell them off right away, you'll always have four collisions in the romance maze. Then you can just shortcut your way through some of the loathers to save time. Sour species For some achievements, you will need to make use of the sour species. When a new one appears, hit it with the shovel until it pops. Then you can buy its totem for the Tower of Sour in one of the stores. When the totem is 'on' (lit up and awake-looking), that species will be prevented from entering your garden. When you want to convert one, check the encyclopedia to see what its residency requirements are, get them ready and then turn off that species' totem in the Tower of Sour. Complete the requirements when it shows up and it will turn into a coccoon which will then make a new species of pinata. Don't forget to turn the totem back on when you are done. These converted pinatas are used like regular pinatas, but some have special abilities that unlock achievements when used. See the achievement list below for specifics. Some bonus tips - The cutlass statue will keep Professor Pester and the ruffians from coming into your garden. - The Dastardos scarer statue will keep Dastardos away. Handy if you are growing weeds or are being flooded with sours. - Grow weeds in a fenced-in area. A lot of pinata species will make a beeline for them and get sick as soon as they are fully grown. ************************* * Specific Achievements * ************************* Challenger - Successfully completed 5 Factory requests. Master Challenger - Successfully completed 20 Factory requests. Just send off a pinata if you have the kind they are looking for. You'll hit 20 long before you get the other achievements. There appears to be no penalty for telling them 'no'. Romancer - Become Master Romancer for 5 species. Master Romancer - Become Master Romancer for 20 species. Fast tips for this are detailed in the general strategies section. Stick to the lower-level species since the mazes are easier. Some species are a pain to control, like the panocky. You only need to do the master romancer award for about 1/4 of the total species so if one sucks, just sell the house and move on to another one. Collector - Made 5 species resident. Master Collector - Made 50 species resident. Just pay attention to what species are showing up on your borders and tweak your garden to sucker them in and make them residents. Fifty species is most of the ones in the game so you'll get this one towards the end. Easy additions are the pinatas from the pet store and the flutterscotches. Each flutterscotch color is considered a separate species. Some of the higher-level pinatas (elephant, lion) have much more involved requirements. NOTE: The 'residence' tallies do NOT reset between visits. If an elephant visits your garden and only eats four blackberries before wandering off, the box will still be checked when it gets back. Longevity - Played the game for 10 hours (real time). Master Longevity - Played the game for 50 hours (real time). You'll have no problem hitting 10 hours of play, even with this guide. The 50 hour achievement is much more difficult. I got it during regular play but if you are using this guide, you'll have everything else long before the fifty hour mark. You might be able to just plug in a wired controller but there will be popups asking you to send out a pinata. I don't remember if the game pauses when this happens. If it does, just do this achievement while watching TV. You can click 'no' during commercials. Garden Value - Garden worth 25,000 chocolate coins. Garden Value Master - Garden worth 100,000 chocolate coins. Just make high-value pinatas and grow expensive plants. It's not difficult to make a 100k garden once you get to level 50. Piñata Value - One Piñata worth 5,000 chocolate coins. Piñata Value Master - One Piñata worth 10,000 chocolate coins. The easiest way to raise a pinata's value is to add accessories to a high-level pinata. Sending pinatas to parties and adding happiness also helps. Green Fingers - Grown 5 plants to maturity. Master Green Fingers - Grown 25 plants to maturity. Always ask Seedos for seeds when you level up to get new plants. He'll give them to you for free before you can buy them at the store. Growing them up is easy, especially once you get the last watering can. Wealthy - Player has 25,000 chocolate coins. Wealth Master - Player has 100,000 chocolate coins. Tips for getting easy cash are given in the general section, above. Label Designer - Made a Custom Label. Piñata Name Caller - Named a Piñata. Helper Name Caller - Named a Helper. You shouldn't have trouble getting these... Talent - Player has reached Level 10. Master Talent - Player has reached Level 50. Getting quick experience is discussed above. Remember that you get a LOT more points for higher level plants and pinatas so always concentrate your efforts on the best ones available. Land Owner - Garden size increased once. Master Land Owner - Garden size at maximum. You'll get these from just playing the game. Sour Tower - Tower of Sour has 2 pieces. Master Sour Tower - Tower of Sour has 6 pieces. When new sour creatures enter your garden, hit them with the shovel to break them open. After you've done this, you can buy a tower piece from the store. There are a total of eight sour pinatas each with a corresponding tower piece. Super Shovel - All the Shovel Head upgrades. Shovel Strength - All the Shovel Handle upgrades. Watering Can Do - All the Watering Can upgrades. You will get these as you play through the game. Some parts will be given to you and other parts you have to buy in the stores. There is no grass seed achievement. Taffly Fertilizer - Player has made fertilizer with the Taffly. Have your taffly eat some fruit to make fertilizer. The color of the fertilizer will depend on the fruit. Gooseberry = green fertilizer, for example. You only need to make one for the achievement. Cocoadile Tears - Player has attained full bonus growth for a plant using the Cocoadile tears. Direct a tame cocoadile to a growing plant and it'll fertilize it with its tears. Sprinkling - Employed a Sprinkling. Watchling - Employed a Watchling. Diggerling - Employed a Diggerling. Weedling - Employed a Weedling. Gatherling - Employed a Gatherling. Just hire them as they become available. You don't need any of them to do well in the game and the gatherling is actually a detriment when you are trying to attract specific species (she helpfully gathers up your bait). Highlight them and press X to bring up a menu that lets you fire them. You can also hit them with the shovel until they go away. Leafos will scold you but you'll get some cash from hitting them. Variants - Made 5 variant Piñatas. Variants Master - Made 20 variant Piñatas. You can get this very early in the game. Check the Viva Pinata wiki for which items will change a pinata's colors. Hopefully someone will make a printable list soon. In general, it's very common that bluebell and water lilly seeds and flowers will change a species color. Keep a small supply on hand for when you get a new pinata species and you'll have the achievements in no time. The wiki can be found at: http://pinataisland.info/index.php?title=Main_Page Harvester - Collected produce from a Buzzlegum, Moozipan or Goobaa. Get a buzzlegum, buy a hive and put a beekeeper hat (accessory) on it. This achievement is currently glitched so you can just buy honey, milk or yarn from the store to get it. Generosity - Player turned the Beggar into a Trader. Give the begger some gold and he'll turn into a trader who sells valuable gear. I think 1500 coins worked for me though I've heard 1000 works as well. Cluckles Hatches Egg - Player has hatched an egg using the Cluckles. Buy a cluckles from the pet/accessory store. Direct it at an egg and it'll quickly hatch it. Evolver - Evolved Two Species. Master Evolver - Evolved Eight Species Pigxie Prize - Cross Romancing a Swanana and a Rashberry. Here is a complete list of all the evolved species and how to make them. Redhott - get a taffly, direct it to a torch (buy from store) and it will catch on fire. Quickly put it out with your watering can. Remember you can quickly switch equipment using the D pad. Salamango - feed a chili to a newtgat. Candary - feed a buttercup flower to a sparrowmint. Juicy Goose - feed a gooseberry to a quackberry. Zumbug - feed a blackberry and a daisy flower to a horstachio. Pigxie - romance a swanana and a rashberry. At some point in the game, Willy will have a 'mystery' house for sale. Build it, get the swanana and rashberry to have hearts over their heads (easiest if you previously romanced them since you can use the candy) and romance them together. The maze will be the rashberry maze with the swanana at the end. When the egg hatches you'll have a pigxie and the house will now be called a pigxie house. Lackatoad - feed a nightshade fruit to a lickatoad and then quickly hit it on the head with your shovel (before it gets poisoned). Twingersnap - romance a syrupant and watch the resulting egg. Right before it hatches, it will make two small hops and then one big one. When it makes the big one, hit it with your shovel. A twingersnap will hatch. Don't confuse the hop-hop-HOP with the normal bouncing of the egg. Fourheads - just like for the twingersnap, but you have to romance twingersnaps instead of syrupants. Horticulturist - Full bonus growth for 5 plants. Master Horticulturist - Full bonus growth for 25 plants. Use fertilizer on plants to get bonus growth. Each plant can take 3 hits of fertilizer - flowers can be done all at once, trees and bushes are done once per growth stage. The tree sheds leaves when it changes stages. You'll hear a high-pitched sound when it's been applied correctly and a low-pitched sound if not. Use the fertilizer that matches the fruit or flower color. The mixed fertilizer from the trader works on all species. NOTE: Sometimes I only heard two high-pitched sounds but got the full growth award anyway. Check your award book to see if you really got it. Crowla Delay - Player has distracted Dastardos with the Crowla. Sherbat Dance - Player has distracted Dastardos with the Sherbat. Get a pinata sick, either by eating some bad candy from a sour species or planting some poison plants like toadstools. When Dastardos comes, direct your crowla or sherbat at him to stun him briefly. The stun effect is brief so unless you have the doctor on the way, you'll probably lose the sick pinata to Dastardos. Mallowolf Howl - Player has used the Mallowolf to scare off Ruffians. When a ruffian appears, direct a mallowolf to him to scare him off. Chewnicorn Healing - Player has healed a Piñata with the Chewnicorn's power. Get a pinata sick with bad candy or a weed and then direct a chewnicorn to heal it. Dastardos usually takes a while to show up so you shouldn't have trouble beating him to the sick pinata. This Achievement Guide is property of www.achieve360points.com. No reproduction of any kind unless granted by Monsters or Author. 2006