A VERY thorough guide!
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!

Thought I was going to be playing a kids game...
But found that this game is fun for all ages. It has it's childish moments, it's bright colors, cute little pinatas running around and funny noises; but there really is no substitute to the kind of gaming enjoyment this game will provide. It's kind of a SIMS crossed with the original cartoon. You control the pets, take care of them and protect them from the bad pinatas in hopes of creating secret pets and luring newer and better pets in to your gardens. The features and pretty abundant and all add to the variety of game play allowed. I wouldn't feel bad recommending this game to my friends or allowing my 5 year old child to play.

The only thing I would like to warn the parents about that may be thinking about giving this to their kids is the pets are able to reproduce and create little pinatas that are delivered as eggs to the loving parent pinatas. Basically two pinatas are looking for love, you get them together, play a mini game. Upon successful completion of the mini game the pinatas do a dance...literally. A cut scene shows the pinatas do a variety of world dances to the appropriate music. I only mention this because I don't want parents complaining that no one warned them that the game may cause little Timmy or Janie to ask questions about where babies come from. Regardless of that, I'd recommend this game for all ages.

A successful Game Guide is one which extends the life of your game
I will keep this review short and sweet. Many have covered the basics.

Viva Pinata is not new. My son has been playing it for a while now and the progress has been steady, but slow. I felt that he is starting to loose interest or at least, I'm starting to feel useless.
So i decided to get this guide. The first ever guide i get for any game (I'm 36 and i've been gaming since i was 6).

Man did it change his life. I was blown away by how much of this game is revealed, new challenged uncovered and objectives to look forward to.

And Unlike the reviewer who thought this came out late. I think all Strategy Guides should come out a year or more post game release. It will add so much more replay value, renew interest in a game, almost removing a shroud. Interest in a game would be prolonged...

And, as a bonus, my kid is actually forcing himself to read through the book, page by page.

That alone is worth 5*s

Good reference for all the esoteric variations in the game
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.

A very clear guide.
I don't usually get game guides because they spoil the fun, but sometimes you just want to know what kind of fertalizer to use, and this one tells you everything. It's a good reference for those who don't want to take notes on a game that is purely for fun.