‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas, and all through the house; not a creature was stirring, but my wife would beg to differ gaming doesn’t bring out the monster in me. So as my family was fast asleep, I decided to pull out my Sega Saturn to reminisce the classic days of Japanese gaming. And one game in particular – Christmas NiGHTs – to help me get into the spirit. Now, this was a momentous event, because for the past four years I’ve been separated from my old gaming systems as I’ve moved along the East Coast.

This year not only did I have my reunion with my Saturn, but I also splurged on an s-video cable for Good Old Black. “Saturn, meet my HDTV. HDTV, meet Saturn. No, this isn’t Virtual Console. This is the real deal. See that? Those aren’t wrinkles on the Saturn, those are battle scars. Yup, earned during the great war with Sony. Games? You wan’t to see 32-bit games? I’ll show you some classics.” And so I put the disc in, powered up the console, and…

…”Holy hell, this looks like shit!”

The guys at PlayerOne said the s-video ruined the Saturn for them, and after such a long absence and nothing but fond memories, it sure didn’t look like how I remembered it. I quickly swapped out the s-video cables with the trusty composite connectors of yesteryear. Suddenly, the snowflakes on Christmas NiGHTs looked like, well, more like snowflakes, rather than huge pixelated faux-transparent snowballs. Ah, and who could forget the not-ready-for-full-screen FMV? And the game itself? Well, I remembered I used to be pretty good, having memorized the stages and racking up combos for an “A” rating back in the day. Now, I was slogging along, getting a “C” and being honestly happy I had moved one step toward finishing the level and my obligatory play-through. Yes, it was a sad day to realize I was wearing Sega goggles throughout the entire 32-bit generation.

I wanted to redeem myself, so during my walk of shame back to my stash of games I decided to continue on with Viva Pinata. And I have to say, even though it’s a serious contender for Game of the Year, I’m getting disappointed with it the more I play. First, it makes you earn money to buy certain items in the garden in order to breed and attract new pinatas. This is a Rare game first and foremost, in that earning money is almost the same mundane gameplay mechanic as collecting items in their past games. It hurts Viva Pinata because it frequently takes you out of the garden; and into playing the same minigames over and over again, and navigating through menus and loading screens looking at items you need to buy but would take forever to afford. 1000 coins for milk? And I need two of them? Fuggetaboutit.

Another gripe I have against Viva is it never gives any indication as to where the game is going. I had to clutter my limited garden space with necessary houses and items, and when I achieved a certain level my garden space expanded. So now I have all these houses right in the center of my garden, with all this empty space on the fringes which will undoubtedly continue to grow. How can I organize my garden now? Do I keep building on the fringes? How do I know how to build paths and fences when I have no idea how they will interfere with other objects later on? It would have been nice to have the entire plot of land to work with at the onset.

I bought this game because I heard building up the garden was so much fun, but about four hours into it, I’ve found it to be a royal chore. There is so much that takes you out of the garden, such as the minigames and village menus, it’s difficult to make a connection with any of the creatures I’ve helped create. Yet, I’m oddly attracted to continuing on with the game, just to see if it gets any better or to make sure if I’m just not doing something I should be.

Wanting to rinse the bad taste of disappointment from my lips, I wrapped up my nightcap with a few levels of the irresistible Assault Heroes. Nothing like some mass destruction before I settled down for a cold winter’s nap. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night…of gaming!