XBOX and Rare's answer to Animal Crossing comes away with mixed messages. It is a simple premise, you have gardens that all are used to make you money and entice the massive amounts of candy pinata animals to come and stay. You can breed them, sell them, transform them, or just dress them up in silly outfits and let them play. This one had some success, it had a TV show for a bit, but this is not one of Rare's winning franchises, like Donkey Kong Country.

It starts out well, you go through a brief bit of hand holding then the game turns you loose. And a lot of what you discover is on your own, making you feel like a scientist finding what works and what doesn't. Some things that can seem to have no reward, such as feeding a Pretztail (fox) a carrot, ends up having a secret.

But this is not like other farm sim types. This game never clicks into what could make a fun or addictive experience. Its strangely paced; either dead or hectic, often one after the other. There is too many items and yet not enough items that are meaningful. It leaves one with the feeling the developer never quite found the formula for making this OK game into a great game.

It does certain things well;

+ there are over 70 animal types, holy Moozipan
+ Some are adorably cute / Some are funny dangerous looking
+ it has a free play mode which is a lot of fun
+ A sense of discovery! For Science!
+ Trouble in Paradise is not a sequel, its a remaster

It has a list of annoyances, though

- Long load times
- A crappy co-cop mode, where the 2nd player can't do much
- too many menus and menus within menus
- Over reliance on pest visitors to create action
- new things are introduced before you can act with them
- Gardens are small, even at max size. Never catch em all!
- Garden clutter, with a poor interface for selection
- a lot of sitting around, waiting
- If TIP is a remaster of first game, this is still broke



The graphics are pretty good, until you realize they also haven't been much improved from the original version. The water effect can look nice, but other things, like the water at the Bispotti bug house, look terrible.

The sound is a mixed bag. The music is inoffensive, if unmemorable. The animals sounds can be cute (the ladybugs, the mice) and scary (the camel, baboon, Sours), but nothing that seems catchy, despite the 'mating dance' rituals... set to jukebox.

Its not very addictive. The levels come fast, and you are given a lot to play around with, but there is no way to make certain animals stop by that day, you must just take them randomly. The money system is flawed too, resulting in cheese to get ahead.

There is something of a story, about a bunch of tiki-head types that you don't want around (if animals sporting red and black, send it back), and you are part of that trope of watching over an elderly farmers, er farm. But other than hand out titles and the odd reward to you, he barely factors into the game. His adult children visit you everyday, but they are as hard to relate to as he is.


The depth comes from the nuance. The Duck likes water, and wants to eat bread in order to be a resident. But how to get them even to show in the garden? You better have a ear of corn laying around. For some reason. You have all these carrots and can't get a bunny around? The fox types you have sitting around will make sure they never stop by. Newts and Frogs hate each other. How do you even make bread for a duck anyway?


This is a good idea, a family-friendly game that has lovable almost Pokemon-like habitations and raising... but leaves out all that cool battling you like in Pokemon. The fights here are dull, as is most of your time, just waiting for the game to make something happen. I wish the game had taken more from the freeplay mode, which foregoes the stupid money and makes animal requirements much simpler. Streamlining the process makes it more fun! Something they kind of forgot about with the main game and the multiplayer. Oh well!