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Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time Review

Plants vs Zombies has been one of my favourite Tower Defense games of all time. The gameplay was incredibly enjoyable and there were plenty of things to keep yourself busy with. I remember playing it almost 7/24 till I earned every single achievement in the game on my PC. 

So I can safely say that when a second game was under development I was super excited. However unlike the first game, the sad thing about Plants vs Zombies 2: It's About Time was that it would not be available for PCs. You can only play it on mobile platforms which has its advantages as well as disadvantages. My preference obviously would be to have the game on both platforms.


Anyway when the game was released for iOS only I went bonkers as I'm an Android user. I also thought it would be an iOS exclusive title which pissed me off even more. The original Plants vs Zombies was released on Android OS 2 years after its launch on iOS if I am not mistaken, so if that would be the case for PvZ 2 as well I'd probably end up murdering someone. Well luckily it didn't take them 2 years to release the game on Android. I think I had to wait for approximately 3 months which wasn't that bad when you think about it.

Ever since the first time it was released Plants vs Zombies 2 has undergone some significant developments via updates however large or small. Thus naturally the current game is very much different from the original version of the game when it was first launched. I will try to only talk about the current version as it would be very confusing if I talked about all the changes. As PopCap admitted, they are trying out new features and ultimately act according to feedback so a lot of features are constantly added and then removed so it's difficult to keep track of them.

Well let's start off with some general information about PvZ 2 for those who haven't played the original game. Plants vs Zombies is a Tower Defense game developed by PopCap Games. In this game we control the plants side and defend our garden and ultimately our "brains" against waves of zombie attacks. We gather sun power to grow plants and use these plants to hold off the zombie attacks. Slightly off topic but, one of the best things about the first game was that we were also given a chance to play with the zombie side. I am afraid this feature hasn't been implemented in the second game yet. So I really hope that in the future they will.

Story

At the start of the second game our Crazy Dave drops and loses his taco. And as anyone who has played the games will know that Dave loves his tacos so he decides to travel back in time to find this taco hence the name of the game "It's About Time". Well something goes wrong during this journey and we end up in Ancient Egypt which is the first world that we'll encounter in PvZ 2.


For the time being there are 3 different worlds in Plants vs Zombies 2. The fourth world is currently under development. 1st world is Ancient Egypt, 2nd world is Pirate Seas, 3rd world is Wild West. The 4th world that is currently shadowed in the game will be called Far Future. (In the screenshot you can see stars, it was the currency in the earlier stages of the game to unlock new worlds; however, these stars are removed from the game after a major update.)

Unlike the original game, PvZ 2 is integrated on a free-to-play format with in-app-purchases. But don't worry, you really DON'T have to buy ANYTHING in order to finish the game. A lot of people keep complaining about these in-app-purchases, well they need to get over it and actually play the game. Don't expect to finish the game in one sitting! And do not expect to pass certain levels in your first try. Some of the levels are very challenging and you will have to try out a lot of different strategies to see which one works best.

Premium Plants

Like in PvZ, you can't have all the plants available from the start of the game. As you progress you will start to unlock new plants such as Twin Sunflower or Watermelon. However there are also premium plants in the game. These plants can only be bought with your hard-earned real life money. These premium plants that can't be unlocked in the game are: Imitater, Torchwood, Snow Pea, Jalapeno, Squash and Power Lily.  It is very sad that Imitator and Torchwood are premium plants as especially Imitator was my favourite plant in the original game. And as you can imagine these plants could really make a big impact and actually make progressing much easier. So I think it was a good decision to keep these plants as premium because it makes the game a whole lot more challenging. I would like to believe that any real fan of this game would want it to challenge the mind so they might come to appreciate this decision.


Currency

Speaking of purchases there is currently only one currency in the game, gold coins. With gold you can buy power ups among other things that keep changing. For example after an update you needed to purchase lawnmowers for each level if you lost them and you also needed to pay if you wanted to retry a level but they changed them back after they received a lot of criticism from the users. But PopCap is still trying to find ways to get people to make in-app-purchases to buy gold. For example right now you can buy an extra card slot with gold in survival mode that I will be talking about in the next paragraph. And who knows maybe they will remove that or add something else, there are no guarantees. However there are things you can not buy with gold and these are premium plants or keys that are needed to unlock new worlds. There were more currencies in the game before such as keys for doors (yea the game had doors back then) or stars but I will avoid them as they were removed after an update.

Survival Mode

Survival Mode in PvZ 2 is very different from the one we had in the original game. First of all we are not exactly free to choose whatever plant we want. There are cards containing plants presented to us after each wave that we manage to clear. And I found the difficulty is not linear like in the original game. In the original game the waves became more difficult as you progressed but in PvZ 2 you might even get a very tough wave early on and get defeated in the 3rd or 4th wave or get something fairly easy after managing to clear up a very tough wave. It's highly possible. Not being able to see the types of zombies you will be facing for that wave, which was something we could do in the original game, certainly affects your progression as well. I believe the survival mode in the first game was much more puzzling as the system in the second game, according to me, is based on not purely but mostly luck. For example in Ancient Egypt survival mode if you do not get a Grave Buster card by some "miracle" after 3-4 waves you will have a very tough time as almost all of the available planting slots will be taken up by graves. And I don't consider myself to be a very lucky person. There was a time when I easily reached 10th wave and then I could barely finish the 1st one because I was forced to face some Gargantuars... Gargantuars in the very first wave when you don't even have strong plants in your card deck, can you imagine something more disappointing in this game???


Mini Games

Just like in PvZ, there are also mini games in PvZ 2. If you ask me which game is better in terms of mini games I would definitely choose the original PvZ as I believe the mini games were much more enjoyable. I particularly like the part where we can play the zombies but unfortunately in PvZ 2 that is not possible. So let's take a look at the mini games in Plants vs Zombies 2. Apart from an endless survival mode in each world, we have two more mini games: Treasure Yeti and Pinata Party.

Yeti was a very rare zombie type in the original game but in the second game, from time to time you will get a warning about a Yeti spawn and you can kill it to receive extra rewards. But you need to be careful because this Yeti will try to flee from battle after receiving a certain amount of damage from your plants. I found that Watermelons are the worst strategy for Yeti because they do the most damage in the game. So Yeti will try to flee earlier than usual as it will be receiving very high damage in a very short time. In my experience there was even a time when I saw the yeti for only two seconds because I had 2 rows of Watermelons and it fled immediately after I landed two watermelons on it which of course weren't enough to get a kill. So I failed. But you can plant something cheap in front of the Yeti as it will start eating it so this might give you enough time to kill it off. If you fail to kill it, the Yeti will disappear so you will have to wait for a respawn. But if you succeed in killing the Yeti you will receive a reward box which you can only open after finishing the level. So after killing a Yeti if by some dumb luck you fail the level you will also fail to open the box. Anyway this box contains extra gold coins.

The second mini game is actually my favourite. Pinata Party. You can play these Pinata Party mini games every 74 hours or so. It's a very long wait time I know. In a Pinata Party we have to survive the incoming zombie waves with the plants that will be given to us in a period of time, kind of like the Zomboss encounter at the end of the original PvZ. Some of these Pinata Party mini games are incredibly difficult to beat. You might even have to try them a couple of times before actually completing it. After completion you will be given a chance to whack open 3 pinatas. You can find coins, new costumes for your plants or upgrades in these pinatas. After you complete 3 Pinata Party in a row without missing one, you are guaranteed a new costume for one of your plants.

Upgrades

Speaking of upgrades there are three different upgrades in the game. These upgrades are incredibly powerful and it can guarantee a win if you are faced with the final wave. First one is Power Snow (it replaced Power Pinch in the latest update). With Power Snow you can hold your finger on a zombie to throw snowballs at it. The second one is Power Toss which allows you to swipe on a zombie to toss it back. If you swipe on it twice you will toss the zombie off the screen. Third one is Power Zap with which you can hold your finger on a zombie to electrocute it. As I said these upgrades are incredibly powerful so in order to thoroughly enjoy the game I suggest you not to use them. I never use them because I see them as a devastating advantage which will take away the fun aspect of the game. It just feels like cheating.

Plant Food

One of the major differences from the original game is that in this second version we are presented with a new feature called Plant Food. This is a great way to boost your plants and it acts differently for each plant. For example using it on a Sunflower will give you a good amount of sun power instantly which would allow you to establish a good economy in a shorter time or using it on a Walnut will give it a shield making it twice as sturdy. You can only hold three plant food at a time but with the help of an upgrade that can be unlocked/bought you can hold up to 5 plant foods at the same time. The plant foods that you collect from a previous level will not be available on the next one. The plant foods only persist through survival modes that is if you manage to finish a wave with 4 plant foods in survival mode, in the next wave you will still have use of your 4 plant foods. Plant foods only drop from zombies that have a green glare on them.

One other feature that I love about this game is the chance to be able to fastforward during levels. Let's say that you've established a strong economy and you are simply waiting for zombie waves to spawn. You can use the fastforward button located at the top right side of the screen to adjust the pace of the game. This way you can progress much faster!


Negatives

What I didn't particularly enjoyed in the game is the lack of versatility. The gameplay is the same throughout the 3 worlds that we have so far so I hope this will change in the Far Future world. If you remember in the original game, in each scenario we needed a different strategy; like in the pool we needed to place leaves on the pool to plant seeds or place pots in rooftop scenario. In PvZ 2 there isn't this sort of versatility. It's just the same old same old gameplay. To me this is the biggest disadvantage of this game. Also in the original game we had more types of zombies and plants. Yes we finally got Gargantuar and Zomboss encounters in PvZ 2 via a recent update but it still lacks behind the first game in terms of zombie/plant types. We also don't have a garden to take care of, raise flowers and make money off. And as I already noted before we don't have a mode that lets us play with the zombies like we did in the original game. To me these are significant disadvantages.

Verdict

I believe that Plants vs Zombies 2 It's About Time falls a victim of its own hype as well as the success of the first game. To me PvZ 2 feels like an unfinished beta version whereas the original game feels much more refined and polished overall, except for the graphics of course.  

My rating for Plants vs Zombies 2 It's About Time: 4/5

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