From a design perspective, sure, I wish I could just have paid $5 for the game initially, and not had giant "Jalapeno sale!" banners flashing in my face in between levels, but honestly, it's not all that intrusive. You can enjoy the game without paying a cent, but I really can't process why people would pay money for the items or unlocks that are for sale in the game. As much as the gaming public wants people like me to say the EA has ruined PopCap and the PvZ franchise by forcing this system upon them, I can't say that's the case. The short answer is yes, but not significantly. The question in the end however, is if these microtransactions end up impacting the game in a negative way. But perhaps other PvZ players don't quite have my high mobile gaming moral code. If zombies broke through my line, it was because of my poor planning, and it felt really lame to just activate a button and instakill them with my finger. Even saving up my coins naturally, I've never spent any of my 20K on the abilities because it simply felt like cheating. Naturally, you can buy more coins for real cash, but again, it's more or less like buying a god mode cheat. That's enough time to clear out a particularly nasty batch of zombies however, and so these abilities function as an "oh crap I'm about to lose" button that negates what should be the challenge of the missions. Each of the abilities costs anywhere from 800 to 1,200 coins per use and lasts only a few seconds. It's essentially superpowers, where if you pay coins (which you're constantly collecting as you play), you use finger gestures to either whisk zombies away, pinch their heads off, or electrocute them.
The next upgrade is a little less strategic. You have to use it strategically as the levels get harder, and it's an interesting new concept that freshens up gameplay. Glowing zombies will drop plant food, but you can (of course) buy some if you're in a pinch. The acceptable one is "plant food," which allows a specific plant to turn into a supercharged version of itself for a short time. The last new addition to gameplay are a pair of new ability types, one good, one bad. Granted, there are so many towers you won't really miss them, but still, not the best design, particularly at the rather outrageous prices of $3-4 per plant and $20 for the lot of them. Breaking a primary rule of good free-to-play, these towers are not accessible anywhere else in the game through traditional unlocks. Some aren't terribly useful like the Squash or the Snow Pea, but some are a few of the best plants from the original like the Jalapeno and Torchwood. More microtransactions pop up when the game says that you can buy "classic" plants from the last game. There are sphinx zombies encased in hard shells, pirate zombies that send parrots to steal your plants, and many, many more types you'll encounter along the way. There are new towers like fire breathing dragon plants or click-to-detonate coconut cannons. In terms of actual gameplay, not all that much has changed. Why anyone would pay to eliminate the most interesting part of the game, I have no idea, but the option is there. And stars themselves can be hard to collect, but the challenge of getting some of the harder ones is the most fun part of the game. Keys are particularly annoying to find as their generation is random throughout the levels, but if you're replaying missions for stars, you'll probably round up a decent amount eventually. You can pay to open both key gates and star gates instead of finding the requisite items yourself. This is the first area where microtransactions come into effect. Once you beat all the levels, a "star gate" opens to the adjacent timezone, but you have to do side-missions or replay levels you've already gone through with additional conditions (limited plants, stricter penalties) to earn enough stars to pass. Along the way there are branching paths with unlocks, new plants or abilities, that are opened by finding level-specific keys during the defense missions. In each of these maps, there's one long path of ten or so levels which leads to the next area. The other two main areas involve fast-forwarding a little bit further each time, first to a pirate level, then to an Old West themed area. But a miscalculation sends everyone all the way back to ancient Egypt, where the zombies are now, surprise, mummies. That's probably the best concept I've ever heard for a time travel plot, so things are off to a good start. It's not just a reference to how long it took for this sequel to get made rather, it describes the fact that the game literally has you traveling through time to fight zombies from ages past.Ĭrazy Dave, your resident tour guide, has built a sentient time machine in order to be able to keep eating the same taco over and over again. The official title of the game is Plants vs.