I’ve been playing Plants vs. Zombies 2 (PvZ2) for the past week. The free-to-play model has been implemented well, as others have commented on, and I had a good time reacquainting myself with familiar plants and meeting new ones. But, the past couple of days, my interest dropped sharply and it’s not because I feel the pressure of needing to buy things using real cash, but rather the challenges feel quite repetitive. Couple that with consistent losses, an OCD-like habit to restart when I know I’m going to lose the game (or challenge), and I’m just tired of loading it up. Nonetheless, PvZ2 is a good sequel to the original and provides a decent amount of enjoyment until you hit that wall of [insert appropriate noun-of-choice here].

Much like the first game, PvZ2 is a lane-model tower-defense game. You are dependent on sun as your currency for planting plants on your lawn. Instead of using the Peashooter as your stock damage plant through most of the game, I found myself using the Cabbage-pult and Kernel-pult as the stock plants for the Egypt and Pirates levels respectively. I am tempted to say playing through the first PvZ game is good practice for the second PvZ game because in Egypt, the first level, squares of the lawn are blocked by graves. This obstacle makes using Cabbage-pults necessary over Peashooters, otherwise you’ll find yourself overrun by zombies.

The story is shallow, once again. Crazy Dave wants to travel back in time to eat the same taco he just ate and he just so happens to have a talking time-traveling car. Between the two, they make rather average puns (my opinion), which adds more levity to the already unlikely scenario of plants attacking zombies, but at the same time I think I could have done without. The result of Crazy Dave’s desire to time travel back a minute lands you in Egypt where you get to fend off hordes of zombies that resemble their modern-day counterparts. Instead of cone-hat zombie, you’ve got a similar cone-hat zombie with the cobra crest on it (tongue-in-cheek, yes). There are a couple of new zombies which are interesting. One of them is the camel zombie, which is actually a group of three or more zombies holding ceramic plates that form a camel image. Another is the Ra zombie who can steal your suns if you’re not paying attention. Of the two levels I’ve played, I felt this one was the most engaging for me. It got a little frantic between making sure my suns weren’t stolen and trying to place new plants down, but it didn’t feel like it was impossible.

To move from Egypt to the Pirate level, you have to replay old maps and collect stars. You can also explore side branches, which require keys to unlock doors. These side branches are usually mini-games and provide a nice break from the typical collect-sun-and-plant-plants of the main map. One set of mini-games is a memory matching game with the camel zombies. Unlocking doors will also unlock new plants, which are often used in the branch-maps. Gaining stars in the main level occurs after you have finished all 9-10 main maps. These stars are gained by meeting new requirements, one consistently being not losing any lawn mowers. Additional challenges include not spending more than x amount of sun, not having more than y plants on the board at once, and/or not losing more than z plants in the game. There’s definitely a bit of brain-power needed to meet these challenges, especially when you can only lose z plants and the Potato Mine counts as a loss of a plant when it goes off (so does shoveling a plant).

The second level is the Pirate level, which I thought was okay, but I found to be a little more frustrating than Egypt. I did finish the main map, but now I’m trying to collect up enough stars to move to the Wild West level. Again, there are the stock zombies (normal, cone-hat, bucket) as well as some new ones like the Imp Cannon which fires off imps and eventually explodes and sends three imps to random parts of your lawn unless you manage to finish it off first. One thing about this level is parts of the lawn are missing to imitate the feeling of two ships next to each other and gangplanks connecting them together. This means you can throw zombies into the water and if you’re lucky, prevent some zombies from reaching your deck via cannon or rope. One star challenge is to prevent zombies from trampling flowers on your lawn and the flowers are placed one square behind the water. Meaning, if zombies get past that first square, you’re hosed (in terms of the challenge). See why I felt like I ran into a wall?

One more thing, to add “frosting” to the experience is the daily yeti challenge. As far as I can tell, the yeti spawns once a day. You can restart the level he’s in as many times as you want, as long as you do it before the yeti shows up. The yeti will walk 2-4 squares in, then retreat. My sister said planting a Wall-nut behind him doesn’t stop his retreat, as others have mentioned worked in the first game. I’ve encountered him four times so far, but only successfully beaten him once. I got a key. My sister got a diamond. I’m not sure if he drops anything special otherwise, but it can be a little frustrating to lose him to a retreat when you’re busy fighting off hordes of zombies.

A new mechanic is plant food, which gives the specified plant a special ability. For example, the Peashooter transforms into a machine-gun for a few seconds, the Wall-nut gains a metal casing, and Cabbage-pults will mass-fire cabbages to hit everything on the lawn (including gravestones). It’s hard not to use plant food and once you get an idea for how often the shimmering zombies, who carry plant food, come along, you’ll hit a certain rhythm regarding when to use and when to save up plant food. Another new mechanic puts to use the Dave coins you gather from defeating zombies and maps. Instead of spending it on new plants or items from Dave’s cart in PvZ1, you can spend it on temporary god-like abilities, like pinching zombie heads, lightning strikes, and flinging them off the map. I’ve been avoiding using these abilities, but depending on the way I’m holding my iPad as I play, I accidentally switch them on from time to time.

What I would like to see is if they will implement a zen garden, like the first game. There was just something pleasant about the snail that would wander across your screen, dropping coins, and watching to see what kind of plants your seedlings would grow into. It provided that small daily dose of “play” if you didn’t want to engage in lawn-protecting antics.

The art style is very much like PvZ1 and the audio is much the same. I really liked the theme-effects they added to the music, like the Egyptian-sounding motifs or Pirate-sounding motifs to the soundtrack. It brought out that feeling of being in that era, rather than the conscious acknowledgement that you time-traveled there and are forcing yourself to disillusion yourself in the reality.

All-in-all, I enjoyed the game and being F2P is a good incentive to snatch it up. More hard-core gamers, who haven’t bought into the casual, microtransaction-type play, can easily take advantage of the costless-ness of the game. The only actual cost being their time. Then again, the need to capture stars in order to reach the next stage is what can be the make-or-break for most players. Players who just want to experience the game as a whole (playing it much like the first game, which was a straight-shot through) may not want to spend time revisiting older levels for additional “challenges” and dropping money is “worth” it to them (and for a game of this quality, giving some money to the developers would not be a bad idea). I expect additional levels will have an increasing number of stars required to open them and depending on players’ patience, they may choose to drop money or the game itself.

One thing I’m still wondering about… will they have night levels?