Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time Review – Worth The Wait

Platform: iOS
Publisher: EA
Developer: PopCap Games
Release Date: August 15, 2013

Like an old reliable family vehicle that has rolled up big numbers on the odometer, PopCap got a lot of mileage out of the original tower defense classic, “Plants vs. Zombies.” It’s been a long wait for a true sequel, which is part of the play on words in its title: “Plants vs. Zombies 2: It’s About Time.” Fortunately, the follow-up is also about more plants, even wackier versions of the undead, and enough different gameplay ideas that it appears the last four-plus years was time well spent.

The impetus for this adventure is Crazy Dave, who finally gets to eat that taco he’s been wanting since the first game. It turns out to be so good that he wants to go back in time and eat it again–which probably makes perfect sense if you’re the kind of guy who wears a saucepan on his head–so he enlists the help of his RV-turned-time machine Penny. They end up overshooting their goal by a few thousand years, forcing them (and you) to battle zombies throughout the ages.

Happily, the plants are around to aid in that effort, and the basics of zombie defense should be familiar to many players. You place plants on the left side of the screen to stymie the zombies coming from the right. Growing any kind of plant requires a specific amount of sun, which falls slowly from the sky and is also produced by Sunflowers. Allowing a walker to reach the end of any of your five rows once is okay thanks to the zombie-chopping power of lawn mowers, but a second one means it’s brain-eating time.

Along with returning staples like the Peashooter and Cabbage-pult, PopCap really went to town designing new plants for the sequel. Everyone is bound to have his or her own favorite, whether it’s the three-row fire breath of the Snapdragon or the expensive but powerful Coconut Cannon, which is exactly what it sounds like. The selection is well-balanced in terms of both utility and sun cost, and new plants get unlocked at a nice pace. New power ups come in handy too, allowing you to pinch the heads off zombies or zap them with electricity to get you out of a tight spot.

The time travel theme also makes the perfect excuse for new zombies, and this cast is as colorful as ever. Plus they all have abilities appropriate to their zones: Ancient Egypt has a Pharoah Zombie who can steal sun with his staff, while the Pirate Seas crew comes at you with undead launched from cannons and rolled up in rum barrels. The Far Future was just announced as the first upcoming expansion zone, so one can only imagine what kind of menaces that will bring.

Advancing from one time to the next means beating all 10 levels in that zone, then going back through those boards and earning enough stars to activate the gate to the next time. That could be a real grind, but the developers made it a fun challenge by placing different stipulations on each star. For example, you may have a finite pool of sun (and no sunflowers), not be able to plant anything in the last two columns, or have to kill X zombies in 20 seconds. It’s an effective way to switch things up, and if you simply don’t have the patience, paying to unlock zones is also an option.

Earning keys that drop randomly in the heat of the action can unlock side paths with special challenge zones, boosts and more plants. Anything you find carries over to later time periods–the boost that starts you with an extra 25 sun is especially welcome–so it pays to see what’s off the beaten path. The only quibble here is that you never know when a key is going to drop, and they aren’t interchangeable between zones. That could lead you to spend more time on one board than you were planning.

Even that is only a small annoyance thanks to some great sights and sounds. You’ve no doubt seen the art style by now even if you didn’t play the original “PvZ,” and there are more cute plants and… well, I guess the zombies are also cute, or at least as cute as animated corpses can be. It’s all very much tongue in cheek, and even my 5-year old sun finds nothing too scary. The soundtrack is once again superb, combining a variety of musical genres to properly set the tone.

It’s rare that a second act in a series lives up to or surpasses an original that was already held in such high regard, but “Plants vs. Zombies 2” manages to pull it off by keeping everything players loved about its predecessor and adding in a lot more goodies on top. Mobile gamers of all types should find it an entertaining addiction, leading to just one question: we’re not going to have to wait until 2017 for the third one, right?

Verdict

+ More plants, more zombies, same excellent production values

+ A variety of different challenges and side paths keeps things fresh

+ Monetization system actually seems reasonable

– Hunting for keys can get a bit frustrating

Score: 9.5/10