Board Thread:Plants vs. Zombies 2/@comment-25546049-20160323074555/@comment-27275617-20160329014432

Cookiepower wrote: IG Gaming + Maramok= Awesome wrote: Cookiepower wrote: TheGollddMAN wrote: Starfruity wrote:

Also, why do most people lump worlds into AE-FF (classic) and DA-MD (modern)? No world is the same as the last, as they're all evolving slowly as time goes on. It's foolish to just say everything "classic" is great and everything "modern" sucks because you're lumping together a bunch of completely different worlds. Big Wave Beach will always be my favorite world because of it's unique concept and great difficulty in the levels that aren't unfair (there are some unfair ones but I can overlook that). But other "modern" worlds like Lost City and Jurassic Marsh are just mediocre. And for the "classics", Ancient Egypt is far too boring for my tastes, but Far Future is still my second favorite world.

Also, if you are going to do the lumping, I think Dark Ages is more of a classic really, because it was still yet to hit that "style" of the modern worlds. <snipped wall of text? I'm going to kind of corroborate here. DA is where the game's elements started going downhill. Here's a really quick rundown:

Level structure: Before DA, the levels weren't too set, because the levels from the old key gate design were just scattered. After DA, the levels go like this in almost every world:

1. intro levels 2. premium plant level 3. level with new non-premium plant locked 4. brain buster 5. level with new non-premium plant locked 6. brain buster 7. garg level 8. repeat 2-6 9. zomboss battle

Not only this, but the premium plants started being shoved in our face here. Before FF day 20 we never saw a premium plant in-game without buying outside of Pinata Party, but conveniently in DA every world got not just one, but two premiums (they were gemiums for a time but those days are gone too). And there were levels that forced you to use these premiums, which is more in-your-face than PP ever was. I guess they decided that the player's faith in those premium plants from PvZ1 couldn't be relied on anymore because the newest premiums are completely new, so they had to shove them in our faces and force us to use them so we knew how strong they were (though some of them turned out to be garbage anyway).

Dialogue: Before DA, the dialog was okay - pretty good, since it was more like about how they were travelling through time and didn't seem like a scripted mess. Now, after FF day wherever-Magnifying-Grass-was-introduced, it's like this for 90% of levels:

Penny: "My sensors have detected " Penny: "It can do " Dave: " "

or the same thing with zombies. And Zomboss' dialogue, whereas it was good before DA (the PS dialogue is the closest thing this game has ever had to a story) sucked after that. Whereas he would talk about stuff like Penny potentially being a Zombot before, or actually about the taco, afterwards he literally just started talking in whatever tone of the time period was in, and that just showed that whoever designed the dialogue before left.

Aesthetics: The map design was screwed with Lost City, we can all agree. But isn't it strange how conveniently Lost City is also when the trailers got screwed? Yes, Lost City is the first world with those copy-paste trailers with the plants in the middle, and then for NMT, JM, and MDP1 we saw the same design for the ending photo with the zombie coming from the left side with the microphone/bone/whatever, the imp on the right, the plants fending them off, etc. MDP2 proved they hired a new artist to work on that but of course by then PopCap had effectively proven that the guy doing the art before had left.

You forgot about plants and zombies. Those are more important than dialogue, etc. The plants and zombies are good, but it doesn't help that a good portion are premium and half of the plants aren't too good. For example, Magnet-Shroom, Bowling Bulb, Guacodile, Pepper-pult, Rotobaga, Red Stinger, AKEE, Endurian, Garlic, Spore-Shroom, and Nightshade aren't really worth using except just for fun. With only seven (or eight, whatever) seed slots, most of the other plants aren't used either, except for top-notch stuff like Chard Guard and Primal SF/WN. Anything like Stallia that is quite good but not good enough doesn't cut it without that seed slot.

And I think you are underestimating the purpose of level design, because it just doesn't feel right how the levels just feel so fixed and wash-rinse-repeat. Red Stinger is basically double firepower for half price, AKEE acts like a cheaper Laser Bean for the most part, Spore-shroom has some value in Last Stands and early(catapulted) firepower, and Endurian has arguably the best defensive PF power in the game and is extra powerful with Stunion, Stallia, Winter Melon, and the like. And let's stop beating up poor UP Pepper-pult - he looks the part.