It’s a bit more than a battle for Neighborville.
Pop Cap has continued their Pv Z series with the Plants Vs Zombies Battle for Neighborville but is it a step forward or two steps back?
We have been a huge fan of the series ever since it debuted with Plants vs Zombies so there was no doubt we were going to try this one.
The game has been out for little over a month now and we thought it would be a good time to share our thoughts on this.
Let’s kick off this Battle for Neighborville Review.
Positives
- Most of the new classes are cool. On the Zombie side, there is Action hero. His primary isn’t great but his abilities are pretty useful (Minus Dynamite dodge). When it comes to Plants, Snap Dragon is a fun melee class. Even more so with the recent buffs.
- The PvE areas are fun, giving us a chance to explore and find all kinds of things. Like Golden Gnomes, Boss, loot, and the target practice for experience.
- The old classes received some decent changes. Sunflower’s change from Heal Flower to Sunnyside up is welcome. The All-Star’s shield is a force field that lets other players go through it instead of being a major obstacle.
- The Festivals have been pretty cool, giving us a chance to earn extra customizations. Something that we surely loved with the previous games.
Negatives
- The Turf Takeover maps feel like they have the same issue. It feels like the attacking team has the advantage the majority of the time. Balance should have been key when creating them. Oh, sometimes it takes a long time for the attackers to get to the objective based on a far away Spawn point.
- Character balancing feels a long way off from being fixed. One example is with Space Cadet and it’s Space Station. The Cadet is able to hop in and out with no penalty while they recent adjusted Acorn who has a cooldown on Oak when you hop out of the form. On top of it, Space Station feels like it is broken as a result. And that is just one example.
- Aiming appears to be more of an issue with this installment. It is most noticeable on rapid fire characters or when you are using Zoom. We have noticed projectile lag where the bullet goes where your cursor was last. This ends up being more difficult to hit the majority of the characters, especially since there is a Sprint option and some have small hit boxes.
- Reward a Tron. On the surface it sounds like a good concept, but the problem is there are lack luster skins and emotes. In addition you only get 1 thing as opposed to the Sticker Packers from the previous games where you got multiple. Oh they need more creativity with the skins as most of them appear to be recolors, not redesigns. This is most evident with the plants, but the zombies suffer from this as well.
- For PC owners, technical issues have been an issue since we joined the Founder’s edition. We have seen “Slideshow” Frame Rates where it feels like we are watching a slideshow of our characters. Instances where the game freezes for a bit, then suddenly cuts back. There are frequent crashes, even when nothing major is happening in the game. This has never been a real issue before with previous games.
Overall
If you enjoyed the earlier games, this is something you will want to try. New people to the game may find it hard to get into it.
We would recommend picking up the game, when it is on a discount. Pop Cap has some issues to fix. While they should the ability to respond with some of their updates, we do have some concerns why it has not been handled yet.
