Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

If you are here with us today to read the Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville review for PlayStation 4, it's because you enjoyed the PopCap Games production drift shooter. It took place in recent years, transforming the 2009 strategy into an extremely original and charismatic online (and offline) multiplayer title, which after two official interactions changes its name, while maintaining its substance fundamentally unchanged. Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville is in effect a Garder Warfare 3, but suitable for modern times, invaded by social networks and live events at all costs (see the Fortnite phenomenon, to get an idea). In any case, zombies and plants have convinced us once again, net of some aspects on which it would be appropriate to intervene as soon as possible.



The contents: Divertilandia and story mode

If you have already played Gardern Warfare 1 and 2 in recent years, more or less you will already know the genre of Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville, on which we will come back anyway at a later time. So let's first analyze the main ones content of the new chapter, which is the biggest ever. EA and PopCap Games have taken back Garden Warfare 2 by acting on two specific aspects: quantity and variety. This time you will immediately have a whole series of different game modes available: a main campaign, which can be tackled both alone in single player and in multiplayer mode (online or offline).



Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

La story mode coincides with the main campaign, and the latter is actually divided into as many sub-campaigns, some of which are dedicated to plants, and the others to zombies. In this way, new players can get to know the funny characters of the series, or discover them for the first time: the individual main missions offer substantial rewards, both from the point of view of coins and experience; furthermore, by completing them, alternative skins are unlocked that can also be equipped by moving to online multiplayer.

Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

La game plot is accompanied by the new management of the main HUB. The initial super square, known as Divertilandia, connects all the offers of the title to each other, in an essential junction point. From Divertilandia the player can change faction at any time, passing from plants to zombies and vice versa, meet other players online or set the "private" mode by replacing bots for real opponents. But the most important thing is that, in fact, from the Divertilandia hub you can access all the rest of the content: there is a portal to go and play online, there are dressing rooms where you can customize and change your characters, the shop where to buy new objects, a point where you can exchange coins for experience points (thus increasing the level more quickly), and then again means of transport for other game maps dedicated to storytelling (single player campaign).

Da Amusement park, therefore, you can access the Bislacco Wood, helping the zombies to free their companions and regain land on the plants, or go to the town center of Neighborville, helping the plants in saving the brains of the town and so on. The main campaign of Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville is not essential to be able to play online, but is offered as a parallel mode, still able to entertain for several hours and with a sufficiently large and varied number of secondary missions.



Gameplay ed eventi live

Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville is once again a third-person shooter, but woe to take it too seriously in the gameplay: the light-hearted and funny address of the series has fortunately remained perfect as we remembered it, net of some aspects that needed to be perfected, and in three years there was plenty of time to do it. For example, the movements of the individual characters, yes responsive but in certain situations "clumsy" in the feedback, or trajectory and impact of the single shots, which do not always seem to pay off a good aim. These details make it difficult for Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville to ever become a title with which to organize official eSports events, even net of obvious imbalances between the heroes present (especially the zombie faction side).

Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

Beyond this, the Customization has been significantly enhanced in Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville and now also affects the skill aspect of individual heroes. The player can equip well-defined skills, thus changing the style of play and the same unit of the character on the battlefield. Take for example the small acorn (new entry in the series), able to transform into the more resistant Oak: if you notice that in the initial phase of the game you suffer too many defeats in a row, you can set an ability that guarantees greater health at the time of regeneration, or there are other power-ups that improve movement speed, but only when a sprint is not already running.



Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

Small precautions of this type, varied in a remarkable series of different skills, make the approach to Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville extremely heterogeneous: there will never be two truly identical characters on the battlefield, even if the players have selected the exact same plant or the exact same zombie.

- live events contribute to making Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville an extremely current product: forget about DLC and paid packages, because now the seasonal limited-time events, or more properly monthly in this case, take the field. For example, the Halloween-related initiative will remain active until the end of October 2019: by completing the daily missions you will get a whole series of themed skins and items, which will hardly be available again in the near future; Divertilandia's square was also decorated with pumpkins, ghosts and skeletons, but the artistic direction of Plants against Zombies is always present in a whole series of funny and immediately recognizable details. It is worth noting that some online modes also "rotate" on a weekly basis, so that on balance there is always something new to see in your play sessions.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

Plants Vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville has its own nice list of trophies on PlayStation 4, with Platinum Trophy included. It will take a long time, however, to get it: you will have to complete all the various campaigns of the story mode, play many online games using a bit of all the characters present, as well as level up the latter and enhance them. However, it is a matter of time rather than skill.

Game modes and characters

EA has confirmed that Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville will receive constant updates in the near future, both from the point of view of game mode than from that of the actual playable characters; at the time of writing, however, it seems to us that the title is already provided more than enough. The online multiplayer clearly offers matches in line with what you might expect from the many other similar titles on the market, with some that are real returns from the Modern Warfare series.

Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

Arena di Battaglia, for example, is a 4 VS 4 deatmach, where at each elimination it is no longer possible to select the same character; you must therefore be able to adequately master the entire game roaster. In Grassy Supremacy, however, you fight for control points, but within a map in progressive expansion: usually the plants defend small gardens attacked by zombies, or the latter defend rockets and other strange contraptions from floral enemies. There is no shortage of hordes, which always culminate in the devastating clash against a random boss, and team matches in which the greatest number of overall eliminations must be reached.

Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle for Neighborville, the review

Among the aspects of the title that must certainly be praised, in addition to the excellent graphic, technical and sound sectors, there is certainly that of characters and their new management. Currently you will find a total of ten different heroes for plants, and as many for zombies, divided into three game classes: attackers, defenders and support. Obviously there are unforgettable faces in the series, such as the peashooter and the carnivorous plant, as well as important returns such as the corn cob; also good for the introduction of new ideas, and here too the reference to the acorn, a character able to transform by combining with other players, is perfectly fitting. The zombies, however, are stronger and useless to go around them: the new additions (archer zombies, skater zombies) are simply devastating, a ruthless mix of offensive skills and speed on the battlefield. Surely in the near future some balances will arrive to reshuffle the cards on the table.

Comment

Tested version PlayStation 4 Digital Delivery Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store Price 39,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.0

Readers (9)

8.7

Your vote

Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville is a full-bodied and long-lived chapter, clearly of that specific vein that in recent years has yielded the soul of the strategic to embrace that of the third-person shooter. The new, crazy date in the company of plants and zombies hosts a disproportionate number of characters, maps, game modes, activities and even a single player campaign. Obviously there are flaws, such as the poor balance between the playable heroes and a gunplay that is not always taken care of in the smallest details, and in general we tried to add as much as possible without basically finding truly original content. But Plants Vs. Zombies: The Battle of Neighborville manages to entertain everyone, as it has already done in the past. And the new live and seasonal events can only give hope for the best, even in the near future, in which (hopefully) the title will receive constant support.

PRO

  • An impressive amount of content
  • Now there is also the main campaign
  • Live and seasonal events
AGAINST
  • Balance of characters to be reviewed
  • Some new and more original maps would not have hurt
  • How long will it be supported and updated?
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