Free Roam Regions
One of my favorite things in BfN are the free roam regions. In BfN it feels much like they took the Backyard Battleground and split it into the main hub of Giddy Park, and the exploration/questing portion of the free roam regions. In the end, Giddy Park is lacking, but the free roam regions are largely great barring a few particular issues that keep them from being truly spectacular. During Founders I was eagerly awaiting these being added to the game as we got them unlocked over time.
Town Center Plants. My favorite of the 4 zones, possibly due to it being first and the excellent Olds Cool boss fight. It has that typical GW look in many ways as it’s a regular suburban setting that if not for the zombies, would feel like a sleepy little town. The lawnmower angle made me chuckle and it was overall a fun time. The kaleidoscope puzzle took some getting used to, but was a nice diversion. The Biff fight is my favorite of the 3 gnome knights, and love when they work the gnomes into the game, and that music is so good. The diamond gnome in the water area was bizarre with where you can and can’t stand, but doable, and it’s visually lovely. I also like how the disco mirrors before you get to Olds Cool foreshadow that aspect of the fight later on. That’s solid game design there and is exactly the kind of thing I love seeing in games.
Weirding Woods. Overall good but it feels restricted to me, maybe due to how town center was first as it has more ground to cover. The puzzle not too far from the zone in and the covered bridge is a personal favorite (where you have to make sure the rows and columns have the correct pattern of symbols and lack thereof). The boss fight against Dreadwood isn’t bad unless you get knocked off, but not as good as the others. The scenery is great and love how the music makes it feel like you’re in a kind of horror scenario as a zombie. The dummy quest line was pure joy, and I love the Washy segment the most of all the quests. Those roots that attack in the swampy area before using the tape got really annoying after a while, but I do like how the enemies change after you use the tape. I also really like the audio log puns. That one spot in the nests needed to 100% it was broken for a time, but that got fixed fairly early on.
Mount Steep. I do enjoy the Major Problem boss fight here, but this zone didn’t feel as good as the others. Like Weirding Woods, it feels small and less exciting than Town Center. I do enjoy the cheese fort jokes and all the cheese in general, which appeals to me as a Wisconsinite. Reusing so many NPCs from Town Center was a bit of a letdown, wish each zone had all unique NPCs, the new ones are fun. Not sure why we get an achievement for breaking cacti as a plant, feels treasonous to me! The zombie works underground are largely pretty cool. The western scenery is nice, both the buildings and the general desert/rocky terrain that remind of classic Road Runner cartoons.
Town Center Zombies. I’m mixed here. The quest line has some good jokes in it but the fact I was already partially done with the zone thanks to doing the plants version first meant that this zone felt less satisfying. The night time looks remind of the night versions of maps in GW and GW2, and I always felt the night maps had a better mood. Blight Cap is a solid and interesting fight, and genuinely scary at times. Not too much more to say as it mostly mirrors the plant version. Like Mount Steep, they reuse too many NPCs for this zone, this time from Weirding Woods.
Free roam region positives:
- Lots of activities to engage in (exploration, bosses, bounties, and so on).
- Give us a feeling of being part of a much larger world and conflict.
- Easter eggs and jokes galore.
- High interactivity. I’m quite a fan of being able to break so much stuff.
- Good to excellent boss fights.
Free roam region negatives:
- All 4 regions follow the same pattern of getting the thing assembled from 3 parts to open all the chests and the boss, then take on the boss.
- They lack depth; once you’ve gotten 100% done in a region, there’s no incentive to return. The pie hunt quest from Sir Crustworthy is the only exception to this.
- Storylines are far too short.
- They feel very same-y as far as activities, i.e., hunt rares, solve a few puzzles, play some solo ops, etc.
- Spawns are very static; you’ll see the same enemies in the same spots with very few exceptions.
I would definitely like these to return for a new game, but would prefer them to be more varied and unique from each other, but I also can see the themes being used for both sides. What I mean by that is, both sides will get mirrored free roam regions but they will not just be like town center is for plants and zombies, only the theme will stay the same, the layout and activities will be different, although they may approach the same problem from a different angle.
I would have the game start with at least 2 free roam regions per side, and add more later. To access them, you’d have a single station in each base, similar to the submarine, Penny, flying bus, or train in BfN, but just the single one for all regions (Penny for plants and the Zomblimp for zombies), starting and added later. There’d be a drop-down menu where you can pick which region to go to, as well as see some of your basic statistics for that region, with the ability to see more detail by right clicking (one of the buttons for controller), or just left clicking (button) to go to that region. I will post some ideas for these and what you can earn from them in a separate post, so this one isn’t too long (coming from someone whose posts can be quite long I fully admit). But wanted more of a baseline here.
In conclusion, one of BfN’s greatest strengths are these free roam regions. They are a bit limited, but still fun for all that, and especially on your very first playthrough of your first zone. With puzzles, fun dialog, and the wondrous PvZ humor, they’re a great addition to the game and something I’d love to see again.
