Plants Vs. Zombies as a whole.

I've been very fond of PvZ being one of the very first games I played growing up it will always hold a special place in my heart. However with growing times and new top games it's become more niche and most recent PvZ titles diverting from it's origin. I was playing their re-release lately and that's when I realized some core issues, it's almost as if the company or parent company doesn't want change. We all remember those days playing PvZ and seeing that Co-op/Vs option and playing splits screen with our friends of family most notably siblings, whether we liked being a plant or zombie enthusiast. It added to the fun and gave a new spin on their game. However when I decided to play the reboot mostly of nostalgia and clicked on that option I was struck with sadness, the nowadays forsaken, "Local Only/Connect another Controller". Now those two mode options just linger there completely unused and mostly just there to be a reminder of a long lost era never to be touched again for those like myself who aren't around family and friends too often. But besides that here are some more ideas aside from the change from local to online that could really help aid, what I would think could be a much needed revolution.

GW was good we can agree there and when GW2 released it was beautiful for what it was but personally I see it as having one fatal flaw. The plant and zombie variants, rather than increase the roster of selectable characters they opted to making archetypes for each character effectively making most, if not all weaker variants including the base characters obsolete. Which I think kills the whole point of PvZ. In GW we were restricted to the core characters with no variation of the original cast which added a tame semi stale gameplay but kept the characters unique. Having the peashooter and then giving it a different element as a character feels cheap for gameplay design. We already have Snow Pea, and Fire Pea etc. as actual plants why subject them to a variant instead of its own plant with unique abilities.

GW killed the zen garden, made it completely obsolete. Rather than give a power up, I can think of 2 ways to implement this feature in a future title that could impact the game more than just a money maker. (Looking at you PvZ) Those potted plants we got in the original games can be used to give more of a feeling of actually growing your plants to fend of the waves of zombies. First being the empty pots in wave defense or the story mode they could be grown and planted in missions and still retain the limited quantity thus giving an incentive to both play more often to maintain your plants but also adding something for those who want a green thumb approach. As for zombies in this regard considering they chose zombots as the functioning pot counterpart they could get a crafting feature and have a timed crafting system equivalent to how long it takes a plant to grow (This would effectively replace the card pack grind, and could remake Crazy Dave's Shop in a new light, with seeds/zombot parts, being daily/weekly refreshes, maybe even seasonal). The second although niche could be you grow plants and raise/clone zombies that would be the characters you play, this could be a one-time grow or a limited time use, so you have to make more of the same plant/zombie which doubles as a way for players to try new characters while waiting for others to finish.

I would love to play as the big threats of either group, I'm talking the Gargantaur. Probably one of the saddest things was seeing the scariest zombie in the history of pvz limited to an NPC in GW, this could add a character combo with the imp allowing you to throw a friend/ally into combat. For plants there really isn't much aside from what we saw previously although something like a giant sunflower definitely felt off, as there isn't much behind how it happened too my knowledge but Torchwood works. Alternatively Cob Cannon could return as a siege weapon for our bigger maps giving our old friend a chance in the spotlight. Now the biggest problem of course is balancing, what stops someone from just making a whole team of those big threat characters, sure you could limit the health but that seems like a waste as it kills the agency in taking down such a large threat. An LTM, kinda like how we have Gardens and Graveyards etc, we could do a true battle, one big threat versus another and their respective armies at their back, could be like the typical Team Deathmatch but defeating the head honcho of a either team scores double the points earned for a limited time. Now as for who gets to play as the team captain randomize it so that once the game start a player is chosen and they can select one or opt to transfer the role, and then to add fairness make sure to remove any previous captain from the randomized pool on each defeat (resetting once each player has been chosen; per game of course) so that as many people as possible can get a shot at bringing some mayhem.