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realitysquared's avatar
realitysquared
9 years ago

Re: Garden Warfare 2 Took The Series In The Wrong Direction

If you look at the series history, going back to its roots as a silly little tower defense game for the PC, it's always presented itself as being weird.

The original version has your neighbor Crazy Dave teaching you how to keep Zombies from eating your brains with such oddball tactics as knocking down the hordes with walnut bowling and using lawn mowers as your last line of defense.

The sequel, Plants vs Zombies 2 greatly expanded the number of plant varieties you could use and introduced the concept of Crazy Dave traveling with you through time in his cobbled together time machine/RV which talked to you throughout the game as you hopped from time period to time period fighting the zombie menace, which was now thematically tricked out to match whenever in time you were.

From there the series jumped from a silly tower defense game to Garden Warfare and suddenly those static, immovable defensive plants are running around in combat.

Looking st the series overall, especially the direct Garden Warfare predecessor, the franchise has always pushed the silly factor to the forefront.

8 Replies

  • Jetset575's avatar
    Jetset575
    9 years ago

    You're right PvZ never really took itself seriously. But I feel GW2 pushed the cartooniness to a whole new level, something I'm personally not a fan of in the slightest.

  • realitysquared's avatar
    realitysquared
    9 years ago
    You are correct that the art direction steered a little more towards the cartoony.

    I was, and still am, a big fan of the original maps. The originals definitely gave more of the impression of a more-or-less regular place being invaded by goofy looking Zombies.

    GW2 definitely introduced more exotic locations, Zen Peak and Time Park for example and that is a bit of a departure from the suburbs, Main Street and fishing villages of the first game.
  • Jetset575's avatar
    Jetset575
    9 years ago

    Right, and just to be clear I'm not saying the game isn't fun. It's still decently enjoyable for me, but the overall feel and look of the game (the maps, classes, & customizations I stated in my OP) lowers the experience quite a bit. The charm that made me love the original just isn't there imo.

  • Jetset575's avatar
    Jetset575
    9 years ago

    This post prompted me to reminisce about the memories of the original first being revealed...

    https://youtu.be/ShMootQvl_0

    Now this^^ is the sort of style and tone the Garden Warfare series should have continued with. It's such a shame it didn't imho.

  • realitysquared's avatar
    realitysquared
    9 years ago
    I have actually never seen that particular trailer before.

    Watching that one it definitely parodies Battlefield initially before spinning off into ridiculousness and its undeniable that the game presents itself now more as it's own little thing rather than trying to piggyback quite so much on parodying the genre.
  • Newjames's avatar
    Newjames
    9 years ago

    Speaking of the old maps of the original.....I miss those two. I wish GW2 would feature them in a future update.

  • Iron_Guard8's avatar
    Iron_Guard8
    Legend
    9 years ago

    I miss them (the old maps) as well.

    I understand they mentioned that certain characters, especially and most particularly, the Imp Mechs are too large for certain points on the old maps but it is in the same engine, albeit GW2 uses a newer iteration of it, so surely bringing them forward with some tweaks would be feasible. A large portion of the playerbase mentions it. Aqua Center seems to give evidence of this since it's not only a visual revamp of Garden Center but also changes areas of the map. I still hope to see them return, even Garden Center despite the existence of Aqua Center.

    The first game did also have taco bandits which is pretty silly although I'm not disagreeing with your point OP. I like the silliness personally. I just want to see a lot of maps and game modes, and I really want taco bandits back! With the gnomes and all the time travel implications we can surely justify its return to the game modes.

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