So, what have I ranked so far in Plants VS Zombies 2? The plants, the Neon Mixtape Tour Jams,
the Zomboss battles, the Gargantuar battles, the Dinosaurs, so now… let’s rank the worlds!
This is not based on world difficulty; rather it’s ranked based on personal preference,
how much I enjoy playing worlds, with considerations being the world design,
music, zombies you fight, plants obtained and world gimmicks and unique traits. Although
a quick note: I’ve replayed the first four chronological worlds a LOT more than the others,
because I started not playing the game as much around the release of the fifth world
and even less since the sixth one. Anyhow, I’m GoldNinja Vlogspot, let’s start.
Bottom spot goes to Big Wave Beach. This ranking is pretty predictable, because of how difficult and downright
insufferable this world is to play. It’s far too difficult and is just straight up not fun.
The gimmick is alright and it’s nice to see them actually bring back a zombie from the first game,
which NEVER happened at the time of this world’s release, but some of the zombies
are just overpowered, with the Octopus Zombie being the prime suspect, given
it can sometimes be impossible to take out the octopi if you don’t have the right plant setup.
Also the world’s unwritten rule is that as soon as a new zombie is introduced, it’s gonna
appear in virtually EVERY level from that point forwards, just to rub salt into the wound. The
plants unlocked are pretty mid too – well, Banana Launcher’s cool. The redeeming qualities are that
the Brain Buster is one of the best, because a return of Wall-Nut Bowling is always welcome,
and the music kind of slaps but overall it’s easy to see why this world is hated.
Into the top 10 (wow, that didn’t take long) is Jurassic Marsh.
Look, I get that the dinosaurs basically replace world-exclusive zombies,
given there’s only really the Jurassic Bully since Rockpuncher is just the expansion counterpart
and Fossilhead is basically a reskinned Blockhead, but honestly, the lack of new zombies makes the
world pretty boring. The levels are also very repetitive and mundane, and the dinosaurs are
just plain irritating. Some are pretty easy to counter like T-Rex and Stegosaurus, but they
just make levels horribly annoying to play, and it’s a shame they didn’t have some cool dinosaur
zombie variants to go up against. Also I really don’t like the fact there can be more than
three types of dinosaurs in a level yet it can only show a maximum of 3 in the selection screen.
Also, Pterodactyl being the most annoying bugger in the game – thank GOD Hurrikale
was able to clutch me or I wouldn’t have made it past this world. The saving grace of the world
is that it probably has the most disgusting plants to be obtained (plus the showcase of
Cold Snapdragon and the freaking Grapeshot), but overall this world feels pretty rushed,
and as the second last world released, it’s a relief the last one was an improvement.
Ninth spot is Dark Ages. We’ve gone through the two worlds I actively dislike,
so from this point forward all of the worlds are at least decent. Dark Ages is a funny one for me
because I don’t think it’s anywhere as hard as I thought it was when I first played it, although a big reason for
that was because I hadn’t yet played PVZ1, so the night system was completely alien to me. However
I’d only say there’s a few hard levels, such as the Zomboss battle, the one where you have to
produce sun using only Gravy B and the piece of yellow crap nobody likes and the Brain Busters,
which honestly is a pretty bad one – never liked the potion levels. Outside of difficulty, the
world is fine – it's got a good theme and although they brought back a gimmick from a previous world,
they did adapt it, and it actually made Grave Buster become a useful plant. However the zombies
were horribly annoying, given both Wizards and Jesters exist, and the world’s short length leaves
a bit more to be desired. Also while the music is fine, I’m kind of sick of hearing it, although
that’s probably from playing Arena. Overall a very mid-tier world with few major highs or lows.
Number 8 is Ancient Egypt. This is not a world I have a lot of criticisms of, but I just have no
real incentive to play it anymore. Obviously it’s the easiest world given it’s the first, but this
world has been simplified so much in the past 2-3 years it basically feels like a tutorial world,
even though THERE’S ALREADY A TUTORIAL. And most of the changes are pretty unwelcome in my opinion,
such as moving the Cabbage-Pult to a Player’s House plant even though the whole purpose is
to provide a counter for graves - Ancient Egypt's gimmick - and the first Locked and Loaded level being changed so you get
Grave Buster instead of Twin Sunflower. That makes no sense to me because there’s no Tomb Raisers so
once you’ve cleared out the graves, that’s a wrap. Also they BUTCHERED the second Locked and Loaded
level completely. How do you go from this to this? I get it, they want to make the levels easier for
new players, but the world wasn’t hard to begin with and they may feel the difficulty spike more
when they get to Pirate Seas. But anyway, enough about the changes, because the world
is still quite decent, with some fun zombies, great unlockable plants and a boss stage that’s
harder than expected. While veterans like myself have no real reason to play the world anymore,
it's a solid world to kickstart the player’s journey through Plants VS Zombie 2.
Number 7 is Lost City. In terms of design and theme, this world is probably one of the best –
hey, GOLDNinja Vlogspot, it’s in the name – and as for world gimmicks, it’s definitely up there. It’s
also got a reasonable difficulty. Where it loses points is that I find a lot of the levels are very
samey – there’s way too many Locked and Loaded levels that basically just rinse and repeat the
same plants over and over again, and it seems like a lot of the levels are built around the
alliance of Parasol and Excavator Zombies, so the metagame is basically AKEE and Red Stinger spam.
That’s what the game wants you to believe anyway, but it’s not the case because of the guy known as
Laser Bean. Also, I did not like the trap tile levels at all, they just feel completely out of place,
and if they’re gonna commit to them, at least give us the rest of the elements, you’ve got fire and
earth, where’s the water and air tiles at? They could have done so much more with them, but nope,
just these two, and they make the boss unfun to play. Regardless, the world is pretty enjoyable
for the most part, with some solid unlockable plants and some interesting zombies, especially
those who are essentially upgrades of previous zombies such as Relic Hunters and Turquoise
Skulls. Although another thing – it’s ridiculous you can’t use Gold Leaf in other worlds,
unlike the Tile Turnip. Overall a great design and good difficulty level, but not that memorable.
Next up is Neon Mixtape Tour. I get the feeling that a LOT of you are going to be shocked this
isn’t higher, given I’m a musician myself and, if you’ve ever seen any of my videos,
you’ll known that music is basically my life.
And yes, in terms of aesthetics, lawn design, colour scheme etc, it’s definitely among the
best and is almost undisputedly the best in the BGM department. Also, they actually called the
two world release parts ‘Side A’ and ‘Side B’ in reference to records. How is that not the
sickest touch ever? So why is this slap bang in the middle of the list? Mostly because of the
levels themselves; first of all, the world is one of the worst offenders for tossing a whole pack
of zombies in your face at the start of the level before you can even set a defence up.
Also, the plants unlocked in this world are pretty lousy as a whole, and what’s ridiculous is that
half of them are awful against instant-killing zombies, which makes for the overwhelming majority
of the ones you face in this world. Seriously, I wouldn’t take any of these zombies out the game,
but is it really necessary to have THIS many instant-killing or otherwise non-eating plants
in one world? Are you literally TRYING to tell us that Garlic is useless? Oh, and I would take
ONE zombie out of this world, the Hair Metal Gargantuar, especially because they spawn in
so early in the Greatest Hits endless zone that it practically makes the levels unplayable.
Overall this is a rage-inducing and fast-paced world helped out big time by having the coolest theme of them all.
Number 5 is Modern Day. You might wonder why this is so high given I’ve whinged on about
many worlds being too difficult, but honestly this world is a lot easier than Big Wave Beach,
and the whole concept of bringing the time back to the present is just what I wanted out of the
final adventure world. Also, it was a fun gimmick to see the return of zombies from previous worlds,
and the three ‘new’ ones were basically roided-up versions of zombies from the original game.
The portal gimmick is also neat, although that leads to probably my biggest criticism
of this world – you don’t know what zombies you’ll get in the portal until playing,
so if you’re lacking a specific counter, i.e. a penetrative plant for Jester Zombie, you’re up
turd creek without a paddle, although it does help there’s no Last Stand levels in this world. Also,
this one seems kind of petty, but I’ve never liked the shadow plants as a whole, which seems fine
as you just just ignore them and use regular Sunflowers, but they often force you to use them,
and that basically entices you to use the Moonflower as most of them suck without
being powered. Also, no Perfume-Shroom even in levels with dinosaurs? However the pros massively
outweigh the cons in this world, and its Brain Buster is AWESOME. Beghouled was already a great
game in the original, but they made it even better here. I also have to give a shoutout to a few
other levels, including that one where you have to revive all the plants with Intensive Carrot
which I thought was genius regardless of the PVZ community’s opinion on that plant, and the Zomboss
fight system is also buckets of fun, although the gimmick of using the next world’s plants does make
some of them ludicrously tricky. Regardless, a great final send-off world for Adventure.
4th place is Far Future. This is (ironically) one where nostalgia does factor in a bit, but
even as someone who was happy to replay the first three worlds over and over again, when Far Future finally dropped,
I was even more excited than I was for the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album.
I was happier than a pig in mud, happier than a Brit on a sunny day, happier than a goth girl
in a haunted manor, happier than a Blooming Heart when she’s getting eaten by a zombie,
so on so forth. And the wait sure paid off, because it's a great world. The design is great,
the Power Tiles are fun, the Brain Buster was thrilling and for those who don’t like change
(like myself), the world overall was still similar to the previous worlds,
so I was in familiar territory. The levels are nice too, and for me it was cool as hell to see a
Special Delivery level, because at the time those NEVER happened. Only real downers of the world are
that a lot of the zombies are pretty samey – was it necessary to have three very similar zombies
with insane toughness? Also the plants are a bit of a mixed bag – there’s three I use all the time,
two I never use, one that’s basically a Tesco Coconut Cannon and one that I only use for its
Plant Food effect. That being said, it’s the last world to have 7 unlockable plants as after that
they could barely be arsed to have more than 5, and it’s the last where you get an upgrade,
although you probably forgot the Mower Launch even existed until I said it right then.
Far Future isn’t quite a top 3 world in my opinion, but it’s a VERY close fourth.
The third best world goes to Wild West. The second of the three classic worlds to appear
on this list, it’s the first in which the world gimmick isn’t necessarily a hindrance,
in fact minecarts are great for pricey plants, among others, and a great strategy to utilise.
The zombies are quite fun and suit the theme incredibly well, despite quite a lot of them
requiring a very particular kind of plant, and I think it has the best music outside of Neon
Mixtape Tour. The OK Corral Brain Buster is also enjoyable, and the plants unlocked
are quite useful even I don’t use many of them much besides the pults and the fartonaut Bean.
Biggest issues with the world are first of all, the three WORST objectives being present,
with the Don’t lose plants ones sitting there in its infamy. But to be fair that’s probably just me
struggling because I can’t use the Ch….. Chili Bean. Also a couple of levels are pretty unfair;
although I praised the Brain Buster, the third one is entirely dictated by whether you get a
Coconut Cannon in the last wave or not, and if you don’t, you’ve pretty much lost. However,
one level I will give kudos to is the boss fight, as it isn’t ridiculously easy and needs a good
strategy, but if you’ve got it, then you’ve got yourself a beatdown in your favour.
(Or just spam Lightning Reed plant food.)
Overall a very balanced world in terms of difficulty, and a very entertaining world as a whole.
The second best world goes to Frostbite Caves. This one will probably be debated a little bit,
as a lot of people seem to find it either annoying or boring, and maybe I have an affinity
for snow-themed areas given how high I ranked Frosty Creek on my Garden Warfare 2 Maps list,
although I don’t really rate Mount Wario on Mario Kart 8 (sorry Mount Wario fans, I’m not a fan).
One reason I do really like this world is because of its mild difficulty, which was especially
refreshing given it came after Big Wave Beach and it rekindled my interest after nearly giving
up, so it has a place in my heart. The blizzards are fairly easy to manage too, because…
Fire Peashooter exists, and Hot Potato is a pretty reliable tool, and they’re even
generous enough to let you use it in Last Stand levels despite the plant being free. The slider
tile gimmick was also pretty entertaining, as it allowed for lots of wacky strategies you’d never
think of otherwise, and the pre-placed plants also adds to the fun, including in Endless.
However, Endless is actually one of my few issues with this world, given just like Greatest
Hits with the Hairy Gargs, they love tossing packs of Weasels in the Icebound Battleground.
I think my other very mild complaint is that the BGM isn’t the best, in fact it’s probably the
worst one, but as far as gameplay, zombies and obtained plants go, it’s a great world.
And for the best world in the game, I’m going with Pirate Seas.
This is another one where nostalgia kind of factors in, given the memories I have of playing
it all the time in 2014, trying to get past that first level with the flowers, which thankfully has
been simplified now so it’s actually possible to do without power-ups. Besides the flowers,
the objectives are easily the most fun, given it’s basically an extra task for you to do, rather than something you have to watch out for,
i.e. produce an amount of sun or defeat a number of zombies in a set amount of time.
The overall theme is great, because who doesn’t love pirates?
(Amber Heard, maybe.)
The zombies are cool, consisting of drunken bucklers who sometimes miss their swing, zombies held upside down who are
a step away from paralysis, a guy pushing around a barrel of whisky, a cannon that sprays Imps
all over the place and the prototype of Captain Deadbeard. The Cannons Away brain buster is great,
and was also an ideal coin-farming method back in the day. Also, possibly the best thing about the
world – it has the most obtainable plants. Sure, two of them are pretty trashy, but the rest are
pretty good, ESPECIALLY one at the end, the one and only Cherry Bomb, so you
basically have a nuke to explodetonate hordes of zombies from that point forward. Overall this is
definitely the most consistently entertaining world to play, so it’s getting the #1 spot…
Thanks for watching. How would you rank the worlds? Let me know in the comments,
leave a like on the video, subscribe if you’re new, I’m GNVS, check out some more videos here!