I remember that the tutorial in either pvz 1 or 2 specifically ASKED the played to place their sunflowers in the back, which is why it's such a common misconception among casual pvz players
I don't remember seeing that in either and one of PvZ2's loading tips is even to put attacking plants in the back. PvZ3 however forces you to put Sunflowers in column 1 or 2 during one of its endless tutorials and frequently starts levels with them there. Probably started from how it just "feels right" to protect your sun producers the most, and how PvZ1 and early PvZ2 don't punish doing something so strategically irresponsible at all.
It could also be that in the seed selection menu in PvZ2, Sunflower's seed packet is arranged behind Peashooter's seed packet, implying you should place your Sunflowers behind your Peashooters, especially since Wall-nut goes right in front of both of them while Potato Mine, a plant you want to place in front your Wall-nuts so it can explode, goes after Wall-nut.
@@Somerandomguy2763 I just made a new PvZ2 save file to replay the tutorial and at no point was I told where to place my Sunflowers. Player's House Day 2 and 5 do start with attackers in columns 5 and 3 respectively which may subtlety cause new players to put Sunflowers behind attackers, but nothing is specifically stated.
@@joelhoon1707 Sunflower is behind Peashooter/the first plant in the seed menu because she's going to more commonly be picked than him and the game wants to emphasize her importance. I don't see any links beyond pure coincidence of plant unlocks, as by that logic they're telling you to put Twin Sunflower in the front.
I think one big missed opportunity with BWB was not bringing back Umbrella Leaf. Y'know, to counter Octopi, maybe bouncing them back to the zombies, and stunning them for a short while. They can also deflect thrown Imps i guess. While kinda niche, they also should rework it, maybe by giving it a bit more HP so it kinda acts like a wall plant, or maybe some secondary effects, idk.
@@colmlooney5843 Make the umbrella leaf similar to a chard guard in the sense that it can only deflect so much until it looses it’s leaves, making it useless. Having that and a slow recharge will make it a good option while not overpowered.
I think the reason why ppl usually plant sun producers in the back is because most times they wil be the first plants you end up planting, so instinctively they would place it in the back where it's the safest
@@staringcorgi6475 the casual player is not good enough to understand that, it just knows its gonna be safest from the time being in the back since zombies take the longest to get there
I think a huge part of what makes beach much more limiting is that there are very few plants that can deal with water on their own. Rotobagas flight means it has the ability to block fisherman hooks without fully losing value, and it is also not tied to lillypads. Why not make more plants do things in water? Maybe lightning Reed has a line of tiles it damages when placed in water. It is a Reed, after all.
Pretty much. The world before it (dark ages) before the rearranging imo already had shades of the problem in that the zombies introduced in their combination didn't have reliable counters. In that world, Jesters made basically everything but very specific plants completely useless, you had to plant forward because of the limited range of e.g. fume-shrooms and the zombie king in the first lane, which immediately easily got countered by wizards turning front plants into sheep, etc. BWB imo made it worse because it not only barely introduced plants worth a damn that actually work well in water (even e.g. Guacodile is mostly useless in water), but also nearly no other amphibic plants got introduced. In most worlds, the good plants against zombies are introduced in that world, but in this world, imo the plants just flatout suck. Doesn't help the better plants like Infi-nut's PF ability never gets mentioned anywhere even though it basically being required, originally Rotobaga came in the world *after BWB.* The only plant that really helps you countering BWB's zombies by specifically letting you target the Fishermen in the back or the slow Octozombie are Banana Launchers... which iirc you unlock in like level 28 out of 30 something.
@youtube-kit9450 ok hear me out if pvz2 hardcode ever gets cracked making jester not able to catch catapulted projectiles and having the umbrella leaf other people have been talking about in this comment section reflect the straight shots reflected by jester into airborne projectiles would be awesome and make legitemate counterplay to jester outside of "pick a different plant that one wont work here"
Ngl controversial opinion but out of all the pvz 2 worlds and even pvz 1 areas, Big Wave Beach is just the most memorable to me, spend too much time trying to beat it and if feel like I want a challenge (now that I finished the game and have many seedium plants) I always choose big wave beach over modern day or jurassic marsh cause I know big wave beach always gives me a knee kick when I play it
I remember beating Big Wave Beach with sunflowers on the back, before leveling was introduced, without any premium plants or strategies from internet, it was hell, but possible
i remember waiting for sun shroom and winter melon in the zen garden just for level 15 to be possible, i then promptly gave up because of the garg level, BWB was not made with the player in mind, it was made with premiums in mind
Honestly for new players, I wished they added some form of support to this map besides Lily. Like a Wall plant that can Float, or Umbrella Leaf that can float and block Octos Octopi and Fishermens Hook a few times like 5+ times before recharging or like how Chard Guard recharges.
@@moldbug1660 Umbrella Leaf would have been PERFECT Big Wave Beach is a Beach, Umbrellas are common because its so sunny, plus it helps with the 2 zombies mentioned. Also it revives an old plant
@@tropicalbytsanity7845 It could also be used in more worlds, by imps (bull rider, cannon, etc.) And could even be used for event zombies and the such. But nooo.
"It's never said the house moves between time periods" I would have thought the Egypt world and the medieval Europe world would have made it obvious that it does.
Yeah, and the pirate ship floating above the ocean. And the wild west desert. And the ancient Mayan(?)(I don't actually know where it's based on) temple.
Literally almost all worlds happen in a different place The player's house is in a standard suburbia. Ancient Egypt happens in Egypt. Pirate Seas very likely happens in the Caribbean. Wild West is set in the badlands of California. Lost City is in a Mayan temple. Frostbite Caves & Jurassic Marsh are completely unknown. Big Wave Beach is either in Southern California or Hawaii. NMT is in the suburbs again, but the house doesn't seem to be ours. It also seems to be the backyard, curiously enough. Dark Ages is in Europe. Only Far Future seems to happen in our house, in the future, due to the road looking the same.
PvZ always taught you to place Sunflowers in the backline in the new player tutorials... which unironically is the worst thing to do once that 25 cost instant kill plant exists. By using that 25 cost plant you can often remove the first 2 zombies and generate a lot more sun. The Sunflowers naturally stop/slow the threatening zombies that would clear your entire lane. Typically what happens is some zombie gets thrown, appears, or a large stack break the front line which people normally have walls/attackers on. You'll end up digging up a backline Sun producer and placing an attacking plant. Losing 1 attacking plant + 1 Sunflower is 150, placing 1 of each is another 150. 300 Sun when using the cheapest plants. Compare this to the otherwise 100 Sun from frontline Sunflowers. This is cheaper then losing and planting even a Peashooter. Even if you let the zombie eat a Peashooter and then place Squash this results in 250 total sun from planting a new Pea. Popcap's tutorials teach you how to be bad at the game and is likely because they never thought about the above. This makes PvZ an already easy game easier. Early game is sun, mid-late is protecting your attackers.
Yep Another problem is that they never indicate Potato Mine's placing range before he activates, so it feels longer than it actually is and encourages players to put him in the very back lines to let him charge for a long time
It's not exclusive to this game. Before the remasters/remakes/whatever, imo Age of Empires also made the huge mistake of literally never teaching the player to do anything but turtle, which is an absolutely terrible strategy in most missions beyond the easiest difficulty. Not a single campaign mission or tutorial taught you to raid or harrass, and nearly every mission either has you fleeing somewhere, has you rebuilding a base, or some dude literally tells you "don't attack until later" even though the easiest way to defeat multiple enemies on your own is to hit early and hit hard/harrass their villagers to stunt their growth early to take them out of the game early. Reminds me heavily of this problem.
I've always wondered why big wave beach 16 barely gave any defense and being told it was some obscure mechanic that the game doesnt even tell you that made it this way. How did this pass testing jesus
bwb 16 is still fairly hard even if you know the "plant fast" strat and your bulb is lvl 1. the 2 last gargs are a big "fuck you" if you don't save enough pf
@@KraylebStudios Well yeah, PopCap kinda went bad after EA bought them. Either way, this whole world (And Modern Day too imo) was a way to push microtransactions
-Don't explain how to beat world -Players think world is too hard -Players spend money on the game to make it easier Come on. This is EA we're talking about.
My biggest problem with big wave beach is the second infanut's wall goes down everything gets sucked into the tide by the fishermen. If they had more counters I think it would be fine
Base game wise, I'm surprised that: A. Chomper is a shop plant when Snapdragon does a good enough job as a close range plant B. Rotobaga isn't introduced here to play off the water tiles C. Tall-nut can't be planted on water (the head just sticks out)
Rotobagas and Infi-nuts makes this world actually easy, considering rotobaga not only because it doesn't need a lilypad, but because it hard counters octo-zombie by firing sideways and hitting it's corners as opposed to firing straight forward
PVZ 1 tells you to put Sunflowers at the back, and in that game it works significantly better even if it has it's flaws in certain situations(Even most Survival Endless setups have the small amount of remaining Twin Flowers near the back). It didn't age well as PVZ 2's mechanics are a lot harsher on that front
PVZ1 has a rather different sun economy - sun production in PVZ2 is a lot faster. You want to protect your sun plants in PVZ1, because they're a lot more valuable there.
@@andrewdwilliamsthe thing is, is that putting them in the front is still a lot less valuable strategy not because of the sun economy, but because of how easy the game is as a whole. Rarely does a zombie threaten your frontlines as heavily as they are in pvz2
This was exactly what I was thinking Big wave beach is rly hard to me because of the amount of objectives spammed in each level. The zombies are easier compared to zombies from nmt, or dinosaurs from jurrasic marsh. In fact, if you nerf the objectives, the world will probably be easier than jurrasic. Edit: OH MY GOD 500 LIKES????
i might be the odd one out, but i didn't really find bigwave as hard as people make it out to be, i actually placed my sun producers at the front in literally every single level, this comes from a thing some one told me back when i was playing pv1, "sunflowers have the fastest regenerations after getting eaten, sunflowers also recharge fast and cost little to none, making them a substitute wallnut at times" and this was when i talked about countering gargantutars
I didnt find bwb hard at all, jurassic marsh howver fucked me up HARD - it gives you little to no time to make a defense and the dinosaurs are actual cancer
you know what annoys me the most? banana launcher is this game's EXACT counter, unlike the original, there are some zombies with their own effects that absolutely RUIN your plants, and the ability to target those spesific zombies REALLY makes the game easier, ironically, BWB has zombies EXACTLY like that the only problem? YOU UNLOCK HIM AT LEVEL 28 OF BWB, and the worst part is, with the new linear worlds, you CANT EVEN UNLOCK HIM UNTIL THE END
Worse yet, he isn't even that useful in the levels after when you unlock him. day 28 and 30 require cheap spammable plants because of how fast 30 is and how there are basically like 4 plants that can actually deal with day 28 and those plants are cheap AOE plants and very specifically magnifying grass. You also can't even use him on 31 and 32, and modern day's portals mean that the actually threatening zombies are spaced out and half of them get past your sunflower wall, which makes banana way less effective in that world for the most part
Linear worlds suck. My plan is usually to Wild West/Dark Ages, then Future. Lightning Reed, 0 cost spammable shooter and second sun producer, Turnip Tile then the basic Potato Mine and Iceberg Lettuce and Sunflower. That's my team for basically everything back when I played. Occasionally substituted a plant or two depending on needs
They should rework the bowling plant. Each ball should have its own individual cooldown. So, it's not only the turquoise ball will be spawn for the whole game.
Better yet just make it “press on” plant. Akin to cannon. Rewards you for strategically using it. Punishes you (unlike Coconut cannon) for spamming it to deal with any tiny inconvenience.
Yeah, bowling plant is just useless in BWB (where you can unlock it), it is good when there is no horde of the zombies, but as you can can see, THERE IS ALWAYS A HORDE OF ZOMBIES IN BWB
I was wondering why people struggled with big wave beach. But it turns out all the things i just did instinctively by watching so many pros, like placing sunflowers in the front and using conveyor plants instantly was what made the world so easy for me.
Same. News to me that people struggle with Big Wave Beach. I found it pretty obvious to place sunflowers further up after constantly replacing them in the back row for my back-line attackers. Conveyor belt maps always felt like a "place them down as soon as you get them" sorta deal, with exception of bomb/nuke items that you want to save. Don't gameplay trailers also show plants all over the place and not a dedicated sunflower backline...? =/ so strange people have a mentality of placing sunflowers in the back
I used to ALWAYS place my Sunflower in the back because that's what the second level of the first game taught me, and probably everyone else. It wasn't until I played mods of the game where every level is super hard that I started to place Sunflowers in the front.
The first game encourages placing sunflowers in the back in 1-2 by pointing out the back row as where sunflowers should be placed. It makes sense in the first game because it’s a pushover but it becomes a terrible habit in the second
personally, i think part of it is that, at least in my experience, you A. want to start placing plants in the back because thats the furthest from where the zombies spawn and B. once you have one sunflower down you instinctively want to keep things in nice looking rows and how do you keep that well you have 2 rows of sun producers in the back of course. i havent played either game in years but i can tell you that i definitely preferred that just because thats how i started doing it and i wasnt really ever punished for doing it that way. even when it was counterproductive i always wanted to make the field symmetrical (flipped on the long axis) if possible even when it wasnt the most efficient way to cover every tile.
Same. That's where I started out, but then I realized I wanted my attackers in the back, and then I'd end up constantly removing the back lane anyway with harder hitters, and constantly shift the sunflower lane forward, so... I place sunflowers 2~3 rows from the back by default, unless there is no space or if the lane is protected due to map designs
Also, it feels Intuitive to protect your production line with attacking plants, because if you lack sun you won't even have sun to replace attackers or other producers. For a complete new player, sun then attacker is stronger than the other way around, because they won't have the skill to make the not consuming 2 plants not happen in the first place
What you're saying about mobile game design is really insightful and reminds me of arcade cabinets from back in the day, where the more unfair and difficult the game is they better it is financially...
When it comes to Big Wave Beach, despite it not really focusing on a time period, I'm assuming the inspiration came from, like you said, the American Culture, but also from the big boom from the 50's and 60's in which Surfing became a huge deal as well as rock and roll, another sign to this is the Pinata of the world, the zombie hair is stylized as the popular hair from that time period. Which is again, such an oddly specific year? As the 80's is legit in the game as well, you jump from the 80's of Neon Mixtape, to Jurassic times... Then you just skip like 30 years before Neon Mixtape in the 50's, I kinda like it.
Remember the world's ordering was different back then. Before, it went Ancient Egypt, Pirate Seas, Wild West, Far Future, Dark Ages, Big Wave Beach, Frostbite Caves, Lost City, Neon Mixtape Tour, Jurassic Marsh, then Modern Day.
@@argentum1738 im also a veteran i play since i was 7 its been 6 years since then im about 12-14 now Still not knowing a lot thouggh but i know world reordering and i was confused because after not playing for so long there's no mummy memory and the eorld orders are weird
@@argentum1738 Yeah I do remember, since Neon Mixtape was the last tour I did, since I remember playing PVZ2 and remember when Big Wave Beach, Lost City n Neon Mixtape came out, never played really since, but yeah the original order was also very wack.
About the sunflower thing, the tutorial only tells you to plant 3 sunflowers when you have an empty lawn. Making you think you put them left. In PVZ1 and 2 you really don't get any problems putting them in the left and if you do, you double your sunflowers. By big wave beach you never would've thought to switch if for more than one or two levels if any.
As a F2P, I didn't think Big Wave beach was that much of a problem. I mostly used Rotobaga and Guacodile to save my ass on hard levels. To deal with surfer and snorkel, just Tangle-Kelp them and that's that. Fisherman Zombie was dealt with using Infi-Nut's plant food ability, as it totally CANCELS the fisherman. On a side-note, none of my sun producers were on the front. I always put the Primal Sunflowers at the first lane, followed by 2 lanes of Rotobaga and Guacodiles/Tangle-Kelp as emergency instas.
Garlic makes (some of) these levels so much easier, especially for the Jurassic marsh. Objective levels usually ruin him, but he's too helpful for sun production. Chili bean, potato mines for cheap stalling: garlic and intensive carrot, for dividing zombies and sun production, and lots of winter melon. You'll get plenty of sun if you plant rows of sunflowers in garlics lane. And you're able to correct mistakes. Adjusting to a new strategy is easy if you collected massive amounts of sun.
1:36 ACTUALLY, the zombie Troglobite disproves this in his entry in the zombie info, stating, “He hears Big Wave Beach is nice this time of year.” So unless the zombies (other than Zomboss), this heavily implies the time zones can be in different locations.
Solar Tomato carried me throughout Big Wave beach. The stun is most useful when a large swarm of zombies gather; it stalls them plus gives my attackers a short time of free hits and it saves me tiles to use for walls and instant plants instead of sun plants in front. My main attackers are pea pod + Torchwood, Banana launcher and lightning reed. But this strategy is kinda hard to manage in the early phase as it heavily relies on Solar Tomato as the main sun producer
I remember playing PvZ growing up, and never thought of placing my plants like this. There just was never a reason to think about it; if it works, why change? No wonder so many people had a hard time in this level, because we learned and have been taught that having the sun producers in the back works just fine. Especially in the very early levels of PvZ 1; the game teaches you that having sun producers in the back is a good idea because it gives them enough time to produce enough sun to plant any attacker in front of it.
To be honest, this video should be played as an introduction to advance pvz techniques. If you think about it, casual mods like Altverz is harder than vanilla BWB so you could say BWB is the intro to hard pvz level
I remember playing this game years ago, got stuck on big wave beach and stopped playing shortly after. I was so accustomed to planting my sunflowers in the back, it didn't even cross my mind to change the position of my offensive plants .This video has proved to be very insightful.
He never said it was "easy". Additionally, this is just background footage. This man has played a lot more PvZ2 than you think (What, like 5 mod playthroughs on his channel alone, not counting everything he has done off-camera?), so focusing on the fact that the background footage uses Premiums is rather odd.
I learned pretty early on that the front line was the most important in BWB. I found that stalling the beginning of the level for strong initial sun production, infinut, and AoE damage plants are the key to big wave beach. My winning strategy (before rotobaga existed btw) was usually to stall the beginning of the level with a potato mine or tangle kelp in the back to give me more time to build up sun, Laser bean in the back, double sunflowers row 2, repeater row 3, row 4 had snap dragons, and row 5 had 4 snap dragons and an infinut with plant food in the middle. I had two layers of snapdragons as a buffer since they were cheap to replace, and they could easily free each other from octopuses and melt surfers and snorkelers with high AOE front line dps, repeaters for even more front line dps (although sometimes I’d swap them for something like melonpult or banana launcher if it fit a particular level better), and laser beans in the back to soften up all zombies, shoot throughout octopuses and surfboards and snipe octopus and fisherman zombies. I’d say surfers always gave me the most problems with that strategy, because sometimes, especially early on, I didn’t have enough DPS to knock the surfers off before they became a problem, strangely enough, that actually made my strategy work better when the tide was high because they’d stay in the surfing phase longer. Nowadays it’s pretty much the same strategy, I just have some newer more effective plants now and I put the sunflowers a row farther up.
Yeah, I also struggled with this world massively. Took me an embarrassing amount of time to complete it. Which felt completely weird when I completed the next two worlds without breaking a sweat. Now I understand what I did wrong. And yeah, the game completely failed to make me understand my error. Who can blame me- it goes against everything they taught you up to this point. Only thanks to this video, do I now understand what the strategy was supposed to be. Thank you for this video. Appreciate it a lot!
You have no idea how helpful this is. I'm currently stuck on a certain level that is pretty far and I don't think that I got one of the things to tell me that attackers should go in the back
Ironically, when I first played BWB as a wee smol 14-15 year old, I had no issues with it. No real clue why. I dont remember much of my past times back then. I just didnt have issues with the world at all. Even so, I do agree that the world itself is very punishing to a lot of players. My little cousin struggled a lot with it but tbh he never had the best puzzle solving/strategy making skills for PvZ... Its even worse considering that this was the 6th world released. Sure we had the power of Far Future and Dark Ages, but it still felt very unfair to have such a jump in difficulty, to then go back down to easy peasy with Frostbite Caves the following updates. BWB is a fun world to me though, despite all that. The Endless Zone is super fun to play in even if you discard the octopi spam in the later levels. Really excited to revisit it once PvZ 2: Reflourished releases.
Y’know, i kinda feel like BWB’s primary gimmick is entirely meant to enforce this aspect. While in the beginning, they shouldn’t have told you to put sunflowers in the back, I feel like besides that, this entire world is meant to hammer in the sunflower placement, without actually outright telling the player. Literal sink-or-swim approach.
Surprisingly, I made it through this whole area without knowing about placing attacks in the back. When recalling back, I didn’t use the quad shooter (forgot its name). I only used the Big Beach’s plants unless impossible to do.
This is a really good video. I remember struggling so hard with it when it came out, I think I ultimately relied on a bunch of instant kills because they’re immune to all the bs zombies in this world.
Only recently has popcap attempted to give the tip of “try planting your offensive plants BEHIND your sun producers” or “try replacing your sun producers with offensive plants later in the level” in the “boot up” loading screen, no other loading screen, JUST THE ONE WHEN YOU LOAD INTO THE GAME. Hopefully popcap actually trys with pvz 3 on helping players understand that your sun producers can be expendable.
PvZ3 is going to go the opposite route that PvZ2 has taken, and be piss easy. You can already see it with the artstyle and the demo levels. The game is meant for preschoolers.
I was one of the lucky ones who never switched off Infi-nut because in theory, he’s way more sun cost efficient by being able to regenerate. So I chanced upon his forcefield fisherman interaction one day and that pretty much cemented him in my team from henceforth in case of other threats similar (excavator zombie for example just bangs their shovel on the forcefield)
I've played both PvZ1 and 2 and I struggled a LOT with big wave beach. I'm not sure I ever even beat it. However, I did eventually learn the strategy of "put sunflowers at the front and the attackers in the back", but not from PvZ2, no, I learnt it from PvZ1 when I attempted a playthrough of the game with only world 1 plants (the first eight plants). It was actually really fun and made playing the game for the 202th so much more fun, would recommend. Great video btw!
I would not be suprised if the designers forgot the casual focus pvz had and just forgot to put tuturials in for more advanced tactics with how the harder mod target audience likes it more and finds it not final world material
big wave beach is really hard compared to other levels, back when i played vanilla pvz2, before the levels were ordered by difficulty, BWB was placed before frostbite caves, and it was much much harder in comparison. Some of the later levels i only managed to win because of the boosted spring bean from zen garden (for the spring bean + blover screen nuke, which i believe has been patched now)
"Patched", as in specifically made spring bean not interact with blover for the sake of arena, then proceed to later add plants that can be abused in the same way... (reinforce-mint, boingsetta).
Despite common consensus that Big Wave beach is the hardest world in the game, I think Jurassic Marsha and Modern Day is. Big Wave Beach's levels aren't hard, they're just too much, and it can e easy to counter that too much, Jurassic Marsh is also too much, but the too much is something that is even more difficult to counter since the plants you get there can either benefit you or screw you over in the long run. Modern Day is sort of similar, but it's mostly difficult because of the random zombies that show up and you have to pray it isn't one that could ruin your offensive and/or defensive play. What mainly makes this world hard are the zombies itself rather than the actual mechanic and it can be easy to out maneuver them, except for Fisherman zombie for the most part, he's a tricky zombie to get rid of because you might need to sacrifice sun to get rid of him, the rest of the zombies are easier, with Octo Zombie being the only other real threat and even then, plants that can attack in different lanes like Starfruit and Rotobaga can easily defeat him and his tentacled companions.
For Big Wave Beach 28, it was my first time ever spending the in-game money for extra plant food. I used a few Double Sunflowers (I think maybe 3?) to put down Winter Melons. Every time a plant food came in, I'd boost a Double Sunflower to bring out my next Winter Melon out faster, but that alone just wouldn't get my offenses out fast enough, so eventually I just bought like an extra two plant foods to make up the sun difference and get a Winter Melon out on each row. Once all of the Winter Melons were set up, the level was basically won. This was back when the limit was on the number of plants ever placed, rather than on the number of plants present at one time. Also I thought I remembered the tide line going all the way up to the house entrance, forcing most plants to always be placed on Lily Pads and thus further restricting how many plants could be placed. ALSO also I remember the stage almost exclusively consisting of surfer zombies with near-perpetual high tide?
back when you could unlock any world at any time, my friend went into big wave beach immediately after egypt, and it took him a month to get through enough to get a second key...
The sun producers at the front thing is really counterintuitive to most players Discovering infinut plant food and rotobaga's effectiveness is really hard for new players Great arguments 🥂
I’m happy the game didn’t hold my hand too much though, it felt really good when I learned the strategies like infini-nut and placing the sunflowers in the front myself
14:58 I beat stage 28 on my second try using coconut cannon primal sunflower and a single thyme warp, I came in knowing how infamous it was but didn’t struggle at all.
Definitely did accidentally find out about Infi-nut because I'd gotten the Zen Garden fully opened up by the time I finished Dark Ages and was waiting for the next world to be released. Sunflowers in back is common because no one digs up the sun-producers to replace them. However, I did have an easier time in the one level I walked in with Red Stinger on for that specific reason. On the flipside, I typically used Snapdragon for offense in every world, as it was pretty consistently spammable (Frostbite Caverns notwithstanding).
Funny cause I always, until now, play my offensive plants in the back in every level and every world. Just in mods, in VERY specific levels, there's a need to play them in front. That or maybe I still need some practice but hey, placing peashooters behind a sunflower is what defines me better xd
ever since some one told me how good sunflowers are to block gargantitars in pvz1 i have always been using my sun producing plants at the front instead of wall nuts, infact i didn't use a single wallnut in pv1, i literally just spamed sunflowers all the time to block zombies, since they recharged faster and doesn't waste a seed slot,
@@NeostormXLMAX the idea of putting your sun producers in the front it's disturbing to me, I see how it can work, but cannot help but feel something bizarre in that strategy, guess because I always want to protect them first at all costs for some reason
It also doesn’t help that the rules of how you must build your defenses with both needing to use plants to counter the water, and plants to counter the insane amount of zombies they can throw at you, despite both these strategies are used to an extent in previous worlds, this world is the only one that forces you to do both while pressuring you to do more than most worlds
I don’t even play PVZ2 like that, only every now and then. But I thoroughly enjoy your channel! I LOVE the background music you use! That’s always something that personally keeps me coming back, and the games you choose to take music from are awesome! Keep up the great work! You’ve earned my subscription :)
When Big Wave Beach first came out, I was one of those players who planted Sun Producers at the back columns ...but when they introduced Octo Zombies and Fisherman Zombies, I was like, NOPE, and the next moment, I spammed my Sun Shrooms and Puff Shrooms in the middle lane while planting my Winter Melons at the back. Note: This is before Rotobaga exists
I (and I suspect a lot of other players too) have been playing the game since a young age and basically just brute-forced every level since then without significantly adapting my strategies, apart from a few plant specific gimmicks. So this kind of content really makes me want to pick up the game again and try new things!
To be fair, that is kinda how the game is meant to be played: Collect better plants, get better set-up with the exception of trick pants for the specific level.
For level 28 i suggest placing an ice cabbge at the back with your banana luncher and use it for its plant food ability. (Aspescially when the low tide comes)
Way back when I first played BWB several years ago (cant remember when, but it was before Modern Day released and the introduction of seed packs), I still had the pitfall of putting sun producers in the back. Didn't use Melon, Rotobaga, or Banana Launcher, because I was under the impression that the cost of Melon and Banana wasn't worth it, and that Banana and Rotobaga just didn't do enough damage for me to consider them. Strangest thing was that I didn't struggle nearly as much as some other people. I believe it was because I was a big fan of using Infi-nut over literally any other wall, as well as the fact that I used Guacodiles as secondary lawnmowers, which basically meant that I was set until the introduction of Octo. Weirdly enough, I think I used Laser Bean to counter it. The biggest counter to BWB as a noob was apparently to throw shit at the wall until something clicked, and then it clicked for the rest of the world.
Forgot to mention that I spammed Guacodile for a few levels, because I found out very early that Fisherman Zombie's hook instantly activated them, which basically just killed any threat this zombie had to me. I don't think the game ever tells you that this interaction happens, so random chance made my experience with BWB that much easier.
They could have made a singe level after you get banana launcher, where its just that plant vs a lot of fishers and octopus zombies, to teach the player that the plant is the direct counter of the two most annoying zombies of the world.
I lost interest in PvZ2 a long time ago after finishing all the worlds, but these videos still interest me and make sit and watch them. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it, its working.
For level 28 I don't remember exactly what I used, but I explicitly remember using Rotobaga on the top and bottom rows to counter the Fishermen who spawn (it took me a while to realize they only spawned in those rows) while still having damaging plants there, along with using Primal Sunflowers and high DPS plants to minimize the amount of plants that can be lost.
This channel is extremely underrated! Another great video! I feel like you could have so many more subscribers if you added a call to action somewhere in the video. This isn’t a matter of asking people to subscribe. You already have their attention. You just need to remind them and I bet most people will oblige :)
There was 1 Plant that completely helped me steamroll over Big Wave Beach was Pyre Vine. Pyre Vine is extremely strong at dealing with Surfboards and Octopi as well as Low Tides, considering it is a high damage, low range, flamethrower that can basically weaponize any part of your lawn.
I guess I learned to put my attackers at the back because of the roof levels in PvZ1. It teaches you that you can’t use shooters to succeed, you have to use catapults and the best way to keep them safe is by putting them in the back. I guess people overlooked it.
I figured out placing offensive plants at the back when I encountered gargantuars in PvZ1, lol. In PvZ 2 this should have been even more obvious to players with the lack of pumpkin (yes I know it's in the game now, but screw the new plants and levelling system, the balance of the game is terrible now...)
Personally, while I did struggle with Big Wave Beach 🌊, I personally found the boss to be a joke. The mech having the ability to pull plants in and kill them is easily countered by one thing: Tangle Kelp. I found this out by accident, but apparently, when you plant Tangle Kelp in front of the mech as it begins to suck in your plants, apparently Tangle Kelp jams up the blades, shutting that particular attack off early and stunning it for a while. I just kept planting everything I was given, and eventually it died. The only boss I ever beat without losing a lawn mower....
I feel that the Frostbite Caves is a bigger joke, just do nothing and the boss doesn't do anything, it doesn't move and it's only way of countering your plants is by freezing and destroying it with rockets
I must have been really lucky to figure infinut's counter to fisherman pretty much right when the world came out because I already heavily relied on it at the time...
it would've been fun to imagine big wave beach actually lobbing large waves at you a few times in the game. Just decimating two lanes while popping up zombies a few squares back instead of the low tide thing. Then as one would think of it as too op, introduce us to a counter plant like maybe "Life Gourd" which acts like a cherry bomb and a pumpkin combined that saves plants in a 3x3 grid by giving them a temporary shield that breaks after one wave hit
Or, alternatively, they should just let Fisherman push the whole lane one step closer, not just one plant. That + Tsunami killing ALL LANES, both pants and zombies (only surfers, see gargantua and guakodiles survive, while surfers land 1 step away from lawnmowers, while sea gargantua appear from the wave). Furthermore, it would make most sense to just let Chomper be a base plant and have it EAT octopi (and then go into eating animation, after the end of which it gets free plant food effect, since octopi are appetizing). So many missed opportunities here.
I think another Problem with BWB is that it doesn't give you the right plants to win. Besides lilypad, I've only found tangle kelp and banana launcher to be vital picks throughout the world. Right now I'm trying to play pvz 2 backwards (with the old almanac glitch) and I found I was missing stallers and good instas. All I'm saying is that BWB isn't giving players plants that are meant for a good back line - with the exception of banana launcher. Because in BWB, you need to have expensive plants that can be played in the back, free of getting instakilled by octo, surfer, and fishing zombie.
1:32 That is somewhat wrong. The player never gets *directly* told that each time period is in a different place. If you look at the world names, you could tell that the eras take place in a different place. For example, there's Ancient Egypt in the east, and Wild West, in the west. Also, wild west is during "The Big Brain Rush of 1850", meaning it's in or near California. If you look at the lawns, you could also tell that they can't take place in the same area. For example, Dark Ages has a river and Pirate Seas is on a boat. Also, to get the achievement Peking Express in the first game, you have to go to the achievements section and scroll all the way down and you can see zombies who live in Peking, China which has been renamed to Beijing. If you use this information and look at a globe, you can see that the opposite side of the Earth from Beijing is in Argentina. This means Modern Day takes place in Argentina, which is not in Egypt or California. I'm a bit unsure about Modern Day being in Argentina.
With the introduction of meteor flower who is comfimed to have the ability to scare away dinosaurs (and making perfume shroom go from bottom tier to completely useless) this basically make big wave beach the hardest world now that marsh has been nerfed via premium
While I might think BWB was the hardest world, it did feel extremely rewarding for me, especially after planning for a long time just to defeat a level, makes me think something like "Oh thank god my strat worked" Jurassic Marsh was just straight up annoying, I loathe that world so much everytime I beat those stages I feel relieved to never play or even see that stage again, the world itself was very unsastifying to complete
I remember that the tutorial in either pvz 1 or 2 specifically ASKED the played to place their sunflowers in the back, which is why it's such a common misconception among casual pvz players
I don't remember seeing that in either and one of PvZ2's loading tips is even to put attacking plants in the back. PvZ3 however forces you to put Sunflowers in column 1 or 2 during one of its endless tutorials and frequently starts levels with them there.
Probably started from how it just "feels right" to protect your sun producers the most, and how PvZ1 and early PvZ2 don't punish doing something so strategically irresponsible at all.
@@DesperateDirt its shown in the tutorial
It could also be that in the seed selection menu in PvZ2, Sunflower's seed packet is arranged behind Peashooter's seed packet, implying you should place your Sunflowers behind your Peashooters, especially since Wall-nut goes right in front of both of them while Potato Mine, a plant you want to place in front your Wall-nuts so it can explode, goes after Wall-nut.
@@Somerandomguy2763 I just made a new PvZ2 save file to replay the tutorial and at no point was I told where to place my Sunflowers. Player's House Day 2 and 5 do start with attackers in columns 5 and 3 respectively which may subtlety cause new players to put Sunflowers behind attackers, but nothing is specifically stated.
@@joelhoon1707 Sunflower is behind Peashooter/the first plant in the seed menu because she's going to more commonly be picked than him and the game wants to emphasize her importance. I don't see any links beyond pure coincidence of plant unlocks, as by that logic they're telling you to put Twin Sunflower in the front.
I think one big missed opportunity with BWB was not bringing back Umbrella Leaf. Y'know, to counter Octopi, maybe bouncing them back to the zombies, and stunning them for a short while. They can also deflect thrown Imps i guess. While kinda niche, they also should rework it, maybe by giving it a bit more HP so it kinda acts like a wall plant, or maybe some secondary effects, idk.
They should also counter lost pilot zombies whenever they're near one in a similar manner to bungee zombies
the octopus are supposed to be annoying. planting 2 umbrellas would completely secure your defenses, which is just silly
@@colmlooney5843 Catapult Zombie:
@@colmlooney5843 Make the umbrella leaf similar to a chard guard in the sense that it can only deflect so much until it looses it’s leaves, making it useless. Having that and a slow recharge will make it a good option while not overpowered.
@@BabyGhast4 Or make it to have a cooldown after each bounce
I think the reason why ppl usually plant sun producers in the back is because most times they wil be the first plants you end up planting, so instinctively they would place it in the back where it's the safest
yeah exactly
but it’s not going to protect anything unless you put stuff like attacking or defense plants
@@staringcorgi6475 the casual player is not good enough to understand that, it just knows its gonna be safest from the time being in the back since zombies take the longest to get there
@@Marcus_405 8
Or maybe more of a "this is the start, the starting plants go here".
I think a huge part of what makes beach much more limiting is that there are very few plants that can deal with water on their own. Rotobagas flight means it has the ability to block fisherman hooks without fully losing value, and it is also not tied to lillypads.
Why not make more plants do things in water? Maybe lightning Reed has a line of tiles it damages when placed in water. It is a Reed, after all.
Infini nut (plantfood) is one of the best counter to bwb and allot of special zombies
Pretty much. The world before it (dark ages) before the rearranging imo already had shades of the problem in that the zombies introduced in their combination didn't have reliable counters. In that world, Jesters made basically everything but very specific plants completely useless, you had to plant forward because of the limited range of e.g. fume-shrooms and the zombie king in the first lane, which immediately easily got countered by wizards turning front plants into sheep, etc.
BWB imo made it worse because it not only barely introduced plants worth a damn that actually work well in water (even e.g. Guacodile is mostly useless in water), but also nearly no other amphibic plants got introduced. In most worlds, the good plants against zombies are introduced in that world, but in this world, imo the plants just flatout suck. Doesn't help the better plants like Infi-nut's PF ability never gets mentioned anywhere even though it basically being required, originally Rotobaga came in the world *after BWB.* The only plant that really helps you countering BWB's zombies by specifically letting you target the Fishermen in the back or the slow Octozombie are Banana Launchers... which iirc you unlock in like level 28 out of 30 something.
@@youtube-kit9450 i did mention infininut pf
@@kevinanders5570 ... Never gets mentioned anywhere ingame, obviously.
@youtube-kit9450 ok hear me out if pvz2 hardcode ever gets cracked making jester not able to catch catapulted projectiles and having the umbrella leaf other people have been talking about in this comment section reflect the straight shots reflected by jester into airborne projectiles would be awesome and make legitemate counterplay to jester outside of "pick a different plant that one wont work here"
Ngl controversial opinion but out of all the pvz 2 worlds and even pvz 1 areas, Big Wave Beach is just the most memorable to me, spend too much time trying to beat it and if feel like I want a challenge (now that I finished the game and have many seedium plants) I always choose big wave beach over modern day or jurassic marsh cause I know big wave beach always gives me a knee kick when I play it
Yeah traumatic events are usually quite memorable
@@thejazmaster5292 the fact this is true is hilarious
I am having day 16, 18, and dont lose more than 6 plants flashbacks
NMT is my personal favorite because I love music and getting fucked over and over by the Metal Jam feels rewarding.
Personally nothing in pvz 2 is more memorable then anything in pvz1
I remember beating Big Wave Beach with sunflowers on the back, before leveling was introduced, without any premium plants or strategies from internet, it was hell, but possible
Technically it's possible because its not arena
Its adventure
The hardest levels was conveyer rails (16th lvl) i had to get bowling plant plantfood from the garden AND money for a swoop power
@@funguy398 I am stuck on level 25 and boosting is a good idea thanks
Same, I just grinded coins in the zen garden
i remember waiting for sun shroom and winter melon in the zen garden just for level 15 to be possible, i then promptly gave up because of the garg level, BWB was not made with the player in mind, it was made with premiums in mind
Honestly for new players, I wished they added some form of support to this map besides Lily. Like a Wall plant that can Float, or Umbrella Leaf that can float and block Octos Octopi and Fishermens Hook a few times like 5+ times before recharging or like how Chard Guard recharges.
"a wall plant that can float"
basically ECLISE tall nut lol
Realized that umbrella leaf would've been a good plant to bring back, man I'm dead.
@@moldbug1660 Umbrella Leaf would have been PERFECT
Big Wave Beach is a Beach, Umbrellas are common because its so sunny, plus it helps with the 2 zombies mentioned. Also it revives an old plant
Chard guard doesn’t recharge though
@@tropicalbytsanity7845 It could also be used in more worlds, by imps (bull rider, cannon, etc.) And could even be used for event zombies and the such. But nooo.
"It's never said the house moves between time periods"
I would have thought the Egypt world and the medieval Europe world would have made it obvious that it does.
Yeah, and the pirate ship floating above the ocean.
And the wild west desert. And the ancient Mayan(?)(I don't actually know where it's based on) temple.
i hate how they changed the beta, in the beta they literally had more story elements and you could ACTUALLY see the map
I think creeps is abit wack with thay
@@NeostormXLMAX the original version of PvZ2 was the best version. The change to this version of the map just fucking sucks
Literally almost all worlds happen in a different place
The player's house is in a standard suburbia.
Ancient Egypt happens in Egypt.
Pirate Seas very likely happens in the Caribbean.
Wild West is set in the badlands of California.
Lost City is in a Mayan temple.
Frostbite Caves & Jurassic Marsh are completely unknown.
Big Wave Beach is either in Southern California or Hawaii.
NMT is in the suburbs again, but the house doesn't seem to be ours. It also seems to be the backyard, curiously enough.
Dark Ages is in Europe.
Only Far Future seems to happen in our house, in the future, due to the road looking the same.
PvZ always taught you to place Sunflowers in the backline in the new player tutorials... which unironically is the worst thing to do once that 25 cost instant kill plant exists. By using that 25 cost plant you can often remove the first 2 zombies and generate a lot more sun.
The Sunflowers naturally stop/slow the threatening zombies that would clear your entire lane.
Typically what happens is some zombie gets thrown, appears, or a large stack break the front line which people normally have walls/attackers on. You'll end up digging up a backline Sun producer and placing an attacking plant.
Losing 1 attacking plant + 1 Sunflower is 150, placing 1 of each is another 150. 300 Sun when using the cheapest plants.
Compare this to the otherwise 100 Sun from frontline Sunflowers. This is cheaper then losing and planting even a Peashooter.
Even if you let the zombie eat a Peashooter and then place Squash this results in 250 total sun from planting a new Pea.
Popcap's tutorials teach you how to be bad at the game and is likely because they never thought about the above. This makes PvZ an already easy game easier. Early game is sun, mid-late is protecting your attackers.
100% correct, the unnamed 25 cost plant is incredible (i know you are talking about potato mine i just thought it was kind of funny)
Yep
Another problem is that they never indicate Potato Mine's placing range before he activates, so it feels longer than it actually is and encourages players to put him in the very back lines to let him charge for a long time
@@memememe609 3 tiles before zombie come?
i always do that
about 15 secs
Hey,,, shutup !!
It's not exclusive to this game.
Before the remasters/remakes/whatever, imo Age of Empires also made the huge mistake of literally never teaching the player to do anything but turtle, which is an absolutely terrible strategy in most missions beyond the easiest difficulty.
Not a single campaign mission or tutorial taught you to raid or harrass, and nearly every mission either has you fleeing somewhere, has you rebuilding a base, or some dude literally tells you "don't attack until later" even though the easiest way to defeat multiple enemies on your own is to hit early and hit hard/harrass their villagers to stunt their growth early to take them out of the game early.
Reminds me heavily of this problem.
I've always wondered why big wave beach 16 barely gave any defense and being told it was some obscure mechanic that the game doesnt even tell you that made it this way.
How did this pass testing jesus
bwb 16 is still fairly hard even if you know the "plant fast" strat and your bulb is lvl 1. the 2 last gargs are a big "fuck you" if you don't save enough pf
Basically, this was EA pushing premiums.
@@memememe609 actually this was PopCap's doing
@@KraylebStudios Well yeah, PopCap kinda went bad after EA bought them.
Either way, this whole world (And Modern Day too imo) was a way to push microtransactions
rng difficulty
-Don't explain how to beat world
-Players think world is too hard
-Players spend money on the game to make it easier
Come on. This is EA we're talking about.
Nope, balancing decisions, microtransactions and almost everything in pvz 2 was decided by Popcap without EA. There was a whole interview on it
“Popcap”
@@AvMoken cap
Never ask a women her age
A man his salary
A pvz 2 player how much coins they lost on big wave beach
@@AvMoken source?
My biggest problem with big wave beach is the second infanut's wall goes down everything gets sucked into the tide by the fishermen. If they had more counters I think it would be fine
fisherman zombie: exists
the banana launcher in my seed slots:
Rotobaga is a good counter actually
Plant food tangleweed helped me out alot since the game likes to throw multiple ones on the field
@@elijahhodges5770 also banana launcher: Is only acquired barely at the end of the hardest world ever
True , but I believe you unlock banana launcher around when you first encounter the fisherman anyway
Base game wise, I'm surprised that:
A. Chomper is a shop plant when Snapdragon does a good enough job as a close range plant
B. Rotobaga isn't introduced here to play off the water tiles
C. Tall-nut can't be planted on water (the head just sticks out)
I love planting columns of Snapdragons. The fire wave is satisfying
@@TrueLadyEvilChan Spamdragon (as I like to call it) almost carried me
in the eclise mod tall nuts can be planted in water. also grave buster can kill surfboards and hot potato can kill octopi
maybe water makes the tall nuts softer
Rotobagas and Infi-nuts makes this world actually easy, considering rotobaga not only because it doesn't need a lilypad, but because it hard counters octo-zombie by firing sideways and hitting it's corners as opposed to firing straight forward
PVZ 1 tells you to put Sunflowers at the back, and in that game it works significantly better even if it has it's flaws in certain situations(Even most Survival Endless setups have the small amount of remaining Twin Flowers near the back). It didn't age well as PVZ 2's mechanics are a lot harsher on that front
PVZ1 has a rather different sun economy - sun production in PVZ2 is a lot faster. You want to protect your sun plants in PVZ1, because they're a lot more valuable there.
Catapult zombies is probably the reason why
@@andrewdwilliamsthe thing is, is that putting them in the front is still a lot less valuable strategy not because of the sun economy, but because of how easy the game is as a whole. Rarely does a zombie threaten your frontlines as heavily as they are in pvz2
This was exactly what I was thinking
Big wave beach is rly hard to me because of the amount of objectives spammed in each level.
The zombies are easier compared to zombies from nmt, or dinosaurs from jurrasic marsh.
In fact, if you nerf the objectives, the world will probably be easier than jurrasic.
Edit: OH MY GOD 500 LIKES????
i might be the odd one out, but i didn't really find bigwave as hard as people make it out to be,
i actually placed my sun producers at the front in literally every single level, this comes from a thing some one told me back when i was playing pv1,
"sunflowers have the fastest regenerations after getting eaten, sunflowers also recharge fast and cost little to none, making them a substitute wallnut at times"
and this was when i talked about countering gargantutars
@@NeostormXLMAX maybe its because of pvz2's 50 sun meta
NERF BWB DAY 16
@@averagemicrosoftpaintenjoy7115 i nerfed it myself by remaking the level to be easier
I didnt find bwb hard at all, jurassic marsh howver fucked me up HARD - it gives you little to no time to make a defense and the dinosaurs are actual cancer
you know what annoys me the most?
banana launcher is this game's EXACT counter, unlike the original, there are some zombies with their own effects that absolutely RUIN your plants, and the ability to target those spesific zombies REALLY makes the game easier, ironically, BWB has zombies EXACTLY like that
the only problem? YOU UNLOCK HIM AT LEVEL 28 OF BWB, and the worst part is, with the new linear worlds, you CANT EVEN UNLOCK HIM UNTIL THE END
Worse yet, he isn't even that useful in the levels after when you unlock him. day 28 and 30 require cheap spammable plants because of how fast 30 is and how there are basically like 4 plants that can actually deal with day 28 and those plants are cheap AOE plants and very specifically magnifying grass. You also can't even use him on 31 and 32, and modern day's portals mean that the actually threatening zombies are spaced out and half of them get past your sunflower wall, which makes banana way less effective in that world for the most part
EA: "sucks to suck. Buy our missle toe"
@@2EntireLegs hate to say this is accurate, missile toe is just better banana launcher LOL
@@InsertFunnyThingHere banana is good
Linear worlds suck. My plan is usually to Wild West/Dark Ages, then Future. Lightning Reed, 0 cost spammable shooter and second sun producer, Turnip Tile then the basic Potato Mine and Iceberg Lettuce and Sunflower. That's my team for basically everything back when I played. Occasionally substituted a plant or two depending on needs
They should rework the bowling plant. Each ball should have its own individual cooldown. So, it's not only the turquoise ball will be spawn for the whole game.
Better yet just make it “press on” plant.
Akin to cannon.
Rewards you for strategically using it. Punishes you (unlike Coconut cannon) for spamming it to deal with any tiny inconvenience.
but that's the only thing that makes it unique, it would remove it's entire learning curve
Yeah, bowling plant is just useless in BWB (where you can unlock it), it is good when there is no horde of the zombies, but as you can can see, THERE IS ALWAYS A HORDE OF ZOMBIES IN BWB
Sorry, but it's amazing dealing with hordes of zombies. It's not good at BWB due to its fast pace@@konstralit2105
I was wondering why people struggled with big wave beach. But it turns out all the things i just did instinctively by watching so many pros, like placing sunflowers in the front and using conveyor plants instantly was what made the world so easy for me.
Same. News to me that people struggle with Big Wave Beach. I found it pretty obvious to place sunflowers further up after constantly replacing them in the back row for my back-line attackers. Conveyor belt maps always felt like a "place them down as soon as you get them" sorta deal, with exception of bomb/nuke items that you want to save. Don't gameplay trailers also show plants all over the place and not a dedicated sunflower backline...? =/ so strange people have a mentality of placing sunflowers in the back
same
@@gaerekxenos tbf pvz1 explicitly tells you to place sunflowers at the back
I used to ALWAYS place my Sunflower in the back because that's what the second level of the first game taught me, and probably everyone else. It wasn't until I played mods of the game where every level is super hard that I started to place Sunflowers in the front.
The first game encourages placing sunflowers in the back in 1-2 by pointing out the back row as where sunflowers should be placed. It makes sense in the first game because it’s a pushover but it becomes a terrible habit in the second
What did you call a push over again?
@@OnceMemorableOldRareImagePvZ1
personally, i think part of it is that, at least in my experience, you A. want to start placing plants in the back because thats the furthest from where the zombies spawn and B. once you have one sunflower down you instinctively want to keep things in nice looking rows and how do you keep that well you have 2 rows of sun producers in the back of course. i havent played either game in years but i can tell you that i definitely preferred that just because thats how i started doing it and i wasnt really ever punished for doing it that way. even when it was counterproductive i always wanted to make the field symmetrical (flipped on the long axis) if possible even when it wasnt the most efficient way to cover every tile.
Same. That's where I started out, but then I realized I wanted my attackers in the back, and then I'd end up constantly removing the back lane anyway with harder hitters, and constantly shift the sunflower lane forward, so... I place sunflowers 2~3 rows from the back by default, unless there is no space or if the lane is protected due to map designs
Also, it feels Intuitive to protect your production line with attacking plants, because if you lack sun you won't even have sun to replace attackers or other producers.
For a complete new player, sun then attacker is stronger than the other way around, because they won't have the skill to make the not consuming 2 plants not happen in the first place
What you're saying about mobile game design is really insightful and reminds me of arcade cabinets from back in the day, where the more unfair and difficult the game is they better it is financially...
I don't even play pvz2 anymore but I still love to put your vids in the background. Decent explanation.
If you are able to decipher what he is saying
When it comes to Big Wave Beach, despite it not really focusing on a time period, I'm assuming the inspiration came from, like you said, the American Culture, but also from the big boom from the 50's and 60's in which Surfing became a huge deal as well as rock and roll, another sign to this is the Pinata of the world, the zombie hair is stylized as the popular hair from that time period. Which is again, such an oddly specific year? As the 80's is legit in the game as well, you jump from the 80's of Neon Mixtape, to Jurassic times... Then you just skip like 30 years before Neon Mixtape in the 50's, I kinda like it.
Because 🌮
Remember the world's ordering was different back then. Before, it went Ancient Egypt, Pirate Seas, Wild West, Far Future, Dark Ages, Big Wave Beach, Frostbite Caves, Lost City, Neon Mixtape Tour, Jurassic Marsh, then Modern Day.
@@argentum1738 im also a veteran i play since i was 7
its been 6 years since then
im about 12-14 now
Still not knowing a lot thouggh
but i know world reordering
and i was confused because after not playing for so long there's no mummy memory and the eorld orders are weird
@@argentum1738 Yeah I do remember, since Neon Mixtape was the last tour I did, since I remember playing PVZ2 and remember when Big Wave Beach, Lost City n Neon Mixtape came out, never played really since, but yeah the original order was also very wack.
About the sunflower thing, the tutorial only tells you to plant 3 sunflowers when you have an empty lawn. Making you think you put them left. In PVZ1 and 2 you really don't get any problems putting them in the left and if you do, you double your sunflowers. By big wave beach you never would've thought to switch if for more than one or two levels if any.
As a F2P, I didn't think Big Wave beach was that much of a problem. I mostly used Rotobaga and Guacodile to save my ass on hard levels. To deal with surfer and snorkel, just Tangle-Kelp them and that's that. Fisherman Zombie was dealt with using Infi-Nut's plant food ability, as it totally CANCELS the fisherman.
On a side-note, none of my sun producers were on the front. I always put the Primal Sunflowers at the first lane, followed by 2 lanes of Rotobaga and Guacodiles/Tangle-Kelp as emergency instas.
Garlic makes (some of) these levels so much easier, especially for the Jurassic marsh. Objective levels usually ruin him, but he's too helpful for sun production. Chili bean, potato mines for cheap stalling: garlic and intensive carrot, for dividing zombies and sun production, and lots of winter melon. You'll get plenty of sun if you plant rows of sunflowers in garlics lane. And you're able to correct mistakes. Adjusting to a new strategy is easy if you collected massive amounts of sun.
After Eclipse told me that I should use attack plants in the back, I'm really interested in trying PvZ 1 and 2 again with this in mind.
for experience, in pvz1 it doesn't work that well because zombies are weaker and sunflower is tecnically twice as expensive
@@el_mr6439Yes it does
@el_mr6439nah, the strategy still works with the 25 sun meta, the special zombies being weaker is true tho
1:36 ACTUALLY, the zombie Troglobite disproves this in his entry in the zombie info, stating, “He hears Big Wave Beach is nice this time of year.” So unless the zombies (other than Zomboss), this heavily implies the time zones can be in different locations.
Solar Tomato carried me throughout Big Wave beach. The stun is most useful when a large swarm of zombies gather; it stalls them plus gives my attackers a short time of free hits and it saves me tiles to use for walls and instant plants instead of sun plants in front. My main attackers are pea pod + Torchwood, Banana launcher and lightning reed. But this strategy is kinda hard to manage in the early phase as it heavily relies on Solar Tomato as the main sun producer
I remember playing PvZ growing up, and never thought of placing my plants like this.
There just was never a reason to think about it; if it works, why change? No wonder so many people had a hard time in this level, because we learned and have been taught that having the sun producers in the back works just fine.
Especially in the very early levels of PvZ 1; the game teaches you that having sun producers in the back is a good idea because it gives them enough time to produce enough sun to plant any attacker in front of it.
To be honest, this video should be played as an introduction to advance pvz techniques.
If you think about it, casual mods like Altverz is harder than vanilla BWB so you could say BWB is the intro to hard pvz level
I remember playing this game years ago, got stuck on big wave beach and stopped playing shortly after. I was so accustomed to planting my sunflowers in the back, it didn't even cross my mind to change the position of my offensive plants .This video has proved to be very insightful.
"Big wave beach is an easy world" - proceeds to use numerous plants that cost money to beat most of the levels
You actually had to do that
@Average_manly_man me annihilating BWB with Magnifying Grass up until Day 30
BWB was easy for me and I spent $0.00
@@mydogghost i finished the game as a f2p lol
He never said it was "easy".
Additionally, this is just background footage. This man has played a lot more PvZ2 than you think (What, like 5 mod playthroughs on his channel alone, not counting everything he has done off-camera?), so focusing on the fact that the background footage uses Premiums is rather odd.
I learned pretty early on that the front line was the most important in BWB. I found that stalling the beginning of the level for strong initial sun production, infinut, and AoE damage plants are the key to big wave beach. My winning strategy (before rotobaga existed btw) was usually to stall the beginning of the level with a potato mine or tangle kelp in the back to give me more time to build up sun, Laser bean in the back, double sunflowers row 2, repeater row 3, row 4 had snap dragons, and row 5 had 4 snap dragons and an infinut with plant food in the middle. I had two layers of snapdragons as a buffer since they were cheap to replace, and they could easily free each other from octopuses and melt surfers and snorkelers with high AOE front line dps, repeaters for even more front line dps (although sometimes I’d swap them for something like melonpult or banana launcher if it fit a particular level better), and laser beans in the back to soften up all zombies, shoot throughout octopuses and surfboards and snipe octopus and fisherman zombies. I’d say surfers always gave me the most problems with that strategy, because sometimes, especially early on, I didn’t have enough DPS to knock the surfers off before they became a problem, strangely enough, that actually made my strategy work better when the tide was high because they’d stay in the surfing phase longer. Nowadays it’s pretty much the same strategy, I just have some newer more effective plants now and I put the sunflowers a row farther up.
Yeah, I also struggled with this world massively. Took me an embarrassing amount of time to complete it. Which felt completely weird when I completed the next two worlds without breaking a sweat.
Now I understand what I did wrong. And yeah, the game completely failed to make me understand my error. Who can blame me- it goes against everything they taught you up to this point. Only thanks to this video, do I now understand what the strategy was supposed to be.
Thank you for this video. Appreciate it a lot!
Sunflower > peashooter > wallnut is such a pvz and gaming classic in general, it'a hard to imagine that not being what casuals do
You have no idea how helpful this is. I'm currently stuck on a certain level that is pretty far and I don't think that I got one of the things to tell me that attackers should go in the back
1:28 I guess there just happened to be a ship where the player's house was when they appeared in Pirate Seas
Can't forget that the game canonically takes place in Egypt and the West simultaneously too
Ironically, when I first played BWB as a wee smol 14-15 year old, I had no issues with it. No real clue why. I dont remember much of my past times back then. I just didnt have issues with the world at all. Even so, I do agree that the world itself is very punishing to a lot of players. My little cousin struggled a lot with it but tbh he never had the best puzzle solving/strategy making skills for PvZ...
Its even worse considering that this was the 6th world released. Sure we had the power of Far Future and Dark Ages, but it still felt very unfair to have such a jump in difficulty, to then go back down to easy peasy with Frostbite Caves the following updates.
BWB is a fun world to me though, despite all that. The Endless Zone is super fun to play in even if you discard the octopi spam in the later levels. Really excited to revisit it once PvZ 2: Reflourished releases.
Y’know, i kinda feel like BWB’s primary gimmick is entirely meant to enforce this aspect. While in the beginning, they shouldn’t have told you to put sunflowers in the back, I feel like besides that, this entire world is meant to hammer in the sunflower placement, without actually outright telling the player. Literal sink-or-swim approach.
Surprisingly, I made it through this whole area without knowing about placing attacks in the back. When recalling back, I didn’t use the quad shooter (forgot its name). I only used the Big Beach’s plants unless impossible to do.
This is a really good video. I remember struggling so hard with it when it came out, I think I ultimately relied on a bunch of instant kills because they’re immune to all the bs zombies in this world.
Only recently has popcap attempted to give the tip of “try planting your offensive plants BEHIND your sun producers” or “try replacing your sun producers with offensive plants later in the level” in the “boot up” loading screen, no other loading screen, JUST THE ONE WHEN YOU LOAD INTO THE GAME. Hopefully popcap actually trys with pvz 3 on helping players understand that your sun producers can be expendable.
Considering how half of PvZ3's levels are glorified tutorials, I _really_ hope they'll teach you this.
PvZ3 is going to go the opposite route that PvZ2 has taken, and be piss easy.
You can already see it with the artstyle and the demo levels. The game is meant for preschoolers.
I was one of the lucky ones who never switched off Infi-nut because in theory, he’s way more sun cost efficient by being able to regenerate. So I chanced upon his forcefield fisherman interaction one day and that pretty much cemented him in my team from henceforth in case of other threats similar (excavator zombie for example just bangs their shovel on the forcefield)
I've played both PvZ1 and 2 and I struggled a LOT with big wave beach. I'm not sure I ever even beat it. However, I did eventually learn the strategy of "put sunflowers at the front and the attackers in the back", but not from PvZ2, no, I learnt it from PvZ1 when I attempted a playthrough of the game with only world 1 plants (the first eight plants). It was actually really fun and made playing the game for the 202th so much more fun, would recommend.
Great video btw!
I love to see how your channel is growing. I still remember your voice-less videos with love.
I would not be suprised if the designers forgot the casual focus pvz had and just forgot to put tuturials in for more advanced tactics with how the harder mod target audience likes it more and finds it not final world material
1:39 don't the preview screens for each world mention which time period you're moving too? BWB takes place around the 60s iirc
You know what's hilarious?
Umbrella Leaf would fit so well in this world and would also counter the most hated zombie, Octo Zombie
And is also a fitting plant due to it being an umbrella
It would be busted, a 2 waves of Octodads barely cant defeat two umbrella leaves
@@crispybacon2 So zombies can always break the rules but we cant??
Also the fisherman
@@crispybacon2 Completely ignore that Low Tide can still fuck up everything, and that two Umbrella Leaves take up very precious space
childhood trauma of waiting for a new world and then being mentally assaulted in order to complete it.
big wave beach is really hard compared to other levels, back when i played vanilla pvz2, before the levels were ordered by difficulty, BWB was placed before frostbite caves, and it was much much harder in comparison. Some of the later levels i only managed to win because of the boosted spring bean from zen garden (for the spring bean + blover screen nuke, which i believe has been patched now)
"Patched", as in specifically made spring bean not interact with blover for the sake of arena, then proceed to later add plants that can be abused in the same way... (reinforce-mint, boingsetta).
I abused the Blover screen nuke too, but with Primal Pea instead of Spring Bean. It made the rest of the game after JM a cakewalk in comparison.
Despite common consensus that Big Wave beach is the hardest world in the game, I think Jurassic Marsha and Modern Day is. Big Wave Beach's levels aren't hard, they're just too much, and it can e easy to counter that too much, Jurassic Marsh is also too much, but the too much is something that is even more difficult to counter since the plants you get there can either benefit you or screw you over in the long run. Modern Day is sort of similar, but it's mostly difficult because of the random zombies that show up and you have to pray it isn't one that could ruin your offensive and/or defensive play. What mainly makes this world hard are the zombies itself rather than the actual mechanic and it can be easy to out maneuver them, except for Fisherman zombie for the most part, he's a tricky zombie to get rid of because you might need to sacrifice sun to get rid of him, the rest of the zombies are easier, with Octo Zombie being the only other real threat and even then, plants that can attack in different lanes like Starfruit and Rotobaga can easily defeat him and his tentacled companions.
The main problem is that this world doesn't give you plant countereds for some reason
For Big Wave Beach 28, it was my first time ever spending the in-game money for extra plant food. I used a few Double Sunflowers (I think maybe 3?) to put down Winter Melons. Every time a plant food came in, I'd boost a Double Sunflower to bring out my next Winter Melon out faster, but that alone just wouldn't get my offenses out fast enough, so eventually I just bought like an extra two plant foods to make up the sun difference and get a Winter Melon out on each row. Once all of the Winter Melons were set up, the level was basically won. This was back when the limit was on the number of plants ever placed, rather than on the number of plants present at one time. Also I thought I remembered the tide line going all the way up to the house entrance, forcing most plants to always be placed on Lily Pads and thus further restricting how many plants could be placed. ALSO also I remember the stage almost exclusively consisting of surfer zombies with near-perpetual high tide?
back when you could unlock any world at any time, my friend went into big wave beach immediately after egypt, and it took him a month to get through enough to get a second key...
The sun producers at the front thing is really counterintuitive to most players
Discovering infinut plant food and rotobaga's effectiveness is really hard for new players
Great arguments 🥂
Sarcasm?
@@shadycactus7896 I was serious
@@NN-yy9gb Oh
@@shadycactus7896 are you being sarcastic rn?
@@armoredman10 I wasnt
It's something so small that I did not even realize... If you know how the mechanic works, or the main gimmick you could easily beat the stage.
I’m happy the game didn’t hold my hand too much though, it felt really good when I learned the strategies like infini-nut and placing the sunflowers in the front myself
If I hear the words “big wave beach” in a sentence I’ll immediately have ptsd flashbacks
14:58 I beat stage 28 on my second try using coconut cannon primal sunflower and a single thyme warp, I came in knowing how infamous it was but didn’t struggle at all.
As a player actively struggling through big wave beach, thank you for this episode. It was very interesting.
Great video bro, very informative and to the point with great transitions, keep it up
Definitely did accidentally find out about Infi-nut because I'd gotten the Zen Garden fully opened up by the time I finished Dark Ages and was waiting for the next world to be released. Sunflowers in back is common because no one digs up the sun-producers to replace them. However, I did have an easier time in the one level I walked in with Red Stinger on for that specific reason.
On the flipside, I typically used Snapdragon for offense in every world, as it was pretty consistently spammable (Frostbite Caverns notwithstanding).
just found your channel on coincidence and I very much enjoy this pvz content, look forward to more!
Funny cause I always, until now, play my offensive plants in the back in every level and every world. Just in mods, in VERY specific levels, there's a need to play them in front.
That or maybe I still need some practice but hey, placing peashooters behind a sunflower is what defines me better xd
And there are attackers that are better being put at the front instead of at the back
ever since some one told me how good sunflowers are to block gargantitars in pvz1 i have always been using my sun producing plants at the front instead of wall nuts,
infact i didn't use a single wallnut in pv1, i literally just spamed sunflowers all the time to block zombies, since they recharged faster and doesn't waste a seed slot,
@@NeostormXLMAX and they are cheap
@@NeostormXLMAX the idea of putting your sun producers in the front it's disturbing to me, I see how it can work, but cannot help but feel something bizarre in that strategy, guess because I always want to protect them first at all costs for some reason
Like banana
It also doesn’t help that the rules of how you must build your defenses with both needing to use plants to counter the water, and plants to counter the insane amount of zombies they can throw at you, despite both these strategies are used to an extent in previous worlds, this world is the only one that forces you to do both while pressuring you to do more than most worlds
The reason why people tend to put sunflowers in the back is backbiter zombies.
I don’t even play PVZ2 like that, only every now and then. But I thoroughly enjoy your channel! I LOVE the background music you use! That’s always something that personally keeps me coming back, and the games you choose to take music from are awesome!
Keep up the great work! You’ve earned my subscription :)
1:21 Pft- I was so caught off guard hearing Omori music come in, but it's fitting cus it's music for an underwater area.
lol I never realized that's how I should use my sun producers but didn't really struggle since I had a bunch of premiums/seediums
I love this style of content and just hope join you in making this type of content with my own twists and opinions
When Big Wave Beach first came out, I was one of those players who planted Sun Producers at the back columns
...but when they introduced Octo Zombies and Fisherman Zombies, I was like, NOPE, and the next moment, I spammed my Sun Shrooms and Puff Shrooms in the middle lane while planting my Winter Melons at the back.
Note: This is before Rotobaga exists
I (and I suspect a lot of other players too) have been playing the game since a young age and basically just brute-forced every level since then without significantly adapting my strategies, apart from a few plant specific gimmicks. So this kind of content really makes me want to pick up the game again and try new things!
To be fair, that is kinda how the game is meant to be played: Collect better plants, get better set-up with the exception of trick pants for the specific level.
Babe wake up new Creeps20 video just dropped
For level 28 i suggest placing an ice cabbge at the back with your banana luncher and use it for its plant food ability. (Aspescially when the low tide comes)
I only learned about putting Sun producers at the front line the hard way: From playing Eclise.
Way back when I first played BWB several years ago (cant remember when, but it was before Modern Day released and the introduction of seed packs), I still had the pitfall of putting sun producers in the back. Didn't use Melon, Rotobaga, or Banana Launcher, because I was under the impression that the cost of Melon and Banana wasn't worth it, and that Banana and Rotobaga just didn't do enough damage for me to consider them.
Strangest thing was that I didn't struggle nearly as much as some other people.
I believe it was because I was a big fan of using Infi-nut over literally any other wall, as well as the fact that I used Guacodiles as secondary lawnmowers, which basically meant that I was set until the introduction of Octo.
Weirdly enough, I think I used Laser Bean to counter it.
The biggest counter to BWB as a noob was apparently to throw shit at the wall until something clicked, and then it clicked for the rest of the world.
Forgot to mention that I spammed Guacodile for a few levels, because I found out very early that Fisherman Zombie's hook instantly activated them, which basically just killed any threat this zombie had to me. I don't think the game ever tells you that this interaction happens, so random chance made my experience with BWB that much easier.
1:32 Nope. The description for Big Wave Beach says it takes place in the 60's.
They could have made a singe level after you get banana launcher, where its just that plant vs a lot of fishers and octopus zombies, to teach the player that the plant is the direct counter of the two most annoying zombies of the world.
I lost interest in PvZ2 a long time ago after finishing all the worlds, but these videos still interest me and make sit and watch them. Whatever you are doing, keep doing it, its working.
For level 28 I don't remember exactly what I used, but I explicitly remember using Rotobaga on the top and bottom rows to counter the Fishermen who spawn (it took me a while to realize they only spawned in those rows) while still having damaging plants there, along with using Primal Sunflowers and high DPS plants to minimize the amount of plants that can be lost.
This channel is extremely underrated! Another great video! I feel like you could have so many more subscribers if you added a call to action somewhere in the video. This isn’t a matter of asking people to subscribe. You already have their attention. You just need to remind them and I bet most people will oblige :)
Wow, I never thought about this, which made the Beach levels really hard.
If you're beginner, Always use tangle kelp, cherry bomb, and squash. This will give a lot help for you to finish all the stories in Big Wave Beach.
There was 1 Plant that completely helped me steamroll over Big Wave Beach was Pyre Vine. Pyre Vine is extremely strong at dealing with Surfboards and Octopi as well as Low Tides, considering it is a high damage, low range, flamethrower that can basically weaponize any part of your lawn.
I haven’t played PVZ2 since like 2015, but I still found this video interesting and easy to follow. Good video 👍
I guess I learned to put my attackers at the back because of the roof levels in PvZ1. It teaches you that you can’t use shooters to succeed, you have to use catapults and the best way to keep them safe is by putting them in the back. I guess people overlooked it.
Thanks for the video! It actually helped me clear Big Wave Beach with minimal issues
9:40 are we not going to talk about him having a stroke
I figured out placing offensive plants at the back when I encountered gargantuars in PvZ1, lol. In PvZ 2 this should have been even more obvious to players with the lack of pumpkin (yes I know it's in the game now, but screw the new plants and levelling system, the balance of the game is terrible now...)
Personally, while I did struggle with Big Wave Beach 🌊, I personally found the boss to be a joke. The mech having the ability to pull plants in and kill them is easily countered by one thing: Tangle Kelp. I found this out by accident, but apparently, when you plant Tangle Kelp in front of the mech as it begins to suck in your plants, apparently Tangle Kelp jams up the blades, shutting that particular attack off early and stunning it for a while. I just kept planting everything I was given, and eventually it died. The only boss I ever beat without losing a lawn mower....
I think the Jurassic march mech is a bigger joke because of access to primal peashooter
I feel that the Frostbite Caves is a bigger joke, just do nothing and the boss doesn't do anything, it doesn't move and it's only way of countering your plants is by freezing and destroying it with rockets
It's 2 am, I haven't played this game since who knows when. Amazing video, keep it up, random stranger!
I must have been really lucky to figure infinut's counter to fisherman pretty much right when the world came out because I already heavily relied on it at the time...
"Big wave beach doesn't teach the player"
Me: "Ah yes, punish the player"
Now I don't wonder why the PVZ2 Eclipse teaches you to plant sun producing plants at the front.
it would've been fun to imagine big wave beach actually lobbing large waves at you a few times in the game. Just decimating two lanes while popping up zombies a few squares back instead of the low tide thing. Then as one would think of it as too op, introduce us to a counter plant like maybe "Life Gourd" which acts like a cherry bomb and a pumpkin combined that saves plants in a 3x3 grid by giving them a temporary shield that breaks after one wave hit
Or, alternatively, they should just let Fisherman push the whole lane one step closer, not just one plant.
That + Tsunami killing ALL LANES, both pants and zombies (only surfers, see gargantua and guakodiles survive, while surfers land 1 step away from lawnmowers, while sea gargantua appear from the wave).
Furthermore, it would make most sense to just let Chomper be a base plant and have it EAT octopi (and then go into eating animation, after the end of which it gets free plant food effect, since octopi are appetizing).
So many missed opportunities here.
I think another Problem with BWB is that it doesn't give you the right plants to win. Besides lilypad, I've only found tangle kelp and banana launcher to be vital picks throughout the world. Right now I'm trying to play pvz 2 backwards (with the old almanac glitch) and I found I was missing stallers and good instas. All I'm saying is that BWB isn't giving players plants that are meant for a good back line - with the exception of banana launcher. Because in BWB, you need to have expensive plants that can be played in the back, free of getting instakilled by octo, surfer, and fishing zombie.
1:32 That is somewhat wrong.
The player never gets *directly* told that each time period is in a different place. If you look at the world names, you could tell that the eras take place in a different place. For example, there's Ancient Egypt in the east, and Wild West, in the west. Also, wild west is during "The Big Brain Rush of 1850", meaning it's in or near California. If you look at the lawns, you could also tell that they can't take place in the same area. For example, Dark Ages has a river and Pirate Seas is on a boat. Also, to get the achievement Peking Express in the first game, you have to go to the achievements section and scroll all the way down and you can see zombies who live in Peking, China which has been renamed to Beijing. If you use this information and look at a globe, you can see that the opposite side of the Earth from Beijing is in Argentina. This means Modern Day takes place in Argentina, which is not in Egypt or California. I'm a bit unsure about Modern Day being in Argentina.
why was I like this a year ago. am I still like this?
With the introduction of meteor flower who is comfimed to have the ability to scare away dinosaurs (and making perfume shroom go from bottom tier to completely useless) this basically make big wave beach the hardest world now that marsh has been nerfed via premium
They should release
Chompzilla plant which insta-kills all enemies in the water.
That would solve it.
While I might think BWB was the hardest world, it did feel extremely rewarding for me, especially after planning for a long time just to defeat a level, makes me think something like "Oh thank god my strat worked"
Jurassic Marsh was just straight up annoying, I loathe that world so much everytime I beat those stages I feel relieved to never play or even see that stage again, the world itself was very unsastifying to complete