itch.io

Okay so I finally managed to get past level 30 and here's my update on the game. Going to be reusing my gamejolt comment with some editing, mostly because you seem to be more active over here on itch.io as opposed to Gamejolt.

Issue 1: Statue Zombies feel too random. Personally I find it kind of annoying they have barely any foreshadowing. Especially because multiple can spawn at once and it's not possible to defend every lane at once even with potato mine, cherry bomb and walnut.

I simply believe the cost and delay on the plant reloads is too much to not make it at least somewhat RNG if you can defend properly against statue zombie. As the early levels aren't super hard, it's not a HUGE deal but it's part of the early game that I don't like.

Issue 2: Playing as Zombies in battle mode is completely unfair on Hard. 
This is an issue I have to somewhat take back. Playing as zombies is unfair... for the plants specifically on night. Necromancers just kind of blow up the plants defense, which thankfully reduces the difficulty of getting the undead mastermind achievement.

Getting it during day / sunset is still a crapshoot though because of how cherry bomb works and the AI not needing to plant sunflowers.

Issue 3: I don't like that puff shrooms disappear. I'd rather they be nerfed somehow than vanish over time but that's just a personal opinion.
This is another one I have to take back somewhat. I don't like part of my defense randomly vanishing after a while but it's a good implementation of puff shroom.

Issue 4: Gravestones kind of suck before you get Gravebuster. You just kind of have to hope for decent gravestone rng or you might have to reset.

I still think this is true. Gravestones are super hard to remove properly and come so fast that your only options are massive damage or exploding them, which is a really big waste of your cherry bomb and really dumb to do with potato mine. I don't think any of the pre-gravebuster levels are bad per-say but some of them do feel a little luck dependent.

Issue 5: It'd be nice to have a quick way to grind money. I know it's not intentional but I don't really like waiting to get money for specific shop upgrades.

I won't lie, I did simply edit the save file for more money. I have no idea what's the best or what I should be buying and I don't feel the need to wait when it's theoretically possible to just replay levels for cash.

Issue 6: The night levels feel very unbalanced with grave productions. They can spawn directly in the way of your plants and constantly block shots, making them even worse than statue zombies as they have literally no warning. I guess the way to deal with zombies behind them is Fume Shroom, but that still means that most of your defense is still ruined. I'm just... not liking the night levels all that much to be honest. Grave just simply spawn too often. Gravebuster by itself is not enough and the 2nd best grave remover (cherry bomb) has too high of a cooldown.

I still stand by the above comment I made. Gravestones simply spawn too often and too quickly. Throw on necromancer zombies for added pain and a lot of these levels just... aren't that fun to play. Like sure, they're all fairly beatable, but that doesn't mean I like all of them.

Issue 7: The boss fight is what made me stop wanting to play for now. The enemies that can spawn graves are already pretty frustrating especially as sometimes it's really hard to deal with them. An entire boss that does it constantly with a lot of health? Too much.

It wouldn't be so bad if they conveyor belt was faster and gave you more gravebusters (or some other plants that aren't mushrooms) but some of these levels are starting to feel like I'm getting lucky more than I came up with a good strategy.

I do really like the game but I can actually see why some people think it's too difficult now. I don't feel like it's really that hard just some specific enemies and gimmicks are too inconsistent.

I did finally get past this boss today after a few tries and my opinion hasn't changed at all. I used the same strategy each time (I tried a new one) and at one point I did finally win. But it didn't feel like I won based on skill, it felt like I just finally got decent luck with the conveyor and the boss deciding not to spam gravestones the entire time.

I get you said one player simply had a skill issue on this boss, but I don't find the boss to be very well designed. If there was a better selection of plants, like at least giving cherry bomb or extra gravebusters, I might have had fun with the boss. It's a cool concept that I simply did not enjoy that much, and beating it didn't feel that great either.

Issue 8:  Healthy Garden doesn't seem to work properly on level 2 of adventure. I beat the level without any of my peashooters / sunflowers getting damaged (which took quite a few resets) and I didn't get the achievement.

Overall this is a good fangame that I find very charming but it has some design choices I find a little questionable that detract from the overall experience. I'm sure there will be more balancing in the future and I look forward to what comes out.