Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville - Complete Edition (Nintendo Switch) Review

The "story" at hand deals with the war between the plants of a sunny town, and a bunch of goofy zombies. The quotes on the word 'story' exist solely because it's safe (and even highly recommended) to skip every single cut-scene of the single-player campaign, and then go straight to the undead-shooting business. The plot is paper-thin at best, and the (usually insufferable) comedic dialogue will mostly seem comedic to those under the age of [enter single digit number]. This mode is basically a needlessly large tutorial, which revolves around grabbing silly quests from silly NPCs, and then fighting waves of silly looking zombies, until a silly boss makes its appearance. Rinse. Fertilize. Water. Repeat.

At the end of the day, the main dish here is the multiplayer aspect. There's a neat variety of modes to try out, which have players capture or defending points, surviving zombie hordes, as well as a typical deathmatch… err, match. Moreover, there's a big hub where one can run around to purchase cosmetics, skills, or new characters, with the currency being used not being tied to any micro-transactions, which is surprising to say the least. Sadly, this pales in comparison to other class-based, multiplayer shooters the likes of Overwatch, something that is reflected on how small the player base is. At least one can always add some bots, which have a more than decent AI.

The main issue with Battle for Neighborville is simply how it's an adequate shooter… but nothing beyond that. There's nothing really wrong with it, but nothing great either. It's the epitome of ok. As a product, however, it's very good, in the sense that it is a complete edition that includes the entire DLC catalogue that has been released. This is a quantity over quality kind of deal, but at least the quantity is really high, with lots of missions to try out, both in Plant and Zombie form, with most modes being relatively bite-sized, making this fit like a glove with the Switch's hybrid nature.

On the more technical side of things, this obviously doesn't look as good as it does on the PC (or Xbox and PlayStation systems), but it runs pretty smoothly, managing to maintain a steady frame rate, even at some very chaotic spots. The reduced resolution is a bit of a disappointment, and the pixilation is a bit too severe in handheld mode, but this definitely leans more towards 'Looker' than 'Ugly Garbage.' Last but not least, this lets you use some gyro-assisted aiming, something that this critic isn't really a fan of when it comes to other games, but somehow it feels that this is the best way to play Battle for Neighborville.