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 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

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.

"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.

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

You know what's hilarious? Umbrella Leaf would fit so well in this world and would also counter the most hated zombie, Octo Zombie

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.

-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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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)

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????

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

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.

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.

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

"Big wave beach is an easy world" - proceeds to use numerous plants that cost money to beat most of the levels

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.

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.

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)

Sunflower > peashooter > wallnut is such a pvz and gaming classic in general, it'a hard to imagine that not being what casuals do

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.

1:28 I guess there just happened to be a ship where the player's house was when they appeared in Pirate Seas

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.

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

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

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 don't even play pvz2 anymore but I still love to put your vids in the background. Decent explanation.

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

The reason why people tend to put sunflowers in the back is backbiter zombies.

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).

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.

Babe wake up new Creeps20 video just dropped

I only learned about putting Sun producers at the front line the hard way: From playing Eclise.

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’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

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?

Oh, it teaches the player alright. teaches the player to suffer goteem

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 🥂

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!

childhood trauma of waiting for a new world and then being mentally assaulted in order to complete it.

I used to put sunflowers in the back cuz in pvz 1-2 when introducing sunflowers it tells you to put them in back

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)

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

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.

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.

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 :)

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.

Wow, I never thought about this, which made the Beach levels really hard.

Great video bro, very informative and to the point with great transitions, keep it up

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.

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....

If I hear the words “big wave beach” in a sentence I’ll immediately have ptsd flashbacks

I love to see how your channel is growing. I still remember your voice-less videos with love.

I never had a problem with the fisherman, as I'd already been playing before bwb existed and knew how good infinut was

I played pvz 1 alot of years ago (im 15-16 now, but was like 6 back then) And yeah i just made 1 column of sun flowers and then placed attackers The game was hard (because i was a little kid) but i didnt think because of this

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

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!

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.

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 actually did day 28 without Infini-nut using Magnifying Grass + Primal Sunflower + Primal Wall to rush down every fisherman the second they appeared. I was playing with levels though, so that might make a pretty substantial difference. (Most plants were level 2, some 3 at maximum).

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 doesn't teach the player" Me: "Ah yes, punish the player"

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...)

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...

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.

just found your channel on coincidence and I very much enjoy this pvz content, look forward to more!

I can't understand some of what you're saying

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.

The only time sunflowers at back works in big wave beach is if you are running holo nut and magnifying grass

No wonder people say it's hard, but i digress. I spammed lightnitng reeds eveywhere and power upped day 28

The thing with BWB is that it is really fun in the first half But then you get to the second half of the world, which you have no idea what to do about

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

I haven’t played PVZ2 since like 2015, but I still found this video interesting and easy to follow. Good video 👍

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.

Ever since i was a kid i have loved this world - not only do i love water in general, the world is really challenging and you cant just mindlessly go trough it. Also the plants there have the best designs in my opinion - i love their looks , animations, what they do...overall my favourite place 💜

As a player actively struggling through big wave beach, thank you for this episode. It was very interesting.

Thanks for the video! It actually helped me clear Big Wave Beach with minimal issues

Well I mean, if you think about it, if the player never moves, there was an ocean there from pirate seas.

I love this style of content and just hope join you in making this type of content with my own twists and opinions

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...

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

The first time I beat bwb I was incredibly happy Level 29 bwb is the bane of my existence because you can't just micro your plants, or replace your sunflowers, the thing that helped me was stalling plants (daftodil and primal peashooter) and infi nut (plant food). After beating bwb level 29, the next level was easier than the last, bacause you can micro some plants. Most of the levels before part 2 was not that hard, but after getting guacodile, yeah it gets difficult. Tl;dr The level after the level you spent hours on is easier.

After struggling with Big Wave beach, I adopted a new strat of primal sunflowers, puff shroom and all suicide plants. Completed the rest of the worlds with just suicide plants. Ghost pepper is the best insta plant IMO.