Grow a Garden Worth Defending in Plantera for Wii U and 3DS

I love simulation games. I could go on for hours and hours about Animal Crossing New Leaf for the 3DS. I’m not as big a fan of tower defense style games, but I’ve played a few good ones. What do you get when you combine a garden sim game with a 2D style tower defense game? It may be something like Plantera for the Wii U and 3DS. I just got review codes of both the 3DS and Wii U games yesterday! I haven’t played the game a lot yet, but wanted to share with you my impressions on the game(s) so far.

In Plantera for the Wii U and 3DS, you are presented with a 2D side scrolling environment. In the area you have, you can plant veggies, fruit trees, bushes, and have various animals roaming about. The goal of the game is collect the various fruit, veggies, and eggs to get more money so that you can unlock more things for your garden and make it even bigger. You have some helpers who will collect stuff for you too, but most of the work will be on your shoulders. Oh and you have to defend your garden against animals that want to destroy it too! Plantera is pretty simple so far, but wow, it is already very addictive.

On both the 3DS and Wii U versions of Plantera, you use the touch screens to collect the various things from your garden and also tap on enemy animals to get them to go away. The gameplay can seem slow sometimes and other times you have to be really quick to make sure you get the bad animals out of the way.

And there’s so much to unlock in this game! I’m excited to see what other kinds of fruit, veggies, and animals will come to my garden next! I also really like the feature that has your in-game helpers collecting things even when you are not playing the game. That feels like real Animal Crossing level gameplay: the game continues even after you’ve quit! Overall, Plantera feels like a simulation game but its also a very good tower defense game too. I’m liking the combination a lot so far.

I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy Plantera or not, but I’m having fun with it so far. You’ll have to wait for my final review to see my thoughts on both the 3DS and Wii U’s graphics, touch screen controls, the differences between the two versions, and how I feel about the games overall. Hopefully I’ll have a review for you early next week!

Plantera is out now on the Wii U and 3DS eshops.