Plants vs. Zombies™ 2 vs RAID: Shadow Legends

How do Plants vs. Zombies™ 2 and RAID: Shadow Legends compare on difficulty, ad pressure, in-app-purchase pressure and what real reviewers say? A side-by-side look, grounded in App Store data.

	Plants vs. Zombies™ 2	RAID: Shadow Legends
Genre	Strategy	Strategy
Price	Free	Free
Difficulty	medium	hard
Ad intensity	high	low
In-app-purchase pressure	high	high
Typical session	medium	variable
Rating	4.7 / 5	4.7 / 5
Ratings count	432,148	524,256
Reviews say	What players like Hundreds of collectible plants and zombies with varied designs Engaging tower defense gameplay that's satisfying to watch Excellent animation and visual design of plants Common complaints Frequent crashes and stability issues on mobile devices High volume of ads, especially unskippable/buggy ones Expensive premium plants ($5 each) gating content	What players like Deep champion collection system with 16 factions Strategic turn-based combat with gear progression Clan and multiplayer PvP features Common complaints Extreme pay-to-win mechanics ($40-100+ required for competitive play) Repetitive gameplay loop becomes boring after initial hours Aggressive monetization with misleading 'limited-time' offers targeting spending habits

Plants vs. Zombies™ 2 — Deploy an army of plants to defend against waves of hilarious zombies across time periods in this award-winning tower defense strategy game. (rated medium difficulty, high ad pressure) RAID: Shadow Legends — A dark fantasy turn-based RPG where you summon hundreds of champions and battle through dungeons, clans, and PvP arenas in a heavily monetized grind. (rated hard difficulty, low ad pressure)

Data: Apple App Store, as of 2026-07-10. Last updated 2026-07-10.