Call it an aging millennial feeling, but I can’t support but feel a certain comfort playing Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted. Not only does it update the original’s stellar blend of accessible tower defense gameplay and puzzles, but it also serves as a reminder of just how quirky and endearing gaming was in the delayed 21st century. Developer PopCap Games returns to give this classic another well-deserved moment in the sun, adding novel content, quality of life improvements, and features from other ports to create a more complete package. That said, Replanted tries to balance its updates with trying to maintain the look and feel of the original. In this way, it presents an uneven remaster that is the most complete version of Plants vs. Zombies game ever released, but also one that feels less polished in the most critical ways.
The charm of PvZ comes from its fun and playful atmosphere, which is reminiscent of an afternoon cartoon show you might watch on Nickelodeon. True to the series, Replanted never attempts to explain how this bizarre side of the zombie apocalypse began or, even stranger, how plants gained heightened sentience to fight back. And honestly, it still works best because the vibes alone helped the Plants vs. series. Zombies go far. The tone always remains rapid and loose, the idea being to keep the absurdity building, which it often does.
The Replanted Edition brings back everything from the 2009 PC version, along with almost all the additions from the various console and mobile ports that came after – including material from the discontinued Chinese version of PvZ. Even the local co-op and competitive modes from the console ports are back, which I missed the first time around. This makes Replanted a great opportunity to revisit both why the original is still relevant and the many improvements that have been made over the years.
What made Plants vs. Zombies was so engaging, it was a combination of real-time strategy with the feeling of putting pieces of a puzzle on a table. It really comes down to the satisfaction of finding a specific approach and adapting units as needed. When the action heats up and your squads of pea and walnut shooters hold the line against zombie quarterbacks, “zomboni” drivers and other bizarre undead, the gameplay is incredibly engaging to watch. Even as someone who played this game 16 years ago, I was still immediately drawn into the game and placed my plants in the best tactical positions to keep the zombies away from my door.
The original’s overall challenge remained fair and effortless overall, but there were a few moments of unexpected difficulty spikes, and Replanted doesn’t do much to fix that. It’s true that many of the sudden challenges that arise are a result of how breezy the campaign can be, which made the more complex stages catch me by surprise thanks to the novel, punchy zombie units that got in my way. I think the challenges are overall reasonable, but the difficulty can still hit you when you least expect it.
Replanted tries to change things up and add its own things that haven’t been seen elsewhere. A very welcome update for returning players is the ability to speed up battles. You can click the fast-forward option to speed up the animations by three additional stops, which adds to the challenge of making battles a bit more hectic with this increased pace. Overall, this was helpful in removing waiting periods on missions that previously took a long time. However, the downside to this is that changing the speed unfortunately also changes the music. While I liked the remixed songs with faster beats, this means that the classic music that built up as the battles escalated was disappointingly removed from the soundtrack.
One of the more creative additions is the Rest in Peace mode, which is a PvZ version of the constant escape of the main adventure. With less security to protect your home, even one zombie breaking through your lines will result in instant defeat and send you back to the start of the run. As a concept, it fits the PvZ style perfectly, and I felt that familiar tension that comes from more intense missions. However, allowing you to bring in all of your unlocked plants and seed slots at the start of the series undermines much of the intended challenge, which is an odd choice if this is supposed to be the hardest mode in PvZ. Ultimately, it’s not as fleshed out as I expected, so trying out a novel mode felt underwhelming for the most part.
The most compelling and inventive addition of Replanted is the Cloudy Day mode, which combines elements of day and night gameplay into one battle. This change introduces an compelling change by making the radiant phase focus more on resource gathering and planning, while the shadowy phase is all about building units with the benefit of lower resource costs. It’s a clever blend of two PvZ fighting styles that really hooked me as I tried to make the most of moments in battle when the tide turned. This is by far Replanted’s most impressive innovation.
This remaster overall looks great in motion too, especially when the action heats up with the zombie hordes in full force and your plants throwing everything they can to hold them back. Unfortunately, improved visuals often stick too closely to the style and structure of the original, and their expansion to higher resolutions can sometimes seem very artificial and uneven. This leads to situations where quality can be inconsistent and unintentionally lower than standard, such as blurry and scratchy character portraits or menu animations, as well as an unsightly, drab filter overlay in Rest in Room mode.
This inequality also contributes to one of the more bizarre changes: the treatment of the original, iconic ending music video. Without spoilers, instead of a rousing ending, this finale is shown as a video in another cutscene, condensed on a vintage cathode ray tube TV set up in your character’s house. This unnecessary addition detracts from the final sequence, which was previously on par with Portal’s fantastic “Still Alive” ending. What I found unexpectedly depressing was that the celebration of the fun energy of Plants vs. Zombies turned into something that felt like I was watching a YouTube recording of the end credits from 16 years ago in full 360p. This type of decision is largely emblematic of the overall problems with Replanted, in that as a remaster it plays too safe and sound to avoid overhauling elements of the main game, which has the downside of feeling limiting in its attempt to preserve it.
