Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted was provided by Electronic Arts for review. Thank you!
The classic casual strategy game is back. Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted brings the original game up to modern standards, complete with controller support, updated visuals, and some nice surprises. Has this classic stood the test of time? Let's find out.
Regarding the core gameplay, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted hasn't touched the original formula. The game is still a "lane defense" game, where you are given five lanes to defend with your army of various plant types, spending the generated sunshine wisely to keep the zombies from your house. It works well, although it is perhaps prone to the weakness of the same strategy working pretty much every time.
Once you find a strategy that works, you can repeat it repeatedly and keep winning. That's a shame, with the developers saying that the fun is in finding new strategies. That's all very well and good, but many players will stick with a winning strategy and won't waste time finding different ones to come up with the same, or worse, result.
The game does try to switch things up a little by introducing other plant types, and plenty of them, the day/night system, where resources might be more limited at night, and slight adjustments to the map, but in reality, the night levels often ended up being easier for me due to how overpowered the sunshine-generating Mushroom is. The map change just requires a small adjustment to strategy for the first few placements. I found myself breezing through every level in the game, despite having never played Plants vs. Zombies before, without losing a single level. So this isn't a game to play if you want a strategic challenge.
One of the new additions to the game is the Hardcore Mode, where you have to beat every level in the game without dying, or else your progress resets. This does make the game harder, as it's not just beating every level without dying; you have to do so while being restricted to certain plant types. The downside is, the Hardcore Mode doesn't unlock until you've already beaten every level, so it's more of a "New Game+" mode.
That's a common theme with the game; even the versus and co-op multiplayer modes are locked behind beating the first 10 or so levels before you can use them. I have no idea why these are not available from level 1. If you bought this game to play with a friend, they're going to have to sit next to you and watch you beat the first 25% of the game before they can join in. The "campaign" itself is also not co-op; it's just one-off matches that you can play, which feels like a missed opportunity to progress together.
Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy my time with Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted, but some of the enhancements feel more like something that most games would introduce in a patch. Essentially, an upgrade in visual clarity, a New Game+ mode, another mode that essentially changes between night and day as you play the level, and controller support.
If you are a Plants vs. Zombies fan, you'll likely love this game; it's more of the same, with some slight enhancements. But if you had a middling response to the original back in 2009, I'm not sure Replanted does enough to draw in anyone who wasn't already a fan. On the plus side, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is far from a full-priced title, and for $20, it can provide a good few hours of enjoyment.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted works great on the Steam Deck. It has controller support, which works very well, and the game can easily run at 90 FPS throughout. There are also no graphical settings to adjust. The game runs at 1280x800 by default, and thus, there are no black borders around the game.
The power draw manages to stay low, around 9W-11W. Temperatures were around 55C-60C. You can expect a battery life of around 5 hours on a Steam Deck OLED and around 4 hours on a Steam Deck LCD.
As a side note, the game does not support Remote Play Together, and the co-op/versus modes are local only, so you would need to dock your Steam Deck to play multiplayer.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted doesn't have much accessibility. You can adjust the cursor speed, and that's all. All dialogue in the game is text-based.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted doesn't bring a whole lot to the table, but it is the "definitive" edition of the game, and given the very reasonable price tag, if you were already a Plants vs. Zombies fan and you want to replay the game, it's definitely worth diving back in.
Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted runs perfectly on the Steam Deck. It supports the controller well, runs at 1280x800, and can be played at 90 FPS with no issues. It's definitely a Best on Deck title.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is for existing PvZ fans who want the "definitive" edition, but it won't bring anyone new to the table. It does work excellently on the Steam Deck.
Nice review of Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted and it’s great to hear it runs so well on Steam Deck. If the HD remake isn’t quite scratching the classic vibe for you, there’s also a fan-driven version with a twist at https://pvzfusionfree.com/ worth checking out.