Plants vs Zombies | The Completionist

plants vs. zombies was centered at a major turning point in casual gaming what was once a realm dominated by puzzles has shifted to a place where a casual experience could be a bit more complex and yet still maintain mass appeal it's no doubt video games are becoming more and more a part of everyone's day to day culture with smartphones now a diversion like plants vs. zombies is never out of reach before tower defense was a widely unknown genre now games like clash of clans have topped app store download charts and garnered the attention of major developers plants vs. zombies wasn't the first of its type but it was the first to become an enormous international success was it really a pioneer in casual gameplay or was it success the result of a more commercial paint job on top of a regular tower defense game it's time to find out as I complete plants vs. zombies game of the Year Edition hey everyone and welcome back to another brand new episode of the completionist guys for the first time in 18 months we've got some brand new merch for you to have in your hands get ready because I'm calling March the merch month doesn't work well sonic forces merch month there you go that runs a little bit better so for this month we are doing a merch run kind of based inspired by sonic forces you all love the game you all hate the game and I'm gonna make a video on it later on this month and to celebrate that video I wanted to give you guys some new merch so for the first time ever we have the completionist logo t-shirt this is just a simple the completionist logo on a t-shirt with the twg logo on the background i'm hype for it longtime fans the show just wanted something just that the completionist so here you go next on our lineup is the jury the Birdman that got a completed shirt this is my original OC from sonic forces do not steal please do not steal if you want to buy that shirt you can pick it up right here at the edicom and if you are a true gamer you can get yourself one of these bright yellow that one video gamer hats to show your true color as a gamer all this merch is now available at the yeti comm slash the completionist aside from the completionist logo t-shirt the sonic shirt and the sonic forces hat our going away at the end of March so get it now what you still can again you can get it at the Yeti calm / the completionist to say that plants vs. zombies used to be my obsession would be an understatement I was obsessed with this game this game single-handedly brought me back into gaming when I was in college but the end of the day I kind of forgot about this game and PopCap in general because man a lost have happened since I first heard of playing the first game so I thought you know what let's get a little bit nostalgic for me let's go deep into plants vs. zombies Game of the Year Edition for the PC let's begin yes [Music] casual games have reputation of being soft shallow time-wasters and that reputation has maintained its footing in the age of idle and clickers on Rah's titles that require nothing more than boredom early on it was mostly puzzle games I remember when my dad would scold me for spending too much time on my playstation and then immediately after he played minesweeper on his laptop for three hours at that time an IP popular enough hadn't blurred the line between the casual and whatever my dad considered games were commonly known as hardcore in 2003 the developer PopCap was just starting to establish its dominance over the weekend gamer with titles like zuma peggle and the spiritual ancestor of candy crush bejeweled all pretty unsubstantial strategically but incredibly addictive games a little while after these games grew to massive popular success PopCap kind of figured you know what I think it's time for a new IP they took a chance with the designer with only one title to his name George fan five years later what came out grew bigger than anyone could have anticipated a game with concept simple enough to understand but capable of deeper tactics something that could be played for minutes or hours all wrapped up in an endearing package with a bit of ironic or elements it all began with a game called in Santa Quarian insane aquarium was a free-to-play game way back in the early days of JavaScript you all remember Java that thing with the installer that stayed in your program trave on your computers no matter how many times you install updates eventually forcing you to unsolo and it still was somehow there in Santa Quarian was acquired by PopCap to be made into a full-fledged commercial game designer George fan had worked his way into the industry in a full seven years after the release of in Santa Quarian fan gave us plants vs. zombies born out of his love for Starcraft tower defense mods van painstakingly designed the game for the first year by himself after that it was only worked on by three other people for a majority of the creation process simple with programming art by rich Werner and Laura Suga Hara with the music not bad for the sheer amount of cash this game produced plans versus zombies has shambled its way onto every gaming platform including the blackberry personally I am waiting for the plans vs. zombie demake on the Tiger handheld and not only that the game has had a tsunami of swag comics coloring books being KO cards yo even Mickey Mouse is like relax on the merch dude the appeal to casual gamers and the proliferation of mobile gaming brought this small title into the limelight as one of the most successful games in PopCap's history now I want you all to take a big old guess on what happened next two letters just to e a the gloomy spectre of EI caught PopCap in its shadow and absorbed it in a roughly 800 million dollar deal with some sources saying even over a billion to go from making free Java games first be online sites to being able to afford your own small nation is quite a happy ending except surprise surprise after plants vs. zombies 2 was announced George fan was fired along with about 50 other employees of PopCap yeah you dirty rascal he have done it again so don't look forward to plants vs. zombies 3 until they figure out how to perfectly blend multiplayer and absolutely require microtransactions oh wait that's right so back when I was in college I played plants vs. zombies like it was going to save my life as I was more focused on getting my two degrees video games fell to the wayside that was until one night when I had some free time but not the energy to go out I dusted off steam to check out what ridiculous sales they were having at the time and I saw a pretty resounding user rating for plants vs. zombies the rest is your classic gaming love story eyes read until 3 in the morning leaning in like a mouse hacking the matrix I was hooked once more I know it's weird to say but this game sing handedly got me back into video games when I was in college I'll be playing the game of the year edition of plants vs. zombies since there really wasn't an original version on Steam at all the game of the Year version was in fact a free upgrade and I don't want to go find the og version on a janky website like Miniclip or something like that now personally I have never fully completed plants vs. zombies but it doesn't have a ton of achievements many aren't very challenging like using only mushrooms on the map or hitting five enemies in the bowling minigames but if I remember correctly fully growing the tree of wisdom and passing certain endless mow thresholds can really take some time my only apprehensions lie the trend of casual games idle nature it's sort of a game that is meant to endlessly kill time this can lead to some pretty monotonous completion requirements that span days or even weeks look at players vs. zombies blend of cute and McCobb all this game means me no harm it's time to sit back relax and relive the time that I survived Black Friday dressed as Miss a Lia [Music] of course gameplay is the backbone of any successful IP but I don't believe plants vs. zombies would even come close to the hands of a quarter of the world without its presentation it is simple and clean while still dripping with cartoon personality it gives me that warmth riled hood feeling of my days watching Beetlejuice and our real monsters kick in an excellent soundtrack and it might as well be a Saturday morning cartoon with me sitting on my racecar Batman bed in front of a tiny glass screen TV the premise doesn't take a PhD to figure out you plant a garden full flowers to defend against hordes of mindless and well-dressed zombies the story too is incredibly basic it makes the original Mario Brothers look like ghosts to the shell up sorry the manga sorry sorry Scarlett Johansson just want to clear that up PVC goes like this you are trying to push the zombies back and kill them because you don't want to die spoilers you win the end how did they make a comic out of this I hope it's like a super dark fan trailer for Power Rangers the only thing close to a character in this game is crazy Dave Oh some lunatic with a pot on his head and a hatchback now I don't mean this as a criticism not every game needs a story I mean I didn't play Tetris wondering what the T blocks motivation was or if the S and the Z blocks would ever put their differences aside the personality of the game emerges from the cute meets McCobb tone everything has this Nick jr. vibe with a dose of darkness large enough to provide some humor as well as prevent the game from feeling sickeningly sweet it's not easy to make something with exposed tendons look cuddly now this is where the art designer rich Werner really nails it each plant unit you have has a vibe that not only gives off a touch of charisma but also serves as a sort of quick description of its abilities see this cabbage you probably assumed that it was a catapult and then check out this corn you know he's a catapult that does something different with a lot more apprehension on his face relax you're the core and everybody you whether it's the explosive pepper with the rage of a league of Legends player or the delighted sunflower it's hard to not like these little bros the only thing I don't quite get is the grave buster what the hell is this thing it's like a trash can with teeth it's full of Christmas lights the only unfortunate thing is that the game of the year edition did not upgrade the resolution and that standard definition gives a sort of haze on today's monitors I cut it a break for that it's just a result of the times but to be clear if you play this on any modern console it looks pretty solid the zombies have this van key to look on their face that somehow makes them adorable but also really killable each with an outfit to clue you in on their abilities the best has got to be the dancing zombie check out this disco Stu looking mother oh yeah now in the original game this zombie looked like Michael Jackson but was changed after the estate of Michael Jackson found out that the zombie was modeled after him I mean come on the zombie literally is being the Thriller zombie there's no doubt about it now speaking of music plants vs. zombies music designer Laura che guevara is an underappreciated genius from what she has composed his classic video games music with a more modern touch back in the day we here at that one video gamer had the pleasure of interviewing her on super beer Bros back in 2014 about her influences and they show in spades she mentioned a love of Capcom and Konami games the music and plants vs. zombies feel like Mega Man with a touch of class and a dose of zubich the boss music sounds like it was pulled right out of Castlevania it has a drive to it without that feeling of anxiety even in this one of her first major projects she has found the perfect balance between memorable and well tolerable no matter how catchy you'll have to listen to the same 14 songs for hours on end now that takes real talent to find something that won't drive you insane couple that with crisp sound effects and a triumphant vocal performance by well whoever the hell this is and you've got something as uncomplicated and pretty to listen to as to look at no matter how many enemies I allowed to stack up on the PC version absolutely nothing stalled or slowed so as long as the game is running on anything above the technical capacity of a Speak and Spell you're gonna have a smooth time plants vs. zombies successfully presents itself as exactly what it wants to be accessible to practically everyone the style reminiscent of children's books with the edge of flesh-eating monsters is fun for kids and humorous to those old enough to understand the juxtaposition most the plants have a Pokemon desk instant buddy kind of feel pair that with a ridiculously great soundtrack and you've got what I believe is the biggest reason why plants vs. zombies grew to such popularity there have always been tower defense games but none looked or sounded as full and approachable as this it makes me feel like if there were a zombie attack all I would need to do is send some flowers in and I'd be okay oh thank you you know I feel like such a monster sometimes I just want to be loved and I just never thought I'd feel it connects with anybody a very good hey buddy you may be dead right here but you're definitely not dead here [Music] see buddy everything's gonna be just [Music] so while I was doing research for plants vs. zombies I found a lot of people saying that this appealed to casual and hardcore gamers alike it's not perfect but it makes a solid attempt it does an excellent job teaching you to play the game by giving you a single item to learn each time you beat a stage it eliminates the need for a tutorial and encourages experimentation match that with a well-designed difficulty curve and you have a game that's easy to learn and master without ever feeling unfair to play mostly to complete is a different story I feel like I have to wear two different hats for this video one for the casual gamer and one as the completionist one of them had a great time while the other feels like this was like going on a 300 mile hike only to find out his prize was another 300 mile hike in a deconstruction of the tower defense genre the battlefield is a simplified grid in the base game each cell can be filled by one unit that is purchased by the collected sunshine in real time with their combined abilities you can fend off the undead hordes and live to garden another day whether it's the front yard the pool or the roof you'll be asked to work around certain limitations in each stage the front yard is the most elementary as you discover how the game works the pool requires more resource control to make the water plant friendly and the roof adds a depth issue as some plants cannot fire over the bend of the center of the level the requirements change even further when day turns to night there are 49 types of plant overall in the game and the game does a decent job at making each one field game changing as they are unlocked in adventure mode starting with a sunflower acting as your unit and in what is essentially a pea shooting Bellsprout you end up amassing a respectable army of floral annihilation and allergies depending on the stage zombies or achievements I had a fine time mixing and matching strategies some simply deal damage but most others have some sort of status effect that will help you deal with specific zombies if you're going to face a pole-vaulting creep then you want the impassable tall nuts or for coverage over other metal wielding zombies the Magnus is used to pull the pulled away if you grow too reliant on walls then here comes this zombie dressed as al from home improvement to climb over with his ladder giving other zombies access to that Lane George fan did a pretty good job balancing the items up until the premium upgrades you get from crazy Dave once you unlock those you will dominate in the PC version there are a little over 30 unique zombie types some can fly some can sprint some diamo - late and some can dance and if you haven't prepared well enough the game can quickly become a scattered cleanup job as they chew up your defenses but you're more likely to just hit the restart button so as a casual gamer this is great I needed something to pass the time in the airplane and I don't need to get even more stress waiting for my flight to taxi and they won't let us pee because for some reason walking in a stationary plane is an enormous safety risk and as a completionist the game has a smooth difficulty curve but the adventure mode didn't rock my world even the final boss only took one try but to nab an achievement you got to beat it once more and after adventure mode several minigames in a survival mode are unlocked now most of the minigames aren't exactly new modes to explore but more of a one-shot diversion and that's a shame because some of these ideas actually merit more stages like portal combat in which portals modify the path to projectiles or the levels that plays both tower defense and as an enormous game of bejeweled completing these earns you cash to be spent at Krazy Dave's for new types of plants single-use items upgrades and tools for your Zen garden the Zen garden is a non-competitive element to the game revolving around buying watering fertilizing and spraying plants so gardening you water flowers every day and occasionally they'll poop out a few coins for you and by everyday I mean actual days they won't grow to the next stage until they have had a full 24 hours to gestate since I am playing the PC version the window must be open the whole time if I want those pooped-out coins this isn't a game plans versus zombies this is a screen saver the other meth making money isn't much better either in the minigames there is one called The Last Stand there's a build you can do to milk about seven grand out of a level in about five minutes and unfortunately this too is kind of boring plant sit replace broken defenses and repeat it becomes sort of mindless I just want to live grinding shouldn't be an actual grind there should be at least something fun so why why her art why are you mad about something like this money thing because of this achievement called towering wisdom it requires me to buy two hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars worth of fertilizer to growing a tree that gives me hints for things I already know combine that with the other 300 thousand I have to drop on everything else in the game and that is a lot of time of sitting and barely doing anything this is how brains atrophy more of this and I'll be as slack jawed is one of those undead boys and to make matters worse remember when I mentioned a little mode called vase breakers well it has a corresponding achievement requiring me to beat 15 levels in a row of its endless mode sounds fine you say will you shut your mouth you shut your damn mouth these maps are based around opening random pots if it's a plant you have a few seconds to place them in prep for your next move if it's a zombie and it starts making a dash for your family's innards enemy position changes every time you play a map therefore you can play exactly to the strategy and still get boned by lame RNG over 15 freakin levels it's almost guaranteed this will happen once now I know I said I wanted the game to be hard but this isn't a matter of difficulty adding difficulty to a game should beckon more skill from a player it shouldn't solely be a test to see how many kicks I can take to the danglers before I quit my youtube career that's why I had to look at this game through two sets of eyes in the eyes of the casual gamer plants vs. zombies is brilliant it's a fun diversion that's somehow relaxing and exciting at the same time it really is close to being a perfect lunch break game the battles are relatively short and they all have their own exciting challenges the diversity in levels abilities and enemies add to the quick shot of amusement you may need during the mundane everyday now with my completionist goggles on plants vs. zombies has a lot of repetition and much of the game doesn't keep it shine on your 40th hour of watering digital plants it's ironic that the thing that pushed me over the edge was a Zen garden it's gonna take a lot to bounce back from these troubles I just don't know if I can oh yeah [Music] plants vs. zombies gives you everything up front nothing waited for me after the finish line everything available in the game comes during that first playthrough of adventure mode not even completing every minigame including the mind-blowing the disobedient face breaker run bags anything but that little icon on your games list the ending does come with a fantastic song and maybe it was the hours of human contact I've neglected myself while clicking over and over again on balls of sunshine and clothes of garlic but I kind of found love with the song check out there's a zombie on your lawn it's the game's kind of Bollywood closure where everyone is friends now and they're dancing together watching it again and again put all that affection I had for it in college back into my heart popping in words like moustache at any point during a battle will make all the zombies change with your wearing and give a mustaches pretty fun stuff it's completely cosmetic but fun nonetheless it's a bummer that completing this game shifted my attitude against it to such a huge degree I'm torn because I know up until that real large completion crap I enjoyed the living hell out of plants vs. zombies the gameplay may not be the most complicated but it's a refreshing look at tower defense games and even after all the frustration pvcs music and animation still has tons of charm it was pushing myself to meet unreasonable challenges that soured me to it but I don't rate games and what they're like to play I rate them on what they're like to complete while I completed plants vs. zombies Game of the Year Edition there were 74 hours of gameplay now just to be clear that's because I had to leave the game on overnight for the Zen garden not because I'm bad at this game I'm in fact very good at this game 49 plants collected 43 attempts at the vase breaker achievement $645,000 made and one zombie who finally felt safe enough to reveal his emotions to me now please don't leave this video thinking that plants vs. zombies is a bad game the gameplay and presentation are tight as hell but sadly the completion process is just hell if you're looking for a fun diversion during the transitions of life get this but that completion process is a flower better off nipped in the bud you know this episode was hard to make because of the fact that I did have two different mindsets when it comes to plans versus zombies on one hand as a casual gamer it's the perfect time killer especially if you have it on iOS or your iPad or something like that but if you're looking at it from a completionist standpoint this game is kind of a nightmare I admittedly put way too much time into this game and that's kind of what these guys wanted they wanted you to put a lot of time into these games one thing I didn't talk about in my video which I want to stress is at the iOS version and the iPad version of plants vs. zombies the vanilla original version is really bad there's microtransactions there's ads you have to watch it's just a nightmare and that kind of goes to show what kind of happened with EA and popcap games but at the end of the day if you want a full complete experience I recommend the PC version or one of the console versions of plants vs. zombies so without of my guys I give this game my completionist rating of finish it that's all time here for today guys so please as always let me know today's episode somewhere on the internet if you liked today's episode drop a like leave a comment let us know what future games you want to see here on the show and hey buy our merch the a.com slash the completionist if you want stay updated all of our content be sure to be subscribed you can click or tap that right here on screen we have new videos every Tuesday and Friday SN hey you missed last week's video on Dark Souls 3 keep it for your tap right here guys I've been the completionist and I'll see you next week for another brand-new episode bye

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 2,039,130

Rating: 4.8609366 out of 5

Keywords: Plants vs Zombies, zombies, garden warfare, plants vs zombies garden warfare, review, video game review, popcap, pvz, plants vs. zombies, popcap games, plants vs zombies gameplay, gameplay, plants vs zombies review, game of the year edition, jirard, jirard khalil, completionist, IGN, tower defense, tower defense games, tower defense game, tower Defense (Media Genre), video games, casual games

Id: XigFG5MNat8

Length: 25min 43sec (1543 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 02 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/TheGamingTurret]

I like how Jirard missed the obvious wordplay of Marchindising

Straight and to the point, oh well, puns aren't always good :P

[u/lukinator44]

I am sorry I have to put this out there but JavaScript and Java are different things. You were correct to say back in the days of Java. Javascript is still used pretty heavily but Java isn't as prominent. I still love the show and looking forward to picking up a Completionist shirt. Keep up the great work.

[u/bjaming98]

I fucking was just watching i think the Pokemon let's play on beard bros yesterday and jirard got asked if he would do a mobile game and he said probably like plants vs zombies or something and I was like "damn I would love to see him do it on pc or xbox"

[u/[deleted]]

He should have called it the March of Merch.

But yeah, great review. I never actually played this game, so it's nice to see what I was missing. Though, on principle alone, I really never want to play these mobile type games.

[u/VaranusNiloticus]

who else found themselves mouse-overing the suns in the video?

[u/Raphaelalevy]

This vid made me play plants vs zombies for the first time When I saw 5 hours passed n my hand hurts

[u/KnightThyme]

Tower defense game? Or FLOWER defense game?

[u/TJ_Deckerson]

One of the weaknesses of the show is Jirard powering through experiences meant to be chipped away at.

I think this sums up Jirard's experience: https://i.imgur.com/rHklPZp_d.jpg

Other than that I think this was a great video and made me really nostalgic. I still get the music stuck in my head every so often and I haven't played it in what feels like ten years!

[u/PaulieWoggers]

This video gave me the WEIRDEST deja vu I think I've ever had.

I didn't realize it until minutes after, but I'd heard your "happy music" song for when Jirard met the zombie before. It took me a while to pin it down, but I think I've got it.

I used to be a substitute teacher at elementary schools. It was helpful whenever the kids had work time to put on a relaxing song to help them focus and keep quiet. IT'S THIS SAME SONG, YO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd4j9osCNT4

Brought back some crazy memories. Thanks for them! Also, nice video :)