Plants vs. Zombies / YMMV

Annoying Video Game Helper: Some of Crazy Dave's choices for plants are very impractical. He'll never pick a plant that's straight-up useless (e.g. Flower Pot outside of roof levels or Plantern outside of Fog) or mushrooms during the day, but that doesn't stop him from giving you situational, mediocre, or just plain sub-par plants (like Cabbage-pult, Cactus and Split Pea).
Breather Level:
- The I, Zombie level "Me Smash!" gives you the Gargantuar, the zombie that takes extreme amounts of damage and One Hit Kills most plants. No, seriously. You'd have to try to lose the level.
- One of the possible I, Zombie Endless layouts has a huge amount of Sunflowers guarded by nothing except Puff-shrooms and Scaredy-shrooms, which are weak and effortlessly disabled by Digger Zombies. There's only a 4% chance of getting it, but the sun boost can really help if you're flagging after a difficult level.
- With high enough streaks in "Survival: Endless", any level that lacks the more problematic zombies (Balloon Zombie, Jack-in-the-Box Zombie, Zomboni, Gargantuar, and Giga-gargantuar being the main offenders) can feel like this.
Cheese Strategy: As described under That One Achievement, getting the 15 win streak in Vasebreaker: Endless for the China Shop achievement is generally considered to be the most difficult and tedious challenge the game has to offer, mostly due to your odds of winning being mostly down to luck. However, there is an exploit that makes getting it a lot easier. ^*
Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
- Some players have pointed out that many plants are not very good except for a small handful, like Gloom-shrooms, Tall-nuts, Cob Cannons, Blovers, and a few others, considering the mere amount of strategies that could be used to play this. This often comes more from those who've scored over 150 flags in Survival: Endless than from standard play, in which they find a specific strategy and stick with it. Averted in the New Game Plus, where Crazy Dave will pick 3 plants at random that you have to play with (but not necessarily have to use).
- Expect almost every player to keep their valuable plants like Cob Cannons and Gloom Shrooms in the Pool. They have the least threatening zombies due to the lack of Gargantuars and Zombonies, perfect for keeping vital Plants safe.
Creepy Awesome: Doom-shroom has the Face of a Thug, a dark and overall intimidating appearance, and his words in the Almanac are pretty chilling: "You're lucky I'm on your side. I could destroy anything you hold dear. It wouldn't be hard." But he is without a doubt the strongest of the explosive plants and despite his words, he still protects you and his comrades.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Examples of fan-favorite plants include, but are not limited to, Jalapeño, Torchwood, Cattail, Winter Melon, and Imitater.
Fan Nickname: The unnamed night roof area used for the final boss fight has been nicknamed "Moon" by several groups of the community, with the name coming from the moon in the background and satisfying the one syllable name motif of the other areas (Day, Pool, Fog, etc). This name is especially popular in modding tools.
First Installment Wins: The first game tends to be the most well-regarded among the series (with the Garden Warfare games sometimes being exceptions). The rest of the series tends to be divisive among the fanbase, especially Battle For Neighborvile and Plants Vs. Zombies 3, with the latter outright leaning into the Sequelitis territory.
Genius Bonus: One of the lines in "Zombies On Your Lawn" is, "brains are quite rich in cholesterol." As it turns out, this is an actual truth about brains of all kinds, and is a common health concern regarding eating animal brains as a delicacy.
Good Bad Bugs:
- Early versions of the original game had a bug with I, Zombie, where Bungee Zombies could be placed many times on the same Sunflower to repeatedly steal it for massive amounts of sun.
- The way the Mercy Invincibility works is that, once a Lawn Mower/Pool Cleaner/Roof Cleaner is consumed, no more zombies will spawn in that lane until the next big wave. During the final boss, there really is no next wave, so if a Roof Cleaner is used up, no more zombies will spawn in that lane for the rest of the level^note. It is entirely feasible to shovel every Flower Pot except for the middle lane, throw those Roof Cleaners out early, and just corral every zombie down that lane to be pelted with Melon-Pults. The only caveat is that this only works if the Roof Cleaners are triggered by a zombie getting too close—if they're crushed, this doesn't work.
- While Split Pea is supposed to only shoot one pea at a time forward (like a Peashooter) and two backward (like a Repeater), if firing in both directions at once it will shoot two peas at a time in both directions. This was fixed in the Game of the Year edition, though.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!: A while after the first game came out, this complaint became common, especially among fans who prefer the sequel. Since it's designed as a casual game, the original Plants vs. Zombies doesn't offer much challenge to someone more accustomed to the game's mechanics — zombie waves are pretty small, instant kill plants make it easy to clear them out, and spamming Sunflowers to amass huge quantities of sun isn't hard in most levels. This is probably the reason why several harder Game Mods of this game exist. For other fans, however, the sequel goes too far in the opposite direction compared to this game's reasonable level of challenge.
Moe: Many of the plants could count as this, but Sunflower really takes the cake. Especially her cute little dance in her idle animation. Not to mention her singing voice^note in Zombies on the Lawn.
Most Wonderful Sound:
- The sun collection soundbite, which comes with seeing your sun counter increase.
- The sound for when diamonds spawn, granting you an extra 1000 cash. This makes defeating the Zombie Yeti especially cathartic.
Narm: While the Game Over scene may be disturbing to some, the fact that the person in the house somehow screams while their brain is being eaten and the way they scream "NOOOOOO!" instead of screaming like a normal person would in that situation can turn it from scary to ridiculous. Though you could say that considering the tone of the game, this was on purpose.
Nightmare Fuel: Well, what did you expect from a game about zombies?
- The scares begin even before the game starts. As the way a zombie's arm suddenly rises up from the grave which is followed with Scare Chord and this Evil Laugh whenever you select the adventure mode in the first game certainly caught some players off-guard. The console and Nintendo DS versions swap this out for a crow being struck by lightning instead, but even that is no less terrifying.
- Most of the time, the zombies look far too goofy to be all that creepy, but in Stage 4-10, you have to fight off their waves in complete darkness. The only time you can see is when lightning flashes. The music is absent and the only sound there is is the rain and thunder, and the zombies calling for brains. Under these circumstances, they actually are unsettling and it's even moreso when you hear them chewing on one of your plants, making you wonder frantically which row needs more defenses.
- If a zombie manages to break your defenses, the same scare chord from the main menu plays as you then have no choice but to watch it stroll into your house (or slide down the chimney if you lost a roof or roof night level), followed by the hideous sound of it crunching into the player's skull along with a gut wrenching "NOOOOOO!". Many kids who have played the game were understandably horrified, and more than one has admitted to shutting the game off in a panic before the zombie got to eating. And despite the comical tone of the game, this is actually played out considerably seriously. In Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time, the game over screen is even scarier, as instead of a Gory Discretion Shot like the first game, we get to see the player's brain on a plate with a ghastly bite taken out of it!
Older Than They Think: Stinky the Snail isn't an original PVZ character; he first debuted in another Pop Cap game called Insaniquarium, released in 2001.
Self-Imposed Challenge: Given the game's low difficulty curve, players have of course come up with ways to challenge themselves:
- The survival modes naturally lends themselves to these. Only night plants, only night plants during the day (except for air defense), as few rows as possible, no plants that shoot, etc.
- In Survival: Endless, a common one is to try and get as far as you can without Cob Cannons.
- In the New Game Plus, Crazy Dave will pick a few plants for you. Try using them all (Instants at least once). Prepare to get creative with your strategies.
- Beating the game without any Sunflowers to generate Sun to make new plants.
- Limiting how many available seed slots you can use, even all the way down to two seed slots.
Squick: Zombies controlled by Hypno-Shrooms turn around and eat their fellow zombies.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The Dancing Zombie's Leitmotif when it enters the level for the first time sounds somewhat similar to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island's map theme.
That One Achievement:
- China Shop, obtained by getting a streak of 15 in Vasebreaker Endless. It's much harder than I, Zombie's corresponding achievement; not only are there more levels to play through, but they're significantly more luck-based to complete. Since there's only one (albeit randomized in position) set of vases for Vasebreaker Endless, as opposed to the many different I, Zombie plant layouts, it's also more monotonous to get.
- Lucky Spin, which is even more of a Luck-Based Mission than the above. You need to get 3 diamonds in the Slot Machine Minigame, as in, 3 diamonds IN ONE GO. You cannot even accumulate them one at a time. This one is either the easiest or the hardest achievement, purely depending on your luck.
- Chili-Free, the achievement that you can get by beating the "Column Like You See 'Em" level without Jalapeños. Easier said than done, especially when you have limited amount of plants to put and zombies tending to Zerg Rush you early on. It's also very luck-based since the conveyor might be giving you nothing but Flower Pots for a while right as zombies are advancing towards your chimney, and Ladder Zombies can easily dismantle your defense with little effort.
That One Attack:
- Gargantuar using his electric pole (or a wildlife crossing sign, or another zombie) to smash your plants without any mercy. Unless you have enough explosive plants to kill him off quickly, you can only watch helplessly while your plants are being smashed. And let's not start with "Column Like You See 'Em" when Gargantuars keep coming even when you don't have enough Jalapeños (or when you can't use him as you want that achievement).
- In the final battle with Zomboss, you know that moment when he freaking throws that RV on your roof. Although this attack is predictable (immediately after getting back up, less than half his max HP left), there's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it from insta-killing six of your plants. And the worst part? If you can't kill him off fast enough, he can do that a second time. It's even worse in the minigame "Dr. Zomboss's Revenge", where Zomboss has twice the health he had in Adventure Mode. The increased health pool means that Zomboss will almost assuredly live long enough to start using his attacks at random, which means throwing RVs at you whenever he wants.
That One Level:
- Stage 4-10. The stage is in complete darkness in which you cannot see your plants or the incoming zombies until lightning illuminates the lawn for a few seconds. It is also a conveyor level. You'll get to unlock the Yeti Zombie the second time you play it, though.
- Same thing for level 5-5, which is where you're fighting against oncoming waves of bungee zombies relying on nothing but Chompers, Pumpkins, Flower Pots, and Cherry Bombs. Crazy Dave sums it up at the start of the level.
  Crazy Dave: I have to warn you... You are going to hate this next level. Why? Because it's non-stop bungee zombie after bungee zombie. I hate those confounded bungers!!! I hate them!! Hate them with a passion! And a vengeance! A-whoop-dee-doo! Here come those idiots now!
- The "Survival - Fog (Hard)" level. "Hard" is a MASSIVE understatement. The fog levels are among the hardest in the game to begin with, but this one cranks it up. If you pick your nighttime plants well, you can actually get fairly smoothly through the first six flags... but then the game will send a few Gargantuars your way for flags 7 and 8, who will not hesitate to flatten your entire carefully-prepared yard without blinking an eye. The final waves become largely a Luck-Based Mission based on how many of your plants are alive.
- "Column Like You See 'Em" and "Bobsled Bonanza" are two difficult mini-games that mostly rely on luck. The former gives you plants on a conveyor belt, and will only give you Flower Pots and Pumpkins right when the waves of Gargantuars start swarming you. The latter can ruin you by sending you several bobsled teams before you set up anything that can kill them. The former overlaps with That One Achievement when attempting to beat it without using Jalapeños.
- The "Whack-A-Zombie" minigame starts out tame enough, comparable to the level it's based on (2-5) - just click on the Zombies to kill them, with headgear-wearing zombies taking one or two more clicks. Then it ramps up by several orders of magnitude, to the point that by the end, you'll be dealing with zombies spawning at a rate of five or six per second. Enjoy your carpal tunnel syndrome, unless you're playing on a mobile port - in which case you can use several fingers at once to take care of the problem.
- Vasebreaker Endless is very unfair in comparison to other Endless modes, to say the least. The whole gameplay heavily depends on whether or not the closest vase to your house happens to contain a Buckethead zombie or, worse, a Gargantuar, and while dealing with them, it's very easy to leave one lane entirely unprotected, allowing other zombies on it to stroll inside of your house with no trouble. And the aforementioned achievement has you to complete fifteen levels in a row.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The reception to the Game of the Year Edition update, which changed the Dancing Zombie's appearance (after official objections from the MJ estate) from a blatant reference to Michael Jackson's Thriller video to a Disco Dan. The new design is at least amusing, and makes for a clever Visual Pun regarding disco being... well, dead. However, some fans who have the old version will never update it for this reason.
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- For some inexplicable reason, there was a strong urge to regard Hypno-shroom as female to the point where even the series' wiki on Fandom based some of their trivia off of it for a period of time.^note Thankfully, this isn't happening again anytime soon since the second game has confirmed him to be a guy.
- In their first appearance, many players mistook Cactus for a guy and Blover for a girl (the latter looks like a flower and has quite a feminine face). Their entries in the Almanac confirm their genders.
Woobie Species: Just about every defensive plant (except for Pumpkin) getting mauled by the hungry horde is pretty heartbreaking, especially since their core element is to take damage.
- The Wall-nut starts off looking more than happy to protect the lives of his planter and comrades, but when the zombies begin to devour him and his smile slowly disappears, you can't help but feel sorry for him.
- A single tear begins to stream down Tall-nut's face when he gets near the end of his health. Apparently the game's composer and a few beta testers would protect Tall-nut with a Pumpkin because the tear made them feel bad for poor Tall-nut, although it's more of a Manly Tear. That's right, one of the most abused defense set-ups in the franchise's history is based on the test audience getting emotional over the Tall-nut's Cruel and Unusual Death. Doubles as a Heartwarming Moments too since this defense method is widely used by new and veteran players alike.
- Garlic starts off looking happy and carefree, but when he's near the end of his health, he gets big tear-filled eyes.

YMMV / Plants vs. Zombies

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