Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted review for PC, Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox

Your thoughts on Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted will all depend on how you look at it.

On the one hand, it’s basically the game that came out 16 years ago with a fresh coat of paint. There are a couple of new features, like local multiplayer, the ability to speed things up (more on that in a moment), and a few harder modes, but essentially, this is the same game you remember from 2009, but with improved graphics. Seeing as the GOTY version of PvZ is currently about a quarter of the price, that makes Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted something of a hard sell.

But at the same time, Plants vs Zombies is one of the best tower defence games ever made. It’s easy to figure out, it’s addictive, it’s funny – really, everything you could want in a game. It had the good fortune to come out right at the beginning of modern mobile gaming, which helped it stand out, but the reason it’s endured so well is because it’s a great game.

Because it’s so fun, it’s awfully easy to get sucked back into it, no matter the price. In fact, one of the additions here – the aforementioned ability to speed up the pace – makes it even more addictive. That little tweak makes the levels go by faster, which in turn allows you to move onto the next level faster, and before you know it you’ve lost an hour or two.

In other words, Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted is still the great game it was all those years ago, just a tiny bit better. Is that enough to justify the higher price? Maybe, maybe not – but it’s one of those games that always feels worth it to me, no matter how many times I’ve played it or how much I’ve paid.

Electronic Arts provided us with a Plants vs. Zombies: Replanted PC code for review purposes.