Deadplants: Replay/Chapter 2: Hills

From the original game, the third level was the players backyard pool, but however, this new level ‘Hills’ was a forest-like area with a level-select screen akin to New Super Mario Bros. My player being a Peashooter, and a odd, nature-esk theme playing alongside it... Okay, this totally isn’t like the original, at ALL. The sprite change is so sudden, the quality of them being a mix of decent to homebrewed looking,or something like that, either way I’m pretty sure the copy of PvZ I have is most likely some sort of strange, advanced romhack or something, a complete change from the original game but honestly, I was down to give it a try. I looked back at the start point where my plant, Peashooter, was standing. And moved him upwards.

From there I found out I could scroll the camera’s view higher to see the rest of the level, seeing ahead levels with ‘plants’ on them, at least I thought they were. The woods music changed to something more bombastic? A mix of beautiful ‘tips’ and drums with violin, it was pretty. Whoever made this romhack had a thing for music better than art I can tell. For this world, it has eight levels and three each have ‘plants’ standing next to it, I assumed off the bat they were boss fights or something. The ninth level here had a big “EXIT” bubble next to it, pretty sure that means beating that level takes me to any other world this romhack had made. As for those weird boss plants, the left looked like a clamshell thing with eyes seen inside, the right was similar to the Chomper, but more alien, while the middle beyond the exit, is a weird looking fat plant with a Peashooter-esk head.

I picked the first level, quickly seeing that the levels actually had names to them! “Grassland”, “Forest”, “River”, “Top on the trees”, and “Mountains”. Each level had a theme it seemed and I was honestly excited to see what they were, without hesitation I quickly headed to the first level here, Grassland. The grassland level was exactly how I pictured it, a side scroller with zombies coming from the left, and my plant able to move and shoot to defend themselves. This weird hack had some similarities to Super Mario Bros and other games like that, I could quickly tell. The level of this has a grass field with brushes in the background, though there are no trees here, guessing it’s an empty plain. The music for this is the same where you’re on the day levels, which was really fitting seeing I was going left to right zombies coming at me awaiting my Peashooter to blast them dead in the face! The controls were a lot like Garden Warfare, being able to move freely, shoot bullets, and use special abilities. I should explain.

Playing as one of the plants, to move; press arrows of left and right. To jump, press space as some of the plants can jump quite high or a bit slow. To attack, press E and the plant you’ll play as, they’ll reveal attacks. Even if this was a hack, it is quite good for this game. For that explanation, let’s continue on. As when I was going on with the level and attacking those undead men, it felt loads of fun playing this hack, but damn did the zombies come quite fast. Some of those assholes are coming from the left side and the right side of the screen at random! I had to fight and attack all of them as they slowly chipped at my plants health with little to no mercy. There were a lot of them, but despite their attacks I was able to fend myself. But even then they kept coming and coming and coming. Like holy hell, I had to get outta there as fast as possible! This was just the first level and they really amped up the difficulty. I was a little worried about what was to come next, but I put that beside me and just tried to enjoy the game. I found out I was able to run by pressing and holding the arrows with the shift bar, which made me fast enough to get away from the zombies as they slowly made their way to me. Luckily, I was fast enough to beat them off screen. God damn, that was too damn close to be killed. And I wasn’t planning to die soon, I just kept running. However I noticed something ahead when I was running and stopped. It is with flower pots and...A statue of a Sunflower. Some might think it’s too weird and too unoriginal to say from a surprise encounter. But the sprites of the statue are quite detailed and pretty good looking for a DS rom hack being played on an emulator.

As I get closer to the statue and flower pots, a bar pops out and shows the selected plants to spawn, which is also similar to the warfare game; it was a pretty pleasant surprise. The only spawnable plants in the bar are:


 * Peashooters
 * Repeaters
 * Marigolds
 * Scaredyshrooms (hate that little coward)
 * Fumeshrooms
 * Goopshrooms (an alteration of the original one)
 * Iceshrooms
 * Doomshrooms (my favorite shroom along with Ice)
 * Snow peas
 * and Gating peas.

I couldn’t proceed forward unless I messed with these Garden Warfare mechanics, so deciding to play into the game's mechanics, I planted two plants in the respective pots: a Goopshroom and a Repeater. I guess the game wanted me to protect the sunflower statue. I noticed when I planted the plants, it didn’t cost me anything. Didn’t even loose a seed or anything when I checked back at that plant menu. Guessing it didn’t really cost anything since there’s nothing here to give. I shouldn’t complain, I was able to easily plant away. After that, I sat and waited to see if anything else would’ve happened. Game didn’t give me a sign to continue or go back so I just walked around, assuming I had to wait for the zombies to come. And it looks like I was right. I heard the zombie groans, and got into position. I expected the typical “The zombies are coming.” from the game, ready to fight undead ass.

But instead of that quote, they said differently, it sounded deeper than usual, and it caught me off guard with how loud it was.

“Found you.” In seconds, they suddenly come running towards me faster than usual, and started to fight up my plants quite damn fast, looks like the zombies are becoming serious enemies now, I have to kill all of them as fast as possible, the zombies on the right kill a Goopshroom while I was too busy trying to deal with the ones on my left. I remember muttering out a “Fuck.” when I saw them get closer, and had to turn my attention to them before they could attack.

After all the last remaining zombies appeared and all remaining ones died, I managed to win with the game finally letting me progress. It felt like a freaking hour how long I had to hold off, and I remember actually saying something aloud before leaving the level.

''“Yes! Is that all you got, undead fools? You have no match for me!”'' Since then, I kept on going with my plant and I beat the grass plains level. I took a short break to grab a drink and wipe some sweat off my forehead, happy that I beat such a challenging level. I really liked this hack version, whoever made it put a lot of effort into making this stand out. It’s kinda pathetic that people were scared of this? This supposive deadplants game? Man. Wusses. And from there, slightly hoping the next level would go easy from this. I entered the forest level. The forest level was deep forest, with little light. I’ve never really been so deep in such a woodland grown place before, let alone experiencing it through the eyes of this little playable plant. I quickly noticed that Peashooter had all their HP back after I beat the last level. Quite lucky that I didn’t go in with just a smidge of what the zombies gave me. Anyway, as I was saying, the level is a deep forest with many trees and so in the background like, pfft, spooky huh? Also the music was very different, it sounded like some type of 5 second nature beat and some theme of...Not sure actually, I can’t make out of it, but it sounded like it is calm or hippity vocal.

I explored for a bit, thinking that this place was pretty much just an empty forest. Not a very eventful level, but thankfully one that was an easy stroll. But that was till I saw something that caught me aback somewhat, something I swear I didn’t see at all in both the original PvZ or anything else before or after it had... These strange, tall rose-headed creatures. I literally stood back in shock, what the HECK was that? Some deer-like or...I have no idea about those things. None of those weren’t from the original, that I know. I tried to attack them but they only ran away. Turns out they were harmless; which was fine by me, if they weren't trying to kill me then they didn't really matter anyway. I decided to follow them though, thinking they’d take me right to the end of the level.

As I was following them and staying with them as close as possible, all of a sudden some plant or shroom creatures launched out of nowhere and quickly killed one of the rose deer creatures, the others skittering away quickly as the other strange shroom creatures started to fire at me too! Like holy fuck!!! The shroom predators just ripped off the head and suddenly devoured the body. This must’ve been programmed in even because it caught me off guard. Had no other choice than to fight back as the rose-headed deer escaped. Teach those fuckers a lesson for attacking innocent life! I went through a few waves of this new enemy type, eventually stumbling across creatures that latched to trees that didn’t do anything but leap up and down. But besides that they were harmless. Luckily, I was able to beat the short level and get out with half of my health.

I saw once I got back to the level select menu, it gave me a prompt to switch my characters up. I decided to swap and play Sunflower to see what her attacks will look like comprare to the main plant of the game, and from there I entered the third level, the river level. The river level was like the grassland level except now that instead of bushes and shrubbery, there were some mountains and few trees in the background, however this level seems to not have any music, but the sounds are still there, ambience of birds and wind in the background. I had a feeling this place would be more unique than the others.

Other than that however, the level felt empty, nothing for miles and miles of walking… had a feeling this would be an ongoing pattern with these levels, until I spotted something that rose and eyebrow. Like exactly in the name, there was a river blocking my way forward. Didn’t expect it to be an actual body of water, more so just patches of water to leap over. I took a guess I had to go forward into the water to progress, so I did just that. I’d like to note that the water graphics in this game are a lot different from the ones in the actual pool levels. A little strange they didn’t reuse assets but hey I ain’t one to complain, if they wanted originality, they wanted originality. After I jumped into the water, the music started to play, some nice underwater melody akin to one of Popcap’s other games, I couldn’t recall the name but it was the one with the fish you fed. The water controls were how I expected them, being able to swim freely, sometimes being able to jump out of the water to avoid enemies and attacks, fun. While swimming through the water, some fish-esk creatures started to float after me, angrily getting closer and homing forward at me. Luckily they had Sunflower’s solar beam in this game so I could easily defend myself from the wild sea plants, shooting them with some nice, yellow pellets. I at least thought they were plants, they had peashooter mouths. Well, holy bowly of hotdogs! There were more of them, so many came in so many waves, I either had to dodge or kill them. Luckily holding E makes it so you shoot beams more than bullets, so I easily was able to fly through the level really quickly. I expected the level to start with being on the trees but instead I was on these floating blocks akin to Super Mario Bros. The name of the level states that it's on the top of the trees, which I don’t see at all; so it was really a bummer. The music was jazzy though, so I couldn’t completely complain about it.

But like I said, this level sucked a lot, it only had two enemies and they were completely a hassle to go through. First being this long-plant with a dark-colored head that bites you and blocks you away, you’ll have to shoot at it to progress. But while you tried to do that a floating mint-looking plant shot small projectiles at you, flapping around quickly and just being a damn menace. I had to stay on my toes and somehow I was lucky enough not to get hit by it. By luck I was able to screencap them without getting even a graze too. I am never going back to this level again. One more level before the bosses, the mountain level. I chose Peashooter again because I noticed that Peashooter has a higher damage attack than sunflower, while Sunflower was quicker instead of stronger. And after making my selection, I delve right into the mountains. Damn. The mountain level felt so...Beautiful, in a weird way. So basically, this level was a  snowy tundra of dead tree’s spread about, with snow falling from the sky above you, felt like a real life scene. The music played a pretty chill ambient with relaxing vocalizations, playing the sound of a flute in a minute and then later with a very soft piano, with only the vocalization playing very peacefully and powerfully; It felt...Sad, like a funeral.

But as I progressed through the level's landscape, I actually saw what looked like those asshole mushrooms from before, I was ready to fight back, expecting it to lunge at me! But...It didn’t, it didn’t move at all... It was dead, Frozen to death, it’s eyes pitch black like they were rotting out.

I felt a chill as I progressed on with the rest of the level. As I kept going through the snowy mountain I started to come acrossing more bodies of those shroom predators, actual frozen corpses scattered across the landscape. It...It honestly caught me off guard, and made me feel unsafe.

About five to seven minutes later, going through the endless loop of dead bodies, I encountered what I think was a ground sloth but with a peashooter head, it was huge, slow, and I think it was eating at the dead bodies when I first saw it... I was expecting it to attack me, but the creature simply just walked past as if it's just a gentle giant. Seeing it ignored me, I decided to ignore it as well. The level ended rather slowly, giving me an uneasy feeling. I still sometimes remember it to this day, I shook it off and headed to the bosses. First boss was that clamshell looking fella, I was eager to get a good look at it up close.

Well, once I entered the level, a screen popped up showing a VS. card. Clamy was its name, huh? Well, guess it’s time to see how Clamy fights. The battleback was akin to the mountains except it ain’t snowing. The theme for this little shell bastard was some electric pop song, pretty funky specially with drums beating in three or five seconds and clapping noises that sounded like an actual clamshells. The boss himself was a fuckin’ trick to fight but once I learned it, he was easy peasy. Clamy likes to hide away in his shell to prevent damage from getting to him, despite how he still takes some while in it. He jumps around now and then to try to ground pound you which can easily be dodged if you're fast enough. The little bastard also has a lunge attack, he jumps to the far end of the stage and then tries to leap right at you, it takes a CHUNK of health when he does this, and it’s really hard to dodge because of how quick it is. God damn, this shell was tough. Eventually he started to shoot pellets of his own once his health went halfway, getting more slower which was good for me because I could pelt him with peas when he was close enough. Clamy also changed out his leap attack for a huge beam attack, which was easy to dodge but took a shit ton of damage if you were unlucky to get hit by it. He only did this when he was at real low health, luckily I was able to beat him before he could try it on me again.

After Clamy met his maker, it was time to face the next one, Leafmper. Leafmper’s design was similar to the overworld sprite, what looked to be some alien chomper with a long stem body and shell-like mouth. Bloody god he was a tought fight. Even though I didn’t get screenshots of it he’d shoot acid bullets at me and would eventually try to do short lunge jumps to bite at you, his bite attack didn’t do much compatring to his acid attack but god was it something painful to dodge. Leafmper’s theme was heavily techno with few clicking beats in five seconds along with other background sound that I can make out to be a beeping rhythm that loops for like a minute. After I managed to somehow survive that attack, I quickly moved my character to the final boss, the big hulking one named Garsso. Garsso was this big, muddy orange fat fuck that felt like fighting a damn tank. He had twice the health than the other bosses but in return had slow movement, and his attacks hit like a damn brick. His theme was a heavy metal mix of loud bassing that sounded like a loud banging to the wall in a few seconds, along sounding like a very fast pop punking guitar; needless to say, it was fitting. Garsso’s attacks were simple, he shot a barrage of five bullets per minute and would slug back and forth to fire another, like rapid fire with a break in between. I had to move my plant around a lot to avoid his shooting. You’d expect this guy to not be able to jump, but boy was I wrong. If you get too far from him he’ll literally rocket into the sky and come down HARD like a rock. I never got hit by it luckily but I bet it would’ve hurt hard. I had to be extremely careful with him because if I missed one inch of dodging I would be riddled with bullets. At least though, I finally killed that fat son of a bitch as with only half a health bar left. The sound it made when dying was so satisfactory, letting out this gurgled roar sound as it evaporated into nothing. Never bothered to question it since none of the other bosses to my memory made sounds when they died. I was relieved as I completed all the levels, and was making my way to the exit level until as soon as I moved my guy up, it started to look different. The music quickly faded out, everything felt silent and cold when I stumbled upon it. The icon was of some sort of creature with big, black eyes with white irises. It floated there giving me a chill vibe, like I’ve felt like I’ve been in a scenario like this before. Must just be me remembering things differently, right? Either way, there is nothing else to do than to exit the level... The exit level looked empty, quiet, no sight of anything whatsoever, The level played out a very eerie, discorting mix of an ambient that I can’t make out of, sounded like a broken record grinded into a midi format. And the background has a very dark grayish sky, with blackish hills behind and the ground looked dead. I walked around for a bit, thinking it might lead into a cutscene or something...

I walked slowly, wanting to add a bit of a cinematic feel to it, until I hit shift and ran as fast as I could, because once I heard what I could best muster a loud, distorted screech of anger...IT appeared... Oh my  fuck is this?! I’ve seen almost all the new and old plants from all versions of PvZ, and I can tell you now THIS ain’t one of them. Out of all of the other plants and new weird creatures I found in this romhack too, this must’ve been the creature that was on the new exit bubble, a big, pot-plant looking beast with a single hand stretching out for me as if it was trying to eat me. I knew what to do, and I did it as fast as I could. Holding shift to run as fast as possible couldn’t stop this thing from trying to catch up, once it came off screen it ran back into it faster and growling. The plant creature moves so fucking FAST I was scared to know what would’ve happened if I touched it, the vision of what might happen still crosses my mind, thinking about the gross possibilities of such a dangerous monster!

I luckily reached the end of the level, the creature slowing down and stopping, the level fading to black, I took a second to sit back and let out a few breaths. I was freaking tired out from that experience. Whatever insane hackers made this game, I salute them because they’re giving me a run for my money. I got up to get a drink and something to eat, coming back to see the next level was awaiting for me.

I knew I would be in for a much longer night after reading the world's name to myself, and clicking the mouse to continue.