A Deep Dive Into The Chinese PVZ Games...

As a Chinese, I'm amazed that foreigners are introducing these versions and are interested. But these versions are actually rubbish. If you have played in China, you will know that the in-game purchases and advertisements are more disgusting than EA!

The chinese PVZ2 is not just unpolished, most of the plants have virtually no use or are outclassed by every other plant. The ENT plant(i think it's the name) is able to hold 7-8 zombies without being eaten, basically outclassinf almost every defense plant in the game. Did I mention it does damage too?

As a Chinese person, I used to grind the hell out of PvZ all stars. Its really polished for a mobile and chinese game, including the fact that there wasn’t an onslaught of ads and micro-transactions. Its fun, replayable, and is on par with early-mid clash of clans. I highly recommend it for anyone who can play it

Unrelated topic here. Journey to the West is actually the most, if not 2nd most, well-known Chinese fiction in the history. There's like at least one movie adaption of it every year. It even has made influences across the entire East Asia. For example, Dragon Ball, a well-known Japanese manga/anime series, was actually initially inspired by Journey to the West.

There's a youtuber called "Flag Zombie" who goes in depth on how the Chinese plants and zombies works, I recommend them!

Also, interesting to note that some China-exclusive plants like Carrotilery or Venus Fly Trap appeared in PvZ Heroes. During that time it was really exciting seeing these plants outside of China.

PvZ was so popular in China that an incredibly famous singer/songwriter got partnered to make a music video translating “Zombies on your lawn” from the first game. It’s probably still somewhere on Youtube, and if I find it I’ll be sure to post it.

Something to clarify: The Chinese version of Pvz2 1.0 version was released in Android because someone manage to port de iOS version. So Popcap decided to make PopCap Shanghai to manage the game in China. Then adding custom content like its leveling system. About that, that leveling system came up first in some of the first versions of the game (and started screwing with the audio so you can only hear a part of Ancient Egypt final wave). Before 1.8.0., the game used the old map system of Pvz2 (the one which used the star gates and star/key collecting system) (idk why but they manage to break the main code so you don't have limits to see around the map, reaching a point so you go beyond it). In the 1.8.0 the game changed forever. The map system changed to the lineal one, but the star system stayed.

Great video. Im actually surprised that you included actual gameplay from these games. For literal years, the only thing i knew about these games were the same few screenshot

one of the things i feel like people dont mention all that often either with pvz2c is that it has its own custom level creator in game that doesnt require messing with game files to work and lets you play other peoples custom levels that they built from whoever else plays the game

So this was the project? Im hyped, the chinese versions have always interested me and having you give them a deep dive its great.

China loves PvZ so much they have educational comics covering a lot of subjects using PvZ characters, gag comics, and more All Stars even had a Taiwanese singer do a cover of Zombies on Your Lawn and added him to the game as a boss zombie

Nowadays everything that gets added to the chinese PVZ2 is unbalanced, unfinished, or in some cases both. Like, look at the "chinese content overanalyzed" series by Flag Zombie and you'll see that every plant is unfinished in some way. Several zombies and plants can break the game off of simple interactions the devs werent expecting (for example hypnotizing any exclusive zombie) Hell, some of the exclusive plants (Icy Currant or the Rotten Red) give me the impression that a lot of the content that is added to that version is scrapped concept art or even cancelled prototypes made for the international version that they tried to put together using whatever programming skills they have. A small correction to the leveling section: It's not a rework of the international version, it came BEFORE it. And it's also 10x grindier and unbalanced; every level gives the plant 50% increased damage and then the level 4 essentially makes the plant boosted, because it allows it to have its plant food effect when you plant it. From what i hear leveling up a plant is also an absolute nightmare, especially if you want to get it up to level 5. And finally, you see those returning plants like Cattail, Cob Cannon or Gatling Pea? Yeah, from what i've heard the only way to get them is by spinning a roulette. And the roulette only gives you puzzle pieces for the plant, you need to win it several times. And spinning the roulette costs 100 gems. And there is a low chance of even getting it and not some other garbage.

Thanks for mentioning me! I intend on eventually doing better versions of the tutorials since they were made at a time where I didn't have any screen recording software.

Here's someone who played pvz online over the span of 2 years I still have incredibly fond memories of that game, it was way more fun than any other pvz game I've ever played. Every mode was fun, many different plants, mechanics and unique gimmicks to maps and zombies. And the turn based was a lot of fun despite what it looked like in the footage. Setting up your team correctly with the correct placement, making each zombie and plant target certain targets deliberately and to have the ultimates go off at the correct time. Especially when analyzing fights in order to come up with better strategies for certain stages, it made my younger self really feel like a strategist (sadly it usually turned into a slaughter with the same few plants cuz they were just the strongest of all i owned. I believe it was due to leveling that they were just better than anything else i had. And collecting plants for synergy was incredibly difficult) Leveling system, garden, visible health bars for both zombies and plants make this game stand out to me as well as the competition with other players. Garden, shops, pets, many different gameplay options made this game never go stale for me. I was heartbroken when one day i couldn't find the game anymore and only today did i learn that it was discontinued... The memory of it has long become hazy but it still pains me to never be able to play it again in order to experience the joy i did as a child

Fun fact: PvZ2 in China is so popular that semi-official PvZ2 comics were made in China. EA claims they arent official, but the comics were approved by the PRC's government. Some comics are educational and teach kids about certain topics or facts about specific things, with some containing antropomorphic animals that interact with the plants (personally I never picked up any of those types with the anthro animals, cause i found them wrong)

I honestly think it would be interesting to see the All-Stars leveling/evolution system be incorporated into conventional pvz gameplay in some way. It would be pretty cool to do stuff like peashooter -> repeater -> gatling pea in a normal pvz game, and they could get pretty creative with what the plants evolve into, maybe even having some plants evolve into existing ones with similar abilities.

i’m so glad you covered Great wall and endless edition, they’re so underrated

If they can make Heroes and GWs officially accessible in Mainland China (without VPNs), who knows what good stuff they could add to those games, especially since the International is pretty inactive at this point. Also, all of these games just couldn't chill out with the ads, man. And the painfully slow progression for F2Players is just another criticism that many PvZ fans tend to omit. Great vid btw!

Suggestion for a possible next video:You could talk about the Chinese version of PvZ 3, there are several things to be explored in the game Great video!