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Plants vs Zombies is a game that I have been playing since my childhood, and when I found out that EA and PopCap were doing a remake, I was surprised. I’m going to be honest here, I am very torn on this game. There are things that I like, but also some things that just disappoint me. I have been playing PvZ ever since I was little, on my Nintendo DS. This game is pretty much my childhood, but I was very skeptical.

So, at a base level, PvZR is a fine game, it’s fun, and it has that PvZ charm that makes it fun. Also, some of the plants don’t cost real-world money, so when you purchase the game, everything is there, well, mostly. Now, one of the main controversies for this game was the price, mind you, 29.99 CAD is not a whole lot of money, but PvZ has historically been priced around five to ten dollars. The DS version was around a similar price to the remaster. Now, I had the physical version of the game, so I have no idea if there is anything else I am missing when it comes to the pricing history. I found the game in my local Walmart.

Now I have played the GOTY edition, and that game is actually still on Steam, priced at 4.99 CAD. While I have played that version of the game, I haven’t actually made an in-depth review of that game.

PvZ is a tower defense game where you defend your lawn from zombies, with each plant costing a certain amount of sun. Each plant you get has a specific use and cost to them; they also have a recharge time, so you can’t spam them. You mainly get five rows, but you do have six once you get into the pool levels. Each row has tiles where you can put plants down, and sometimes you may need a lily pad for pool levels and flower pots for the roof levels.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3609298428
When you boil it down to it, PvZ is a very easy and simple game to understand, and it’s nothing too hard, so this game is pretty casual on a surface level. There are minigames you can play; they are back, however, a few from the DS version never made it in. Which is one of the few cuts that the game had. Zombatar is also not in this version, which lets you make your very own custom zombie, and it would show up on each wave of zombies as the flag zombie.

Now, to say there is nothing new to the game would be a complete misrepresentation, as the game has introduced a few new features. You, of course, have the typical features like adventure mode and the Zen Garden that the game offers. However, it also has a new hard mode called Rest In Peace Mode (RIPM). RIPM is a new game plus, but all the lawn mowers are removed except for one, and you only have one chance to beat the game. If you die, you have to redo the entire game, and if you are looking for a more challenging PvZ without playing adventure mode, this is a fine edition, I suppose.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3609305181
I do like that some plants that I never really considered using are useful, but that’s because this game actually just likes to spam the most problematic zombies in the game. As I have been playing this game for years, I have not seen this many Catapult, Balloon, or even Gargantua zombies. And taking out some of these requires you to use certain plants, which is fine for something like Catilpluts, but dealing with four or five Gargantuas, it’s a little tough to handle. Especially when you have to keep in mind that it takes like two explosives, or Squashes, to just kill one of them.

There are also rainy days; these are twelve daytime levels where there is the occasional rain, where the sun flowers fall asleep, and the sun doesn’t fall. Vasebreaker, I Zombie, and Survival Endless are still here; however, they completely destroyed survival mode. While the levels for all five worlds are there for normal and hard, Endless has been killed. Instead of there being survival endless for each stage, there is only endless for pool daytime, that’s it. They gave us one map to farm money, but no endless day/night for the front, fog, and roof levels.

There are also 12 different cut minigames that the devs gave to us to play; they are still a fun inclusion. There is multiplayer, so that mode from the 360/PS3 versions is there. I never played those versions of the game, but the entire game feels and looks like it’s from those versions.

PopCap and EA have decided to use AI upscaling, and while I don’t mind this fully, the original artists were never created or even asked to work on the game. The art, up close for the plants, is blurry and of low quality. When up close, the split pea has one of its eyes closed on the repeater.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3609296700
The game as a whole works fine. I did get one crash and a black screen, but that was really it. There is a bug in Fog survival, where the fog will cover up the screen when you are preparing your plants for that wave. In other words, you need to use Blover to pretty much take care of the fog. Newspaper zombies also have a visual bug where their jaw disappears when dropping their newspaper, if they die during the animation.

I am aware that the game got a patch recently, so these issues could be fixed. I am just not playing the game anymore at the time of writing this review.

PvZR is an ok remaster. There are worse ones out there, like the Warhammer 40K Space Marine 1 remaster, but I won’t deny that this remaster is lazy. I can only really recommend this game to die-hard fans of PvZ or for people like me, who were nostalgic for the original game. However, if you are new to the series, I still don’t recommend this game, as the original is still on Steam for 4.99 CAD and has more content than this version.

In other words, there really isn’t a reason to pick this game up over the original, making this a complete waste of money.

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You know, at first glance, a game like Kill The Crows wouldn’t really be a game that I would go out and play. Simply because arena-based games like these don't really appeal to me because of their simple gameplay. However, Kill The Crows amazed me with its simple but challenging gameplay, nice pixel art style, and its sound design, especially on the guns.

Pros

• Fun gameplay where you die in one hit
  
• Many different weapons and passives to choose from
  
• Multiple different ways for you to increase the difficulty for a more challenging run
  
• Nice pixel art style

Cons

• Gameplay can get repetitive after some time

The story starts out in this town that is overrun by these people wearing crow masks. Ten years ago, these cults came to this village, the sheriff was murdered, and the townsfolk were all gathered for a dark ritual. No one from the village survived, except for one. Isabelle is a cute/badass gunslinger that only wants to die, nothing more, nothing less.

The story for Kill The Crows is rather straightforward and is not too deep, and that is fine. As you unlock more weapons, you will find more and more background on the town and what happened in the past.

Kill the Crows is an arena-based game, where you will die in one hit; however, so will your enemies. There are 12 different enemies that you will come across; some of them are able to even hit your enemies or affect them in other unique ways. After you get 100 kills, you will get to fight a boss, where they have their own gimmicks that make them different from each other. You may end up hating certain enemies like snipers and bombers who can ruin your run in very interesting ways.

There are different weapons you can unlock that will spice up the gameplay. My personal favorite weapon, the Pocket Canon. This revolver has piercing shots and can kill multiple enemies (max three). You also have access to passives; you can equip two at a time; however, you do have to unlock them, and you start off with none equipped.

Then you have your Showdowns, these are your special moves that can help you when you are in a bind. Some Showdowns have a max target that they can have, while a few others have an unlimited number of targets that they can kill. You do start off with one Showdown unlocked, but you can unlock more as you complete certain challenges. They also reveal more lore to the game and some background info on the town that Issablle lived in.
There are ways to increase the difficulty of the game. You can make certain enemies more aggressive or have them spawn sooner than usual. Once you unlock the final revolver, which is called Issablle’s Revolver, the actual story for the game begins. You don’t need to turn these difficulty sliders on; they are just there to give the player an extra challenge if needed.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3581396202
The only issue that Kill The Crows suffers from is that once you unlock everything and such, there isn’t really any replay value to be had. Of course, for a game like this, it’s fine, as I feel that this game was to fill in a fun feeling that Vampire Survivors has. It's a game that you can just pick up, play, and have fun with.

The pixel art style that Kill The Crows has a very nice pixel art style to it that I love; it brings on the feels of the Wild West. I tested the game on an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB, and 16 GB of RAM, and I had no issues while playing.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3581405388
Kill The Crows is a fun, fast-paced, arena shooter that I do recommend, whether it be at full price or on sale. If you are looking for a casual game that has a little challenge to it, then Kill The Crows will be the game you are looking for. If you don’t like being punished for making a single mistake, then this won’t really be the game you are looking for.

Their voices weren't only soft whispers at Skyknighter's Sleepless Nights , apparently, they have some good quality reviews too