Pretty much the ultimate love letter to any Dragon Ball fan. Featuring a massive cast of characters - even more than any game in the franchise up to this day (except maybe Xenoverse 2 with all its DLC), equally impressive amount of stages and more fanservice than you can shake a stick at.

Unlike a lot of Dragon Ball games this one doesn't just focus on Z and some movies. EVERYTHING from the series at the time is here. Even the original Dragon Ball gets a hefty amount of characters and stages. Even Arale is in this game.

It's not all balanced equally. If you wanted a competitive fighting game, this isn't that. This is a game where characters on the weaker end in the series are equally as weak here. Of course it's set up so you can technically win with anyone (except maybe Mr Satan...) but you'll be doing less damage and taking more playing as Chaozu, or making much slower and easier to counter moves as a giant character.

The lack of focus on any one series does show up in the story mode. In order to fit DB, Z, GT, Movies and even what if battles, stories jump around rapidly. For example we go from Majin Vegeta vs Fat Boo straight to Vegetto vs Boohan. It's a bit weird, and doesn't always make sense with the fights they chose, but the game seemed focused on showing off the sheer amount of scope it has, rather than trying to put the player through the same Raditz-Boo story as most DB games do.

The battles in story mode set themselves apart from regular battles greatly. The team system allows fights like everyone vs Nappa to happen in a single unbroken fight, with characters switching in and out on a button prompt after a certain time has passed, or you've dealt enough damage. Scripted events like beam struggles happen automatically. It's all just great.

Mission 100 provides, as you might expect, 100 event battles, with each enemy team focusing on a theme, like female fighters, Super Saiyans, sword users etc. The last few pages of these are basically boss fights with a single character with buffed up stats. The last of these, SSj4 Gogeta, is the hardest battle in the game and provides a fitting final boss.

Another great example of how much content this game has is the tournaments. The game has 5 different tournament modes, each with its own gimmick based off the series (the regular WT has ring outs, the Cell Games uses a stamina based system, like how Cell intended it to be, and the Yamcha tournament, fitting as it is the most random inclusion due to not being based on a real tournament, makes you use a random character).

My main complaint with the game would probably be the DB collecting. There's only two ways to get dragon balls - either luck out and get one as a prize for winning the tournament via RNG, or play a story mission and break buildings and hope to get one through RNG. So you won't be able to find them during the huge grind through mission 100, and considering you need to summon the dragon many times to get everything in the game, having to grind out getting them through the same story mission over and over is a chore.

Mostly though this game is just an amazing toy for DB fans. It's not balanced, but it has so much content and so many details for DB fans (Saiyan characters that can turn great ape cannot do so unless they are on a night stage, except those that can create an artificial moon like Vegeta), that it remains one of, if not my favourite DB game.

A 3.8 rating average? Wild. I’ve long since abstained from taking aggregated marks when it comes to an art’s overall quality seriously, but you gotta admit it nevertheless functions as an adequate indicator on the public perception. About a month ago, Plants Vs Zombies 1 just had its 14th anniversary, and while the IP has lately trucked along on an irregular trajectory, receiving either discordant discussion and debacle or an overwhelming accordance of negativity, there still beats a pulse of a dedicated cult following throughout the years, be it on social media or, should be plugged into it as much as I am, various content available on YouTube. Make no mistake, though, all of this is well warranted, since after finishing it for the first time after several years has passed, it’s just as good today as it was on release! It’s easy to forget this started off with a humble, cozier origin, before EA and even PopCap had entered the picture, where it sprouted from an idea by one George Fan.

Back in the early 2000s, an early work of his, crafted alongside artist colleague Tysen Henderson, was another cult classic some people may recognize: a Java-initiated web game called Wrath Of The Gopher Insaniquarium. Created as a way to enter the 2002 Independant Games Festival, once Fan had received word it was marked as a finalist - which, as he puts it, made him “literally scream YEAAAAAAAHHH” at a Hawaiin cybercafe, and the game itself had won an award later - he contacted PopCap to see if they would be able to meet with him at that year’s Game Developer’s Conference. Aiding him in publishing it as a downloadable title, they also offered him a position within the company, though he had already settled as a programmer for Blizzard. The latter company did allow him to continue tinkering with Insaniquarium with PopCap, however, and from there he’s gone on record stating he stayed with Blizzard for about two and a half years during this time, fuzzily stating it was from 2002 through 2004 potentially as an AI programmer. This does line up from what I’ve been digging, as he appears in Diablo 3’s Blizzard North Special Thanks section of the credits, and Insaniquarium Deluxe’s release occurred on August 30th, 2004. Now, something I’m most surprised by, after reading the linked article Graham Smith wrote in 2010 for PCGamer and perusing Fan’s 2019 twitter thread for the game’s 10th anniversary, is that when the conception for the PopCap title began, it didn’t even start as the one we know today. No, it was gonna be a sequel, or at least some form of continuation of Insaniquarium’s mechanics for the DS, putting more effort on the battles against the aliens and resource management than ever. Then, a shift occurred; due to being a massive fan of Warcraft 3 at the time and checking out its numerous mods, one about tower defense enveloped onto his mind. Thinking deeper, the idea blossomed into one where you could use plants with silly little faces as a defensive tool, planted onto lanes to hold back any extraterrestrial force. After ruminating that aliens wouldn’t be as standout, there came about a series of sketches, and a particular zombie brought about the transitional phase of the framework entirely. Thanks to the studio providing him with a small yet sufficient team consisting of programmer Tod Semple, artist Rich Werner, composer Laura Shigihara, and supporting writer for the in-game item Suburban Almanac Stephen Notely, coupled with posting about it on the PopCap forums for feedback and improvements now that he was taking on the role as a designer, Plants Vs. Zombies was born… aptly summarized, anyway. I’m cutting some corners in regards to the process due to it running deep, involving several altercations from title ideas to lane and level structures that I suggest looking into on your own free time, such as its Cutting Room Floor entry to name one example.

As far as how the horticulture ties into the gameplay design, aside from Warcraft 3’s TD mods, there’s also the card management a la Magic The Gathering, and shenanigan extravaganza courtesy of a late night viewing of Disney’s Swiss Family Robinson film. You know the jist, protect your brains from the hungry crawlers in each of the five lanes, all while maintaining a cost:converse ratio of Sun either from drops or Sunflowers/Sun Shrooms. A fundamental goal was gradually introducing new plants and gameplay function, while expanding the depth and scope as to how they correlate with one another within the TD mold; plainly, collecting more plants to peruse and dabble with, then branch off into synergy rules. There’s the obvious like “don’t plop a Torchwood on the same row as an Snow Pea since it’ll negate its ice effect” and “Spikeweeds and their upgraded form Spikerocks make a fantastic partner to the Wall-type items”, but there’s a tinge more under the humus: Garlic diverges the walkers to either the top or bottom lane once they smacked upon it, which is a great compliment for Fume-shrooms and especially their upgraded counterpart Gloom-shrooms since their blast radius penetrates in a straight line, or circular in the latter’s case, as well as single-use plants like the Squash and Potato Mine for their low Sun cost being able to make for quick defense during the early game; Scaredy-shroom tends to get overlooked by common players due to their innate quirk of hiding away when the enemy gets too close, but considering its base cost of 25 Sun, as well as being most effective at the backend due to said quirk, it’ll mean saving a chunk of them up for when it should occur and counteracting with, again, a single-use item; Puffshrooms are the most broken item in the game by not only being free of charge, not only doing enough damage to lighten up the adversary for the big boys to handle, but also acting as a brazenly panic shield for either your five brains, or your sun-producing plants, thereby making it a prime candidate as our supreme overlord. Although uh, to avoid doing That Thing where one ostentatiously makes the super-obviously-made-for-family game seem more FORWARD-THINKING and WAY DEEPER than it actually is, I’ll clarify that not only are there rather wrongful steps taken - you are given Cactus, a middling damager who’s one gimmick consists of countering balloon users, right before it becomes near useless by Blover, a utility that does the same thing only slightly cheaper, faster at the recharge, and also lifts the fog temporarily at that - you can and will get by just from using basic strategy and higher-tiered weaponry as you go along, doubly so for the separate Survival mode where I handled it majorly thanks to the fast-spitting Repeater, the aforementioned Shrooms, the erratic spreads of the Starfruit, etc. etc. Not to say I didn’t have fun all throughout nor didn’t at least entertain the idea of making potentially stupid plans, but ya know, just a bit of a blow to the noggin that there isn’t more to it. Still, personal gripe aside, Fan did do a GDC conference detailing his tutorialization helping his mom get through the game, so kudos to a job well done.

Besides, the Adventure stuff is only a small, 6-8 hours worth of slice people remember about the package, about 4-6 additional hours including the separate Survival mode. Nah, people remember this for being an oddball of all sorts of diverging and differing mechanics. All that Wall-nut bowling and conveyor-flowing intermission and endcaps, the two Bejeweled twists, the dumb I Zombie puzzler, the fun and brain-teasing Vasebreaker, its own iteration of Insaniquarium, goddamn Portal combat, let’s just say I wasn’t surprised to learn they had even more minigame ideas that had to be cut from the table, what’s here is already commendable enough as is! There’s also Zen Garden to help it all out, looping the idea of obtaining then spending currency garnered from here and the other modes, then using them to buy gardening refurbishments, as well as card upgrades and special items to help with survival. There’s the Tree of Wisdom, but don’t bother, it’s a SCAM of spending ludicrous amounts of money to feed it, just to obtain the minutiae of cheats and easily inferred hints. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Rich’s wonderful art designs, which are done to such a degree that it’s safe to say they’re somewhat of an icon. I mean, I know I’m not the only guy that saw a legion of the Zombies as an avi back then, or seeing the bobsled team get bamboozled as their vehicle is hilariously destroyed from various means, or chuckling over the unfortunate Newspaper guy throwing a rage after its destroyed, or seeing some oddly Jeff Smith-like homages such as the Gargantuan and The Creature. A lot of the animation was done by Semple, who knew the animation export process in Flash to have it all work out. it seems like Fan was initially weary over this, saying “I didn’t want it to look too much like something cut out of paper like South Park”, but turned around when he saw how impressive the results were. Plus, the music man, I dunno how I forgot how much of an earworm it is. Shigihara has mentioned before how she was influenced by compositions provided by Danny Elfman, various NES Capcom titles among others, and she does a great job characterizing these influences while still maintaining a unique, off-kilter style befitting the game. You’ve got direct throwbacks to those chord progressions like in Ultimate Battle and Brainiac Maniac, esoterically calm pieces such as Cerebrawl, frantic rushes like Loonboon, it’s pretty impeccable how all of these fit the given scenario at hand while not once feeling dull or tuned out. All of this comes together to create one tight package, and that’s not going over what ports or the updates the mobile version had included to spice it up like a VS mode and their own exclusive minigame sets!

I was gonna be like everyone else and bemoan a certain Computerized Flair about ruining the branding and all that, but surprisingly enough I can’t seem to find anything justifying this behavior. There’s an August 2012 blog update from one of Popcap’s co-founder John Vechy talking about laying off about 50 people in three studios - George Fan being one of them - to focus on mobile and F2P stuff which would be around the time PvZ 2 was being finalized, then him and other founders Brien Fiete and Jason Kapalka, along with chief exec Dave Roberts departed at intervals back in 2014. There’s been some speculations as to what exactly had happened to cause Fan to fall out of the studio by then, which catapulted in 2017 by Edmund McMillen carefully sharing a tale regarding Fan’s layoff being caused by friction against EA/Popcap for making PvZ2 a freemium title, employee and producer Allen Murray in a since-deleted tweet saying he wasn’t involved with the PvZ2 team period, and finally Fan himself saying that, while he was laid off, and he was against the idea for where to take PvZ2, he made no effort to link these together, just declaring that they are events that had indeed happened, with nothing elaborated or besmirched since. It’s entirely possible I missed something between the seams, and it’s also very much possible EA’s grasp tightened since the past several years, but as for what I’m believing at the moment… I dunno, sounds like a case of bad management of one or both sides to me. This wouldn’t be the first time fingers were immediately pointed at a more infamous figure in regards to an underdog only for the sentiment to be changed dramatically from corroborated and/or outside sources, and even then plus to reiterate, this was all back in 2012, this wasn’t the only instance of an EA property shambling their good faith around since Canadian studio BioWare was dealing with their own sorts of dirty laundry by then and especially after. Perhaps this shouldn’t be used for a catch-all given structural differences, but I happen to find a 2013 statement Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare, had shared in an interview to be particularly applicable: “The best analogy I use, in a positive way, is EA gives you enough rope to hang yourself.”

To reel back from that exceedingly dour note, I should stress that it’s not like PvZ’s future as a whole has been entirely bleak. Garden Warfare 1 and especially 2 seem to have garner a cult following and positive appraisement, people still recognize the brand even after all this time so it isn’t totally irrelevant and a time capsule of a fad - heck you can still purchase the first game for 5 USD on Steam even, that’s what I did! - and more importantly, good things have turned up for everyone involved. Laura Shigihara, coupled with contributing to music for titles such as To The Moon, Finding Paradise, and Deltarune, made Rakuen back in 2017, a title I’ve seen mentioned a fair bit every now and then and seems to have a spin-off in the works alongside a Switch port and released Mr. Saitou, a spin-off title, back in March, and George Fan, bearing no ill will and content with the direction it’s been heading, not only received a reference by a Magic The Gathering card, he was also able to design one for Magic 2015 as well as work for Wizards Of The Coast proper for a good while. As for game development, he and Rich Werner partnered up again to finalize an idea he’s had for a while, Octogeddon, under a new company they made called All Yes Good and being available back in 2018 with a Switch port following next year. He’s also set to release a new game about checks notes a wombat pooping out platforms in order to clear puzzles… yea that uh, sounds sickeningly interesting. At the time of writing, it’s available to try out as a part of Steam’s June Next Fest demo showcases. If nothing else, it’s important to remember and note that, regardless of anything and everything that’s happened since then, it doesn’t change how simple yet addictive the first Plants Vs Zombies title turned out, along with the new additions the abundant amount of ports it had received brought onto the table. Here’s to another 14 years of botanic mayhem.