Plants vs. Zombies was my absolute favorite childhood video game. When I saw anyone who wanted to talk about anything, I would only talk about that game. My Wii username was “sunflower123”, and I called my favorite Mii “sunflower”. When I was 12, I planted flowers in my community with an all-adult volunteer group because I wanted to defend my neighborhood against zombies. Even now, when I see one of my friends whip out their phone and play PvZ, I jump up with excitement and my eyes get a little misty with nostalgia.
But why was this little indie game (at the time) so special to me? It was just a regular old tower defense game, and I thought Bloons Tower Defense had far better gameplay. The art was whimsical, but a bit simplistic at times. The level design, mechanics and difficulty were fine, but not stellar. So what made the difference? It was the end credits song, “Zombies on Your Lawn”.
When you complete PvZ ‘s 50-level grind and finally beat the game, you see a sunflower singing “Zombies on Your Lawn”. This song, for lack of a better word, is a bop. From the second I heard it, I was addicted. I loved the sunflower’s cute, soothing voice, the simple but sweet melody, and the dance (although this “dance” basically consisted of swinging your body from side to side). Just like every hit song on the Billboard Hot 100, it was catchy and danceable. And it made me fall in love with the entire game.
The “Zombies on Your Lawn” Chronicles
To fuel my end-credits-song addiction, I basically dedicated my whole PvZ game to sunflowers. There was this feature in the game called the “Zen Garden”, where you could grow and keep plants (like in the image below). I farmed the living daylights out of this garden, in hopes of getting a sunflower of my own. When I finally got a sunflower, I was horrified when it started swaying the opposite way from the end credits sunflower!
I loved planting as many sunflowers as possible. Whenever I played a level, I would always plant at least three rows of sunflowers. When the zombies ate my sunflowers, I would gasp in horror. My brother liked to randomly plant sunflowers next to the zombies, for the zombies to eat. I thought he was a monster. Many sunflowers swaying and dancing to the tune of “Zombies on Your Lawn” was better than one.
And just to remind you again, “Zombies on Your Lawn” made me change my Wii username to “sunflower123” and re-name my favourite Mii to “sunflower”…
But Then, Tragedy Struck…
A few weeks ago, my friend texted me: “They removed the end credits song from Plants vs. Zombies!”
I was devastated. This song was the entire reason why the game appealed so much to me. It was basically my entire childhood! I couldn’t confirm it, but I knew in my heart that “Zombies on Your Lawn” raised an entire generation. It was an exceptional end credits sequence-no, it was an icon. When the game lost the song, it lost a huge part of its appeal.
When EA bought Plants vs. Zombies, the PvZ franchise went down an unpleasant trajectory. Plants vs. Zombies 2 was convoluted, unappealing, and full of microtransactions. But no matter what happened with the franchise as a whole, I thought that the original Plants vs. Zombies game would remain unharmed. But now, the game feels like it has a huge, gaping void where “Zombies on Your Lawn” used to be. It just feels wrong that EA would remove the most iconic part of PvZ.
But I also felt pretty special when my friend broke the bad news to me. The way I saw it, I was in a sort of exclusive group. I was one of the lucky kids to play Plants Vs. Zombies when it first came out, to grow up singing and swaying, and to see “Zombies on Your Lawn” as the icon it deserved to be.
Featured Image created by me on Adobe Photoshop, using screenshots from this video