Audience-Alienating Era: Starting in 2019, newer installments of the franchise would prove increasingly unpopular with fans.
The designs of the newer plants and zombies in Plants vs. Zombies 2's didn't prove as popular with fans as the original game's, namely due to deviating from the original game's artstyle and having animations considered inferior to the original game's. Additionally, the game made a number of other changes that proved unpopular like removing a lot of the gimmick Brain Buster levels and requiring you to get seed packets to unlock the base game's normal world plants.
And after all the time spent waiting for another Garden Warfare game, GW fans instead got Battle for Neighborville, which was generally seen as not as memorable or fun as the Garden Warfare titles, and changed a lot about what made them enjoyable. But despite that, Battle for Neighborville was still generally positively received, and had its own strengths.
Plants vs. Zombies 3 and its betas have proven to be the most controversial installment by far. The initial betas were panned for a controversial new artstyle, gameplay considered dumbed-down from the original game, and initially attempting to mimic Clash Royale for the original version, then later Gardenscapes for the new version following the release of second beta. In response, the developers released a new beta closer in line with the original games which was seen by fans as a step in the right direction albeit with many flaws, some such criticisms including short levels that are either too easy or too hard, an overabundance of tutorials, the introduction of a lives system alongside more mobile game-esque elements, and the removal of Plant Food and the ability to choose your plants, both of which were presented in the 2020 iteration of PvZ3. Making matters worse for fans was how player critique and feedback were seemingly not taken into account in spite of the developers claiming to listen and the revelation that this would be the final version of the game.
Difficulty Spike: For every ten successful plays in "Vasebreaker: Endless" the game starts throwing an extra Gargantuar at you per screen, which puts things into Luck-Based Mission territory. Eventually, it becomes virtually impossible to get any further without cheating.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Even though the January 2024 beta of PvZ3 was received extremely poorly, Tugboat became popular amongst the fans for being a basic Browncoat Zombie with a surprisingly amount of charm and personality. Though the character isn't new due to him already appeared in the comics.
Humanization fanarts of Sunflower almost always draw her as dark-skinned blonde.
Due of their similar appearances, fans like to depict Fume-Shroom, Puff-Shroom, and Scaredy-Shroom as brothers or a Badass Family.
This interpretation is also common among plants that also look like they're related, such as Wall-nut and Tall-nut, the pult plants being brothers, Sunflower and Twin Sunflower (and less commonly Marigold), and Peashooter with Repeater, Snow Pea, Threepeater, Split Pea, and Gatling Pea.
The Shrooms being a Badass Family became semi-official in some of the PvZ Manhua.
Conehead Zombies sometimes have their names simplified as "Coneheads" or "Coneys". Ascended Fanon as of Heroes as a Conehead Zombie unit exists and is simply called "Conehead".
Basic Zombies are called "Basics".
Ducky Tube Zombies is often called "Ducktube".
Buckethead Zombies are called "Buckets" or Buckethead"
Garganturars are shortened to be "Gargs".
Fan-Preferred Couple: Don't expect to go long without seeing Peashooter and Sunflower shipped together. Somewhat justified, since they're contested by the fans for the role of Series Mascot.
China has two exclusive versions of Plants vs. Zombies, several exclusive Plants vs. Zombies spin-offs, and four exclusive areas in Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time. In addition, their version of the second game is vastly different from the international version, completely throwing the Allegedly Free Game reputation of the original out the window in favor of more rigorous skill-oriented gameplay (initially starting by keeping the stars and gates mechanics from older international versions), new mechanics such as leveling, more returning plants, and delivering fresh content such as new plants each month. The latter's additions eventually began to outnumber that of the international version. This is because PopCap Shanghai was unaffected by the merger with EA, allowing them to create other games and an entire alternate version of the second game without restraint, often leading to fans debating whether or not Shanghai has a much better grip on the franchise than EA does.
The franchise has a large following in Spanish (and to a lesser extent, Russian-speaking) countries; videos on YouTube often get high amounts of views.
Memetic Psychopath: Mo from the January 2024 Plants vs. Zombies 3 beta, due to him running over Crazy Dave's garden. Which is used to grow little plants. Naturally, jokes started to pop up that Mo killed the little plants like younglings and that Mo was a psychotic murderer, mostly spurred on by the fanbase of the YouTuberCreeps20.
The Scrappy: Officer Ron from Adventures wasn't very well-liked, due to his Scrappy Mechanic of forcing you to carpool with real-life Facebook friends, which started out as 2 at the least, but said amount would gradually increase as you progressed through the game. If you didn't have enough friends, you would instead have to pay a gradually-increasing amount of gems. Because of this, more than a few would have wanted to see him get eaten by the zombies.
Sequelitis: Unfortunately the overall general consensus on the franchise as a whole. Which is also likely the main reason why most people outside its fandom only really remember the original game. with PvZ2 getting a lot of hate, yet still having its charm, while PvZ3 was seen as the death of the franchise. The spin-offs aren't immune either, with Heroes not getting the same recognition or popularity as Garden Warfare, and Battle for Neighborville being poorly received and seen as a harsh step down for the shooters. The only universally accepted aversion to this has been Garden Warfare 2, which is generally regarded as a hidden gem and Cult Classic within the world of the Hero Shooter genre.
Squick: The health-related Very Special Episodes of the manhuas take Most Writers Are Human a bit too far, implying plants have human biology (including but not limited to bones, digestion, excrement, and reproduction) regardless of species. Not the most pleasant mental image when you're already trying to swallow a lecture about the Zika virus or the COVID-19 Pandemic.
The Chinese New Year trailer for the Chinese exclusive Plants vs. Zombies Online is the saddest official Plants vs. Zombies media. It stars a Buckethead Zombie whose son can't get along with him for being gone so long, and they soon have a good time together. On Chinese New Year night, a long while after the Buckethead Zombie puts his bucket away and leaves, his son grows restless once again for not returning sooner, just when he reads the note his father left him and sees the TV showing zombies seemingly being fired at with firecrackers. He opens up the box containing the bucket his father wore and placed on his son's head when they bonded, and sheds a tear, implying his father died. This will definitely make you regret killing all of those zombies.
The Chinese story The Legend of Heroes reveals Solar Flare has been through a lot. Even before the Herotron incident, she was a rich kid without a proper home life due to her parents working overseas, and gave back to her friends since she really didn't have any other idea of what to do with all her money. All was fine until her friends (a Jalapeno and Lotus Shooter) saw her with a young Green Shadow/Penelopea, and immediately broke off (whether this was due to a broken promise or some other form of jealousy is never specified) until Flare found the motivation from a Torchwood to speak to them again. In the present, Flare is, among other things, subject to a Deadly Prank that stiffs her university out of an extremely valuable grant program, Mistaken for Terrorist by an adult Penelopea and forced to fight her (causing another PR disaster that eventually forces Citronnote The Far Future plant, not the Hero to quit LEAF), and it's implied that Flare and Penelopea's relationship is quite ironically not all sunshine and rainbows no thanks to the amount of times they've been turned against each other. All that, and yet the kid continues fighting with that huge smile of hers.
Ugly Cute: The zombies. Wall-eyed, lopsided, with snaggle teeth and endearingly Narm-y voices. They've been very successfully merchandised as a result of this trope, with several sets of plushies and vinyl figures.
