Winter Melon

The Winter Melon is the upgrade of the Melon-pult. It lobs frozen melons that damage and freeze groups of zombies at once. It costs $10,000 to buy in Crazy Dave's Shop. It is also one of the most useful plants in the game.

Suburban Almanac Entry
Winter Melon 

Winter Melons do heavy damage and slow groups of zombies.

Damage: very heavy

Range: lobbed

Firing Speed: 1/2x



Special: melons damage and freeze nearby enemies on impact

Must be planted on melon-pults

Winter Melon tries to calm his nerves. He hears zombies approach. Will he make it? Will anyone make it?

Cost: 200

Recharge: very slow

Strategy
The Winter Melon is one of the most useful auto-fire plants in the game, but the best plant in terms of instant damage is the Cob Cannon, while the Gloom-shroom is at the top of the list in terms of overall DPS output. The Winter Melon is an upgrade of the Melon-pult, although the attacking rate is half times that of a Peashooter, and the same as a Melon-pult, it can freeze zombies within a half-square radius, and the damage, despite what it says in the almanac, is the same as that of a normal Melon-pult. A single Winter Melon is strong enough to kill a Gargantuar by itself, partly due to the slowing effect. The Melon-pult and Snow Pea combo has a similar effect, but the Snow Pea can only affect one zombie per pea. It's very useful when there are a lot of Shield Zombies, since Lobbed attacks can go over it. The usage of both are very varied in several situations. The Winter Melon is very useful in Survival Mode, especially Survival: Hard or Endless, because there are lots of zombies and the splash damage will be very useful. Literally, it's almost easy to be attracted to its splash damage, heavy damage and freezing effect. And you're not going to be deceived. Also, strong zombies such as Football Zombies or Giga-Gargantuars often appear, so with a few Winter Melons they'll make it much easier to kill them. Winter Melons inflict higher damage than Melon-pults on unarmored zombies, but the splash damage is only half of it. They do 5 damage.



Trivia

 * Strangely when the Winter Melon recharges and has enough Sun, but you don't have any Melon-pults on the lawn, a message will appear saying "Plant a Winter Melon first" instead of "Plant a Melon-pult first" which the latter should be correct.
 * This typo was corrected in the Game of the Year version.
 * Maybe Popcap forgot to type "Plant a Melon-pult first" and accidently typed "Plant a Winter Melon first".
 * It is the one of the two Upgrade Plants that cost less Sun than the plants they upgrade; the other plant is the Gold Magnet.
 * The Winter Melon, the Ice-shroom and the Snow Pea are the only plants with icicles on them, and the only plants capable of slowing zombies, not counting the Kernel-pult, which totally inmobilizes them.
 * These three plants are the only ones whose effects can cause a killed zombie to fall over at a slower rate.
 * If a zombie is in front of a Winter Melon, the zombie will instantly be hit by the Winter Melon's frozen melon like other Catapult Plants and their projectiles.
 * The name "Winter Melon" might be based on the fruit winter melon, or Benincasa hispida.
 * The Winter Melon in real life is informally classified as a vegetable while its downgrade's name, the Melon-pult, comes from a fruit.
 * The Almanac mentioned that the Winter Melon had a projectile with a very heavy damage, but actually, it does the same damage with that of the Melon-pult.
 * This is probably because of its slowing effect on a zombie, giving
 * it more time to attack the zombie.Plants_&_zombies_100.jpg
 * The Winter Melon has one achievement related to it; Melon-y Lane.
 * Melonylane.PNG is the only freezing plant that does heavy damage.
 * For some reason, the Winter Melon does not have eyebrows on its seed packet, similar to the Melon-pult.
 * It is the only plant that can freeze zombies and do more than 1 damage.Winter-Melon.gif
 * It can freeze multiple zombies if the zombies are gathered together but in different lanes.
 * WinterMelon_projectile.png
 * 1/4ths of the Winter Melon's stem seems to be frosted.
 * Winter Melon is a male plant.
 * The Winter Melon, the Melon-pult, the Cherry Bomb and the Starfruit are the only fruits.