Cherry Bomb (PvZ)

Cherry Bomb is an instant-kill plant available in Plants vs. Zombies as well as their Chinese spin-offs

When planted, Cherry Bomb explodes violently in a 3x3 area, dealing 1800 damage per shot to any zombies that happen to be near or caught in the blast. This is enough to instantly kill almost all zombie(s).

About

 * For more information about this character, see Cherry Bomb.

Cherry Bomb is received after completing Level 1-2. They explode in 1.2 seconds in a 3x3 area, deals 90 damage to every enemy in the area and disintegrate the corpses of all defeated zombies. Cherry Bomb can also affect flying Balloon Zombies, submerged Snorkel Zombies, underground Digger Zombies and ladders placed by Ladder Zombies. The explosion is not a fire effect, so it will not defrost frozen zombies, if they survive the attack. It also does not remove the ice trail from a zomboni.

Almanac entry
Cherry Bomb

Cherry Bombs can blow up all zombies in an area. They have a short fuse so plant them near zombies.

Damage: massive Range: all zombies in a medium area Usage: single use, instant

"I wanna explode," says Cherry #1. "No, let's detonate instead!" says his brother, Cherry #2. After intense consultation they agree to explodonate.

Cost: 150

Recharge:  very slow

Strategies
Cherry Bomb is typically used either as a last-ditch defensive effort to eliminate zombies that have gotten past the player's defense, as a bomb to neutralize a large cluster of enemies that might pose trouble to most single-target plants, or as a nuke to quickly deplete the health of dangerous threat, such as Gargantuars and Zombonis. However, Cherry Bomb's long cooldown time means that great care must be taken in using Cherry Bomb to fully utilize their potential, although Imitater can be used to remedy this issue. When using Imitater with the Cherry Bomb, it is important to note the extra fuse time as the Imitater has to transform into a Cherry Bomb before detonating.

In Survival Mode, Cherry Bomb is a useful plant, particularly when the player opted to include a small amount of Cob Cannons into their strategy. As the amount of incoming zombies will rapidly increase over time, Cherry Bomb will easily find their place in clearing large groups of enemies that can otherwise overwhelm other offensive plants, especially when the game starts to send in hordes of Giga-gargantuars in an attempt to break through.

Achievements
The Explodonator achievement (called Demolitioneer on the Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSiWare versions) is awarded when the player neutralizes a minimum of 10 enemies with a single Cherry Bomb. Note that this only applies to normal-sized zombies; smaller zombies from the mini-game, Big Trouble Little Zombie does not count toward this achievement. The achievement can be easily obtained by playing Survival: Endless, due to the great amount of zombies present in later flags.

Trivia

 * If used on a Pole Vaulting Zombie or Imp while they are in the air, the zombies will disappear without an animation, unlike other zombies on the ground. This also happens with other explosive plants such as Jalapeno.
 * It also happens when the player uses a Cherry Bomb and other explosive plants on a headless zombie that fall into the ground before disappearing and popping the tires of a Zomboni and Catapult Zombie by a Spikeweed and Spikerock but use an explosive plant before they explode.
 * This also applies to any aquatic zombies.
 * On the online version, using them on a headless zombie will cause the head to come back for the animation.
 * On the online version, their explosion visual appears bigger, though gameplay wise the radius is exactly the same.
 * If they are planted in a large enough group of zombies, it is possible for them to be eaten before they can explode.
 * In their Almanac entry, it says "explodonate" which is a portmanteau of "explode" and "detonate," which both relate to explosions.