Name: Kernel-pult
Debut: Plants vs. Zombies
Here we have my favorite plant of the original Plants vs. Zombies, the humble Kernel-pult! Out of my favorite PvZ plants, this one feels by far the most Classic. It doesn't fly, it doesn't have otherworldy abilities, and it's not a dang fungus. It's a corn cob that lobs corn kernels. Even the lobbing feels sort of mundane! Such a simple way to get a projectile somewhere else. It feels less fantastical than pods bursting and releasing seeds, and that one happens in real life! However, it is important to mention that Kernel-pult is not vegan.
Kernel-Pult typically lobs kernels that do a little bit of damage, just as much as a pea, and it attacks at half the rate of a Peashooter. It makes up for this with Butter! It has a 25% chance to lob a pat of butter instead. This is because butter is good on corn, and I guess as a result of that, the universal concepts of Corn and Butter are intertwined enough that Kernel-pult can tap into both.
Butter does twice as much damage as a kernel, but better than that, it freezes whatever zombie it hits in place for a bit! I don't know why it does that. I can't think of any reason why butter would, thematically, freeze something. But it makes Kernel-pult happy, so you'd better deal with it! Kernel-pult is thusly good as a support attacker who can slow down the approach of zombies, allowing stronger plants to damage them more. OR, you could choose Funny over Reliable, and do what I do! Nothing against Cabbage-pult, but I love Kernel-pult so much, I like to use it as my primary attacker! Good luck, me!
Butter would prove to be a very popular game mechanic, being applied to many non-corn plants in the future, purely based on wordplay. Very respectable. In PvZ2, it actually gained another ability: it will instantly defeat flying zombie birds! See, THAT makes sense. There's the realism, in Plants vs. Zombies.
Oh?
A few plants in this game have upgraded forms that can be planted on top of them, usually enhancing that plant's core concept. Kernel-pult has one, but not just ANY one. A maize so massive that you need to merge TWO Kernel-pults to form it! No mere upgrade like most of the rest, but an entire, new behemoth of a plant!
This is Cob Cannon, the most expensive, but most powerful plant in the game! Once planted, it can be used to manually fire devastating corn cob missiles wherever you please, with the power of a Cherry Bomb, but the ability to reload! And also a fun explosion animation with popcorn. The design is very different from Kernel-pult, but I'm not going to act like this is a Pokemon evolution where the evolved form stopped looking silly. This is a corn cob with eyes, on a wheeled wooden frame, whose wheels are slices of corn cob. Awesome! The second game would replace this guy entirely with a banana.
