Snorkel Zombie is the first special zombie introduced in Big Wave Beach. The Snorkel Zombie is able to submerge and progress underwater in the ocean, avoiding most attacks, emerging once a plant or the shoreline is reached, allowing all attacks to hit.
Snorkel Zombie went through a major redesign along with his animation. The Snorkel Zombie now wears an intact snorkeling mask with a white colored outlining. The color of the sides of the snorkeling mask is orange. His whistle snorkel is colored yellow on the upper part and white on the lower part respectively.
He does not wear anything on his torso and he wears a red colored shorter version of the swimming shorts of his first variation, except he now has white linings on its sides. His snorkeling foot fins are now colored yellow.
Almanac entry
Snorkel Zombie
TOUGHNESS
Protected
SPEED
Basic
Snorkel zombies can swim underwater.
Special: submerges to avoid attacks
Snorkel Zombie has a hard time getting the Bikini Zombies. He's tried offering them flowers, jewelry, and even chocolate-covered brains. But nothing seems to work. They just can't seem to see past the snorkel on his face.
Overview
The Snorkel Zombie absorbs 350 damage per shot, and his appearance changes upon absorbing 175 damage per shot when his arm falls off, before dying.
The Snorkel Zombie acts the same way as he does in the first game, but is now stronger. They can be dealt with by using lobber plants, forcing them to resurface with defensive plants, or using instant kill plants. However, there are exceptions, so be aware that some plants may not be able to properly counter them. Snorkel Zombie generally forces the player to use strategy with lobber plants.
Plants with splash damage like A.K.E.E. and Melon-pult are good to deal with multiple zombies at once, but due to the fast pace in Big Wave Beach levels, it's best not to completely rely on expensive plants because zombies will quickly overwhelm the players before the lawn can be properly set up.
Using defensive plants like Wall-nut allows the players to expand the strategy using any other plants. This is, however, countered by Octo Zombies and Fisherman Zombies at later levels, who will incapacitate defensive and close-ranged plants. Eventually the players may not be able to fully rely on stalling these zombies.
In the Chinese version, Lotus Pod can be used to kill Snorkel Zombies easily, as its projectile will float on top of water and will damage it.
Note: Avoid using Magnifying Grass against this zombie as he can avoid all of her projectiles unharmed while submerged, especially if the tide line is at the leftmost columns. If you attempt to spam shots at these zombies, they can drain your sun counter very quickly.
Exceptions
While some plants that counter submerged Snorkel Zombies follow general rule, there are exceptions to this. When Snorkel Zombies are submerged:
Despite being lobber plants, Sling Pea, Turkey-pult, and Stickybomb Rice will not target these zombies on their own. The splash damage from rice and turkey will still damage them, though.
Any Mints will not affect them, such as flame burst from Pepper-mint.
Please note that only official translations are used.
Language
Name
Description
English
Snorkel Zombie
Simplified Chinese
浮潜僵尸
From fúqiǎn and jiāngshī
French
Zombie tuba
German
Schnorchel-Zombie
Italian
Zombi sommozzatore
Brazilian Portuguese
Zumbi Mergulhador
Spanish
Zombi buzo
Trivia
In the 8.3.1 update, there was a glitch with the encounter between the Snorkel Zombie and the Tangle Kelp in which the Tangle Kelp could not kill the Snorkel Zombie unless he surfaced long enough to eat a plant or was at the edge of land and water. In open water, the Snorkel Zombie would approach the Tangle Kelp and resurface in attempt to eat it, causing the Tangle Kelp to go under to attack which caused the Snorkel Zombie to go back under since he no longer sensed a plant which then caused the Tangle Kelp to resurface again. This interaction would normally repeat 3 times before the Snorkel Zombie got behind the Tangle Kelp. This glitch greatly limited the usefulness of the Tangle Kelp in Big Wave Beach levels. The glitch was fixed in an unknown update.
A similar glitch occurred in the 6.9.1 update, where if a Tangle Kelp targeted a submerged Snorkel Zombie, the zombie would remain motionless. Furthermore, the zombie could not be damaged by any way, forcing the player to restart the level.
Before the 6.7.1 update, a boosted Spring Bean and Blover combination could not kill the zombie if he was submerged (although he would still be blown to the right of the screen).
Compared to the original game:
Both of his eyes are shown.
He is not pigeon-toed.
His swim mask is no longer cracked.
He does not have to jump before submerging because he is already in the water when he enters the lawn.
He shares Prospector Zombie's animation except he is slightly faster.
This makes him the first zombie to reuse another special zombie's animation (not taking into account regular zombie walks, event zombies, and the like.)