Turtle Shells in Mario Kart

Ever since the first Super Mario game, players have been stomping on turtles and sending the shells flying. Ever since the first Super Mario Kart game, players have been throwing turtle shells at each other. Following is a quick overview of the different shells.

In most of the games, as well as in real life, turtles are green. Green turtle shells are pretty simple: they just go in a straight line until they hit something. If that’s a wall, they bounce back; if it’s a player…ouch! In Mario Kart, you can have either one shell or a set of three; when you get a set, it will rotate around your kart, giving you a bit of protection until you throw the shells. In the kart games, shells can also be dropped rather than thrown to create an unexpected obstacle for the player on your tail.

Red turtle shells are a step up. Like green shells, they can be dropped and come either individually or in sets, but they have an important difference: they function as homing missiles! Throw the shell ahead of you and, assuming it doesn’t hit a wall, it will lock on to the next player and head straight at him! The shells aren’t particularly bright – if that player ducks behind a wall they’re likely to run into it – but they can be an easy way to pull ahead of your closest competitor. When you’re vying for position with someone else, you might even let him pull slightly ahead so you can let one of these fly! (Granted, you can do that with green shells as well, your aim just needs to be better!)

Finally, blue turtle shells are particularly nasty; they fly ahead and nuke whoever is in the lead, and are almost impossible to avoid. Fortunately for front-runners everywhere, they’re also pretty rare. Fear the blue turtle shell!