Turtle

Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines, most well-known for the nifty bony or cartilaginous shells, developed from their ribs, that they wear at all times, serving as a natural shield. They also appear as generic enemies in a few Crash games, because it is a primarily platformer series.

Crash Bandicoot
Turtles are a relatively common enemy during Crash's maiden voyage. He first encounters them on N. Sanity Beach, where they serve as basic enemies to help Crash learn the mechanics of his movement. They later appear patrolling the borders of Papu Papu's village (in The Great Gate and Native Fortress); considering his fatness, he probably intends to make soup out of them once they cease to be useful as guards. Finally, The High Road contains extensive puzzle solving involving turtle shells, in what appears to be a sky-high bridge-based turtle city, complete with depressing graveyard. Generally speaking, their habitats in this game imply that the turtles have shocking athletic ability, in order to climb around these shaky wooden environments, though this is never shown on-screen due to graphical limitations and laziness.

Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
Turtles strike back with a vengence! Appearing only in the forest levels (with one - Turtle Woods - specifically named after them), turtles come in two spiffy new varieties. The first has spikes on its side, eliminating the possibility of using spin or slide attacks; the other has a running buzzsaw on its shell, rendering jumping on the creature out of the question. It is never explained in-game how the buzzsaw is powered, however, as most real-world turtles are not electric creatures. It is also never explained how these buzzsaw turtles would mate.

Crash Team Racing
Turtle shells reprise their roles as fantastic trampolines on the track Mystery Caves, always appearing in pairs of two, side-by-side. It can be presumed that each of these dual pairings of dead turtles are actually married couples, heterosexual reptile husbands and wives, who chose to remain together, forever, even in death, their beautiful romance living on forever in the hearts of kart-racing mascots everywhere. It is never explained how they died, however - the indentity of the unknown murderer is, perhaps, the "mystery" referred to in the course title. Given that no readily apparent entrance or exit is seen on this course, it seems to be a devious locked-room crime worthy of the master himself, John Dickson Carr.

Trivia

 * It seems that turtles were originally intended to appear in Crash Bandicoot: Evolution, as seen in concept art, which depicted them as gray, with red eyes. Some fans think that these turtles might have been of an entirely different species of turtles, though others think the concept artist was just colorblind.


 * Curiously, none of the pre-CTR turtles are ever encountered in the water, despite being turtles. Fans have proposed many theories to explain this. The most popular seems to be that they recently painted themselves - explaining their unusually bright colors. Presumably, the paint is still wet, so they have to stay out of the water until it dries. Much like real-world women do not like to be interrupted while drying their hair, Crash's turtles attack with a violent rage when their paint-drying rituals are interrupted by inconsiderate bandicoots, a savage satire of the sexual politics of twentieth century America. Alternately, it could be because the first couple Crash games lack water levels.