Terrapin

Terrapins are armored Koopas with green shells and are one of the weakest minions in the Koopa Troop, even weaker than the lowly Goomba. They attack their opponents by punching. (However, this does not do much damage.) Terrapins fight solo, or in groups of two to four. During the events of Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Terrapins patrolled the halls of Bowser's Keep in search of intruders. A similar (and much stronger) enemy is the Terra Cotta.

For some reason, perhaps because they were the very first enemies Mario fought, the music while battling them remained the same as when not battling, instead of changing to the battle music. Also, they gave Mario no experience points, and his winning stance when fighting a Terrapin was therefore different. (As they gave no points of any kind, a points screen was not shown after victory against a Terrapin, and there was no victory music.)

Terrapins are the precursors to the Koopatrols of the Paper Mario series. However, Terrapins and Koopatrols themselves are very different from each other in stats, although their main purposes are identical in that they are both armor-clad Koopas who guard Bowser's Castle. Finally, it is worth noting that Terrapins are the most basic kind of Koopa Troopa to appear in Super Mario RPG; no armorless Koopas appeared.

Notable Terrapins

 * Jagger
 * Chef Torte
 * Chef Torte's Apprentice

Trivia

 * The word "terrapin" is an ambiguous term referring to turtles, which Koopas are quite similar to.