Collection essentials #609: Freshly-Picked: Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland (DS)

Here we have one of the oddest Legend of Zelda spinoffs out there. Tingle debuted as a character in the Nintendo 64 hit The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, as a quirky map salesman who floats with a balloon that Link must pop in order to bring him down to earth to do business. Rather than keep him as a one-off Majora’s Mask character, he started appearing in more Zelda games in different forms, such as Wind Waker and Minish Cap. Nintendo eventually decided that Tingle had enough of a following to merit his own game, and this odd one was the result.

The story starts with a main character who must be named by the player, a 35-year-old man who lives alone and doesn’t seem to have much of a life. He hears a mysterious voice calling out to him, which leads him to a well outside of his house. There he meets Uncle Rupee, who promises Tingle a better life in a magical place called Rupeeland if he can simply bring enough Rupees to the pool. Uncle Rupee casts some kind of spell on him, giving him the familiar Tingle suit and declares that he will be known as Tingle from now on. Tingle then sets forth on a journey to collect as many Rupees as he can.

Gameplay has some resemblance to a regular Zelda game, as it’s an action/adventure game from a top-down view that involves collecting items, exploring and getting through dungeons. But there are a myriad of differences, and you’ll never really feel like you’re playing a Zelda game.

The first thing you need to know about this game is that practically everything revolves around Rupees (which, if you’ve never played a Zelda game or know much about real-world Asian currencies, are coins). Progression in the game is very often gated behind paying up a certain amount of Rupees. If you want to talk to practically any character in the game and get some form of advice or help from them, you’re gonna need to pay rupees for it. Not only that, but you’ll often have to make them a monetary offer to get the help/information, without a clear indication of what specific amount they’re looking for…and if you “lowball” them, then they will take and keep whatever money you offered! And so, this is one of those games where most players will most likely find themselves resetting and reloading their previous saves, because losing a whole bunch of Rupees for nothing is pretty miserable. There are various ways to actually earn rupees, such as finding treasures, defeating enemies and making a map of the world to sell.

Combat doesn’t work in this game like it does in Zelda. Tingle doesn’t have a sword or other weapon that he swings around. Instead, upon touching an enemy, the combatants will tussle in a large dust cloud that leaves them generally non-visible, and all you can really do is tap the cloud with your stylus to give him a little boost. Tingle is not an especially good fighter, and you can’t get through the whole game defeating enemies with just him. For help, Tingle can hire a series of bodyguards that are much better at clobbering enemies, and they may come with certain other helpful abilities too.

Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland is a flawed game, certainly, as it can be rather frustrating to play, and may force grinding for rupees at times. I also feel like it’s rather lacking in the audio department, as the music is generally not much to write home about. Some areas only have the bare minimum ambience. With a series that has a rich musical history like Zelda, I find it strange that they could not have done a better job at remixing some familiar Zelda tunes in a new style.

But the good definitely outweighs the bad in this game (as you can probably guess from the fact that it made my list), and I think ultimately it’s worth enduring the flaws to enjoy the good stuff. There’s certainly a lot of quirkiness and charm at work here, though I suppose it may not be everyone’s vibe. Another strength of the game is the boss fights, which are creatively designed and sometimes feature non-standard gameplay unlike anything else in the game. The final boss fight is unironically one of my favorites of all-time, but unfortunately I can’t tell you why because that would be a pretty big spoiler. 

You may notice from the photo that the game’s box looks a little different than other DS games I’ve talked about. That’s because this is a European release. There was sort of a perception back in the early 2000s, fair or not, that Americans don’t like Tingle and find him annoying. I’m not sure if that’s true and/or why the game didn’t get released in America, but it is also true that Europe was a little more likely back in the day to get quirky and weird Japanese games. I remember when the game came out, and I was interested in it, but I didn’t get it right away. I eventually got it and played through it during my college days in 2012.

Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland has never been rereleased and thus is stuck on the DS. Thankfully, DS games have no region protection, so you’ll have no trouble playing it if you import it. However, the price of the game on the secondhand market is unfortunately high. If you have the means, though, you may find it well worth checking out. If you know me in real life, perhaps I may let you borrow it!

For being a unique and memorable adventure with a truly epic finish, Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland certainly deserves its place as an essential in my collection. This wouldn’t be Tingle’s only adventure on the DS, either! Stay tuned for a future post to learn more about that one.