Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupee Land!

These is the end times we are in. Swine flu, War on Terrorism, David Letterman, these are things in the world that raise serious questions and cast furious doubt over a once proud nation. Where do we go from here? Raise taxes? Tea parties? Who is in charge here?

The answer, my friends, is a multi-layered ballad of poignant human interaction. Much like this game:

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Now that so many of you are deeply enthralled with the paradox I have presented, allow me to ignore that section of my review entirely as it had little to do with the game and more to do with a tangent I felt like exploring/exploiting.


After all, this is freakin' Tingle the Fairy we are talking about, no small potatoes! A character from The Legend of Zelda universe actually gets his own adventure. How does it "fare?" God, that pun was righteous.



Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is an action/rpg hybrid that truly is unlike any other game out there. There are points in the game that need fine tuning, and I will address them to be sure, but the overall game is a satisfying, if off-putting, experience. It begins in Tingle's home, where he hears the voice of Uncle Rupee calling from the West. He follows, to find a pool where he is asked by Uncle to feed it rupees. If he feeds the pool enough rupees, Rupee's castle will reach the sky and Tingle will be able to enter Rupeeland. Thus, Tingle begins his adventures to find rupees (and eventually become the fairy he is today!).

The first thing that will strike you as odd in this game is the money system. Not only do you buy items with your rupees, but you have to bribe townspeople to tell you certain bits of information required to move along in the game's story. Add these two factors in with the necessity of donating rupees to Uncle Rupee's pool, and you have a very difficult routine to get the knack of. Give too many rupees, and you won't have enough to progress. Give too few rupees to the townsperson, and they will refuse to impart their knowledge upon you. This is a very different strategy, and one I have never really come across in any other game, especially for the ds!

There are 11 islands to explore, very similar to most Legend of Zelda games, and the dungeons have that same vibe as well. What does NOT carry over is the combat system. This is my main complaint with the game. You can see your enemy before a fight, as in Zelda, but once you touch/attack the bad guy you become a swivel of dust clouds and bare knuckle brawling. You tap the stylus in some sort of pattern I have yet to discover (and I went through the tutorial!), and eventually you defeat your enemy. Oh, did I mention instead of health, it uses your rupees for that too!?!??! Yeah, when you fight baddys if you are hit you lose rupees. SHIT.

To be fair, they give you "guard characters" that act as a sort of shield from the bad guys, but you don't ALWAYS have them. And once defeated, bad guys tend to replenish whatever rupees they took, but it is an irritating mechanic.


The graphical style, in my humblest of Zelda fanatic opinion, is nothing short of spectacular. It is funny, colorful, and bursting with personality. Seriously, look at this shit above ^. That seriously made me laugh for like 5 minutes. The quirkiness of the graphics really mesh well with the gameplay's totally queer style, deepening the experience as much as one could expect from such a release.

This game has never seen the US shores, but that doesn't mean you can't play it! Any ds cart will work on any ds! And since this game saw European release, its an easy find. For Zelda fans and weirdo-indie fans (Atlus, Nis, you know what I mean) this title is a must-own. Seeing Tingle's journey to fairy hood is both deliciously hilarious and sadly pathetic.

I'm interested in this. Why would Nintendo not bring this to the states? Do they think it's to queer for us manly men Americans? Would their wholesome image be tainted if this was localized? Not sure the reason but it looks like something that would do quite well here.

What would you rate this game on a 5 star decimal scale? I'd love to post this on Ninfest.

Post away, I'd give it a 3 out of 5. Also, technically it doesn't even really need localization since it came out in Europe. In fact, if you remember Streex Nintendo Power had a survey asking if you'd be interesting in playing the game. Apparently not enough of us answered.

I was one of those that did not answer. Oh well, I still have Spirit Tracks to get to which should be much better.

Posted your review on the site. Terrific write up.