Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland
A Tingle-led adventure about building a tower with Rupees.
Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is an adventure game for the Nintendo DS, released in 2006. It was developed by Vanpool and published by Nintendo. The main character is Tingle, a figure first seen in The Legend of Zelda series on the Nintendo 64 with Majora's Mask. The game launched in Japan in September 2006 and in Europe in September 2007. It sold well in Japan, with 234,862 copies moved by the end of 2007.
The goal is to build a tower located beneath a spring west of Tingle's house. This requires feeding Rupees into the tower. Gameplay revolves around gathering as much money as possible, mixed with dungeon exploration and puzzles similar to The Legend of Zelda. A bargaining system lets players buy items and information from non-player characters by offering a price. Too low a price yields nothing; too high wastes money.
Dungeons are spread across three continents and are essential to finish the game. Completing a dungeon gives large Rupee rewards, and defeating its boss grants one of five gems. Even if the tower reaches full height, all gems must be collected to access the final area. Dungeon access depends on the tower's height, which increases only after donating enough Rupees.
Tingle can collect items to sell for profit or use to help characters. Items can be mixed in a boiling pot at Tingle's home using the stylus. Some items decorate the top floor of his house. Finishing the game lets the player change Tingle's clothing.
Entering a new location gives an incomplete map. The player fills it in by circling points of interest with the stylus, then shows it to an old woman in the port town for a fixed sum. Selling the map removes access until it is bought back.
Combat differs from The Legend of Zelda. When Tingle engages an enemy, both turn into a dust cloud. The player taps the screen to rally support or uses buttons to move the fight around. Tingle loses Rupees during battle, but defeating an enemy yields Rupees and rare items. Engaging multiple enemies by moving the dust cloud over them multiplies rewards, though Tingle loses more Rupees early on.
Bodyguards assist in combat and dungeons. They are found in "Bodyguard Salons," with thirty characters total. The player bargains for their help. Bodyguards come in small, medium, and large sizes, reflecting their combat abilities.
Quick Facts
- Developer
- Vanpool
- Publisher
- Nintendo
- Director
- Taro Kudo
- Producer
- Kensuke Tanabe
- Composer
- Masanori Adachi
- Platforms
- Nintendo DS
- Series
- The Legend of Zelda
- Released
- September 2, 2006 (JP); September 14, 2007 (EU)
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
The game follows an alone and lazy 35-year-old man's transformation into his green-clothed fairy persona. The story starts when a voice calls the main character from his home to a spring west of his house. There, Uncle Rupee, an old man with a Rupee-shaped head, appears and offers him a life in a paradise called Rupeeland if he continues to feed Rupees to the Western Pool: if enough Rupees are fed, the tower found under the pool will grow upwards towards the sky, and Tingle will be able to enter Rupeeland. He accepts the offer and Uncle Rupee transforms him so that Rupees become his source of life: if he loses all the rupees without preserving even one, he will die; moreover, Uncle Rupee gives him the name 'Tingle', making him forget his own. As Tingle builds the tower and explores the various lands defeating enemies and bosses, it becomes increasingly clear that Uncle Rupee is motivated by a purely greedy and selfish intent, is appropriating all the money collected by Tingle and wants to have total domination on Rupeeland. After Tingle completes the last task, Uncle Rupee, now completely addicted to the power of the rupees and furious that Tingle won't give them to him anymore, engages in a fight against him. After defeating Uncle Rupee there are two possible endings, depending on whether or not Tingle has collected all the Rupee Goods scattered across the various lands: a bad ending where Tingle goes to Rupeeland and becomes incredibly greedy, and a good ending where peace returns and Tingle returns to his former life.
Reader's Guide
Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland was announced in October 2005 under the title Tingle RPG. It was released in Japan in September 2006 and in Europe in September 2007, but was never released in North America. The game received mostly positive reviews from the few outlets which reviewed it. Official Nintendo Magazine gave it a score of 76%, praising the game's uniqueness, humour and 'fantastically stylised graphics', but criticizing it for dull dungeon design and a poor battle system. Nintendo Life praised the game as well, noting the boss battles in particular to be surprising and exciting, though they noted that the game can start to wear after a while, as some aspects were 'repetitive and/or annoying'. In its first week of release, it sold more than 45,000 units in Japan. It was the 57th best-selling game of 2006 in Japan, selling 207,525 units, and the 478th best-selling game of 2007, selling 21,295 units for a total of 234,862 units as of 2007. IGN ranked the cover art the scariest cover art in gaming. Super Smash Bros. Brawl includes stickers based on artwork from the game, and the game itself is referenced in Tingle's trophy description, though it is referred to as 'Tingle's Rupeeland'. A sequel, Irodzuki Tingle no Koi no Balloon Trip, was released for the Nintendo DS in Japan.
More in The Legend of Zelda Games 1-24
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced