Me: Hi, I'd like to buy this glass jar. It looks like I can use it to put things in.
Merchant: Yes sir, that one's a beauty, it is! Make me an offer.
Me: Um, okay. (pulls out $20) Will this do?
Merchant: (takes $20) No, I'm afraid that won't be enough.
Me: Oh, uh, sorry. Will $30 do? (reaching into wallet and pulling out $10)
Merchant: (takes $10) No, $10 isn't enough. What do you take me for? This is a quality jar!
Me: What do you mean, $10 isn't enough! I've given you $30!
Merchant: (waving $10 bill) You offered me $10.
Me: What. (I really want that jar...) Okay, here's... $30. (hands over a $10 and a $20)
Merchant: Sold! Enjoy your jar which you have just purchased for $30.
Me: ...
Merchant: Would you like to buy another? This one is more expensive.
If you hail from some bizarre parallel universe where this sort of insanity is the economic norm, or even if the above just sounds to you like a good time, you are absolutely going to adore Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.
The idea to create a game centered around Legend of Zelda series pariah Tingle was a sound one; the character in The Wind Waker was quite well-developed and (some of us found him) quite humorous. Developer Vanpool came up with a brilliant starting concept: tying Tingle's very well-being to his cash balance. If Tingle runs out of Rupees (the Zelda series' currency), he effectively dies. It was an inspired next step to create a world for Tingle to inhabit where everything—even normally freely-given information—costs money. I'd go so far as to say that making nearly every transaction a haggle was exactly the right thinking for a game based on the concept of greed.
Where it all went wrong was one teensy little implementation detail that adds up to a lot of pain, quite literally: for the majority of haggle sessions in the game, if you don't offer enough Rupees, the money you put on the table is swept away leaving you with only the knowledge that your offer wasn't enough (and if you're lucky, a tip that you're getting "close"). You will invariably find yourself spending far, far too much on something. Coupled with the fact that the amounts you must spend to advance are very close to the amounts you'll earn as you go, it makes for an excruciating mechanic that nearly ruins the game, brought even nearer to that fatal edge by the fact that you must return to Tingle's home every time you want to save—in case you want insurance against losing it all on a single transaction.
Struggling underneath the weight of this massive flaw, though, I found the makings of what would have otherwise been a very enjoyable game. The battle system is an especially neat idea: touching an enemy will launch Tingle and the enemy into a cartoonish cloud. As the fight rages on, you'll see Rupees lost as hits are taken; eventually, Tingle emerges victorious with the spoils of battle.
But that's only the first part of it. You can poke at the cloud with your stylus to egg Tingle on, speeding his victory. You can (and effectively have to) also hire bodyguards of varying power and personality to accompany you on your mission; driving the cloud into them will add them to the battle, saving Tingle from Rupee-draining hits and speeding the enemy's defeat. Finally, you can drag more enemies into the fray to exponentially increase your spoils. Putting these elements together makes for a really deceptively deep setup: you'll want to maximize your fight time to get as many enemies as possible, yet minimize Tingle's and his bodyguard's damage.
Scattered throughout the game world are a half-dozen or so underground dungeons; simpler than those found in mainline Zelda games, but nonetheless solidly fun. The highlight of these slightly-puzzled labryinths, though, has to be the boss battles. While I'd be hard-pressed to call them particularly challenging, they're loads of fun and very well-executed.
Of course, one of the key reasons to get a game starring Tingle is the unorthodox humor that you expect to come with it. It's pretty clear that the original Japanese game had this in spades; the evidence is in Tingle and Co.'s hilarious animations. However, the translation—especially when held up to the standard of so many other English Nintendo releases—suffers. It reads like an overly simplistic translation of the original Japanese, stilted and awkward. In other places, the text works okay, but simply feels like it has no soul. You'll get a good number of the jokes anyway, but it's hard to shake the feeling that there's so much more lurking underneath.
I suppose I'd have to say that I ultimately don't regret importing Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, though it's sort of darkly amusing to think about how much importing this game might have cost if I'd had to buy it like Tingle has to buy things in-game. Actually, scratch that—paying more than something's worth is not really amusing at all. And it's definitely not like Tingle to do so.
Merchant: Yes sir, that one's a beauty, it is! Make me an offer.
Me: Um, okay. (pulls out $20) Will this do?
Merchant: (takes $20) No, I'm afraid that won't be enough.
Me: Oh, uh, sorry. Will $30 do? (reaching into wallet and pulling out $10)
Merchant: (takes $10) No, $10 isn't enough. What do you take me for? This is a quality jar!
Me: What do you mean, $10 isn't enough! I've given you $30!
Merchant: (waving $10 bill) You offered me $10.
Me: What. (I really want that jar...) Okay, here's... $30. (hands over a $10 and a $20)
Merchant: Sold! Enjoy your jar which you have just purchased for $30.
Me: ...
Merchant: Would you like to buy another? This one is more expensive.
If you hail from some bizarre parallel universe where this sort of insanity is the economic norm, or even if the above just sounds to you like a good time, you are absolutely going to adore Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.
The idea to create a game centered around Legend of Zelda series pariah Tingle was a sound one; the character in The Wind Waker was quite well-developed and (some of us found him) quite humorous. Developer Vanpool came up with a brilliant starting concept: tying Tingle's very well-being to his cash balance. If Tingle runs out of Rupees (the Zelda series' currency), he effectively dies. It was an inspired next step to create a world for Tingle to inhabit where everything—even normally freely-given information—costs money. I'd go so far as to say that making nearly every transaction a haggle was exactly the right thinking for a game based on the concept of greed.
Where it all went wrong was one teensy little implementation detail that adds up to a lot of pain, quite literally: for the majority of haggle sessions in the game, if you don't offer enough Rupees, the money you put on the table is swept away leaving you with only the knowledge that your offer wasn't enough (and if you're lucky, a tip that you're getting "close"). You will invariably find yourself spending far, far too much on something. Coupled with the fact that the amounts you must spend to advance are very close to the amounts you'll earn as you go, it makes for an excruciating mechanic that nearly ruins the game, brought even nearer to that fatal edge by the fact that you must return to Tingle's home every time you want to save—in case you want insurance against losing it all on a single transaction.
Struggling underneath the weight of this massive flaw, though, I found the makings of what would have otherwise been a very enjoyable game. The battle system is an especially neat idea: touching an enemy will launch Tingle and the enemy into a cartoonish cloud. As the fight rages on, you'll see Rupees lost as hits are taken; eventually, Tingle emerges victorious with the spoils of battle.
But that's only the first part of it. You can poke at the cloud with your stylus to egg Tingle on, speeding his victory. You can (and effectively have to) also hire bodyguards of varying power and personality to accompany you on your mission; driving the cloud into them will add them to the battle, saving Tingle from Rupee-draining hits and speeding the enemy's defeat. Finally, you can drag more enemies into the fray to exponentially increase your spoils. Putting these elements together makes for a really deceptively deep setup: you'll want to maximize your fight time to get as many enemies as possible, yet minimize Tingle's and his bodyguard's damage.
Scattered throughout the game world are a half-dozen or so underground dungeons; simpler than those found in mainline Zelda games, but nonetheless solidly fun. The highlight of these slightly-puzzled labryinths, though, has to be the boss battles. While I'd be hard-pressed to call them particularly challenging, they're loads of fun and very well-executed.
Of course, one of the key reasons to get a game starring Tingle is the unorthodox humor that you expect to come with it. It's pretty clear that the original Japanese game had this in spades; the evidence is in Tingle and Co.'s hilarious animations. However, the translation—especially when held up to the standard of so many other English Nintendo releases—suffers. It reads like an overly simplistic translation of the original Japanese, stilted and awkward. In other places, the text works okay, but simply feels like it has no soul. You'll get a good number of the jokes anyway, but it's hard to shake the feeling that there's so much more lurking underneath.
I suppose I'd have to say that I ultimately don't regret importing Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, though it's sort of darkly amusing to think about how much importing this game might have cost if I'd had to buy it like Tingle has to buy things in-game. Actually, scratch that—paying more than something's worth is not really amusing at all. And it's definitely not like Tingle to do so.