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Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland Review
Chris Leyton
14/09/2007
The man with questionable tastes takes time out from the Zelda series for his own adventure, we wish he hadn't...
I might be wrong, but it seems to me that Miyamoto-san and Aonuma-san took great pleasure in coming up with Tingle. A 35-year old man with a strange obsession for fairies that still lives with his parents, surely they couldn't be poking fun at their own fanbase?. If this is the case, it seems that North American gamers didn't appreciate the joke. Pushed aside for Twilight Princess, Nintendo have decided to pass on an American release for the strange green one's starring debut adventure. However, whilst we wait patiently for the sands of the Phantom Hourglass to finally drop it seems Nintendo have had a change of mind in Europe at least with the launch of the previously Japan-only Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland - perhaps Tingle's general strange demeanour is better suited over here.
Nevertheless, perhaps that's not necessarily a good thing, seeing as Tingle's starring role is somewhat below the standards we'd typically expect from a game at least loosely based around the Zelda franchise and certainly one bearing Nintendo's name.
Explaining the origins of how Tingle came to be, the wonderfully titled Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland depicts the transformation of a relatively normal man into the rupee-fixated, green-suited, fairy-wannabe we affectionately know as Tingle. Promised a life in paradise, otherwise known as Rupeeland, by an equally strange man known as Uncle Rupee (what did the TV adverts say about talking to old men), Tingle finds himself tasked with amassing enough rupees to reach the skies and the promise of living the life he always dreamed of. The only problem is, the task brings the curse of rupees serving as Tingle's life force, the man literally needs them simply to survive - no wonder he's been such a peculiar chap in past Zelda games.
Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is quite a unique offering that's hard to pin down to a particular genre. The overall goal revolves solely around Tingle's insatiable demand for rupees, living in a world where the Hyrule currency means absolutely everything to the inhabitants of the strange land Rosy Rupeeland is set. With the task of reaching the heavenly heights of Rupeeland, Tingle must pour the rupees, literally in their thousands, into a nearby pool, which transforms into a tower that elevates towards the skies and Rupeeland upon reaching a certain total. This dynamic serves as the game's level structure in an otherwise very openly designed game, with additional islands and continents unlocked as the tower grows higher and higher for Tingle to jump off. The rupees also serve as Tingle's health, creating an interesting dynamic whereby progress in the game is restricted by the need to ensure Tingle's health doesn't drop too close to zero and the inevitable Game Over screen.
Tingle can collect the rupees that advance his adventure and keep him alive in a number of ways, whether it's defeating the various monsters along the way, helping the locals, cooking up strange concoctions and occasionally stepping in a traditional Zelda-esque dungeon with the obligatory boss to defeat. Sadly, Rosy Rupeeland is fundamentally flawed by an unnecessarily slow and plodding start through the first island, desperately trying to amass rupees and being hindered by a number of oddly frustrating aspects that thwart the entire game.
It's not just Tingle that seems fascinated by the sparkly gem. We're not entirely sure what message Nintendo is trying to promote, but it seems Tingle's homeland is full of people driven crazy by ravenous greed for the rupee. Often requesting a certain number of rupees before the local folk will even talk to Tingle, the concept of bartering is one you'll have to get a good handle on as it serves as a key component throughout the entire game.
The idea seems sound. Tingle has to risk further progress in the game by bartering with the folks for further information and helpful items, but unfortunately, the concept proves to a largely infuriating experience that does its best to put you off the game before it has a chance to show its best bits. Tight-lipped until Tingle loosens the purse strings, often there's no way of knowing exactly how much a particular character is looking for. All too often, you'll come across characters that are quite happy to take your rupees when you've offered too little and still demand the higher fee. During the first few hours, this leads to plenty of situations where you're desperate for rupees, and having finally scrimped and scraped together you'll realise it's not enough and have lost all those you've just earned in the process. Conversely, when you've completed a task for a local you'll often have the chance to demand a reward with the same risk of asking for too little or too much; one particular example early on saw me requesting a rather modest 50 rupees, realising much later on that I could have got away with much, much more.
One solution to earning a few rupees is to pick a fight with the monsters that trawl the lands. Given Tingle's stature, combat is perhaps expectedly a relatively shallow feature of the game, requiring little more then walking into the beasts and tapping away on the ensuing comic-book cloud of dust and fists. The sole element of skill stems from ensnaring as many opponents into the fight as possible to increase the number of rupees and items you'll receive at the end. During the fight, Tingle will automatically loose rupees dependant on the difficulty of the opponent, which, initially at least, leads to the situation where you're loosing as many rupees as you collect from a fight. It's a setup that is lacking in any real depth and will probably put hardcore gamers off immediately, there's little skill behind it because Tingle will automatically loose health/rupees regardless of how skilful you play.
To assist in the fight Tingle can enlist 30 different bodyguards, following closely behind Tingle to provide some much-needed manpower. There's a substantial degree of variety between the various bodyguards, effectively grouped into small, medium and large, each with varying abilities and uses. Much like many aspects of the game, however, they can be a cause for further frustrations, particularly getting into fights when you least want them to and getting stuck behind objects in the game world without you ever realising. Naturally, given the greedy nature of the game, bodyguards demand their own fee (along with a commission for the shop owner) and request additional funds to jump back into action whenever they fall in battle.
Another method of collecting rupees comes from harvesting the various food items you'll find across the land, before putting them in a pot back at Tingle's house and hopefully coming up with something that you can sell to the locals for a healthy profit. Completing quests and bartering with the locals will occasionally yield a recipe, however you're actively encouraged to experiment and try your own concoctions. There's nothing particularly fun or innovative about this feature, which is made even worse by the fact that the recipes that are accidentally discovered are not stored in your book so you have to memorise these or resort to buying them.
The final method of attaining the rupees stems from drawing maps of each of the islands you'll visit in the game. Little more than playing 'Spot the Difference' between the two screens, this lightweight feature nonetheless provides a slightly easier way of making some money when you most desperately need it, but it's hard to label the challenge as an otherwise entertaining aspect of the game.
The one major issue with Rosy Rupeeland is that it does its best to make the initial few hours as tedious as possible. It's literally a case of trudging along scenery to collect basic ingredients, mix a couple of Tingle Firework's or Simple Juice, before walking into town and selling the results. Repeat this process far too often for it to even be labelled as tedious, before paying for the information or item you need to progress, only to get the same message that was displayed before and with the demand for more money. Repeat the whole process over and over again, until you're probably pulling your hair out and starting to realise why Tingle isn't shown the love that I once did before picking up this monstrosity of a videogame. The whole situation isn't helped by the ridiculously slow pace that Tingle moves, surely those rupees could be used to pay for a little Tingle-Mobile or something!
It's difficult to convey just how frustrating the early sections of the game are because the whole rupee dynamic hasn't been developed as well as it should have. Beyond having to repeatedly make the same recipes and sell them to the same person (limited by how many empty bottles you have), it can also be quite easy to die when you're low on rupees and getting into a fight you didn't particular want to because there's no way of getting out when a monster comes chasing after you or you unwittingly stumble into their path. Coupled with an archaic save system, this can lead to plenty of situations where you have to replay significantly large sections all over again.
Although the game inevitably becomes more enjoyable the further you get into it, largely because the rupees become more abundant, it's probably still not worth the effort that's needed to get past the initial few hours. Even when Rosy Rupeeland stumbles into what should be familiar territory with the rare appearance of a dungeon, it somehow manages to get this wrong with overly simplistic puzzles and challenges that fail to replicate the mastery that Zelda title typically exhibit. Given the sheer amount of frustration with relatively little entertainment in pay back, it's no surprise to find Zelda references are kept to a minimum. Beyond the paramount rupee, there's very little to link the game to the Zelda series beyond an occasional soundbite, locations such as Lon Lon Ranch and the occasional appearance of a Zora.
Despite the vitriolic bashing that I've given poor old Tingle, there are elements that make me wish I could appreciate the game. Evident from the bright and shiny box-art, it's no surprise to find Rosy Rupeeland chocked full of homo-erotic touches that capture Tingle perfectly. Nowhere is this more evident than the manly thrusts the Village People look-a-like bridge-builder insists on performing whenever... yes you've guessed it, paid him enough to finish building the bridges that link the islands. It all adds up to create a game befitting the 35-year old man we know as Tingle, it's just a shame you'll probably never want to see his rosy face again.
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Date Added:Sun 25th May 2008 23:34
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Date Added:Sun 16th Mar 2008 06:25
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Date Added:Sat 8th Mar 2008 15:15