‘Tingle’, the character who first became a staple of the ‘Zelda’ games back in ‘Majora’s Mask’ just under ten years ago has now been granted his very own video game. Developed by a small Japanese development house named Vanpool, Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland is a rare gem of a game, a diamond in the rough if you will for the Nintendo DS.

It is hard to explain Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland to someone who has not played it, the simplest way is to imagine ‘Link to the Past’ on the Super Nintendo but pair it with the overblown surreal-atmosphere of games like Abe’s Oddysey and the Discworld adventure games, a little bit of Myst and a sprinkling of the anthropological aspect of almost every Zelda game in the past ten years.

The game was at first released in Japan where many deemed it to ‘japanafied’ to be released anywhere else in the world - understandably of course. To release the game anywhere else in the world seems like more of a test of waters than genuine interest. To release the game here in Europe instead of America just goes to show how Nintendo feel about cliché demographics.

Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland is like Zelda in the sense that you must traverse through many lands and dungeons and become acquainted with the towns folk who will help you along in your journey. Complicated fighting systems are thrown aside and replaced with the rupee system. As the story goes, Tingle is cursed by the elder of Rupeeland (a kind of utopia) and as such, has a connection to rupees as though they were his life. At first it is very hard to grasp how this works but after a couple of hours you really begin to see how difficult it must have been to balance this system and perfect it during development.

Every member of the local town just loves rupees and will require payment for pretty much any piece of information. Luckily, said townspeople also have a craving to purchase silly amounts of things off of you but realism is hardly what Vanpool where striving for here. As you work your way into the outside world it becomes necessary to enter battle with monsters in the wilderness, as rupees are the difference between life and death, you lose rupees through fighting rather than life points. Of course there has to be some benefit and that is the items that they drop. You cook up or sell items dropped by monsters for profit thereby earning more money which will bring you closer to heaven.

Tingle is an addictive role playing game which includes elements never really seen before in the genre. Bargaining and collecting are so much more important than leveling up and the surreal nature of every NPC you meet helps contribute to what will most probably become an underrated cult video game. If you do anything with your precious gaming rupees, I highly recommend you support video games like these. Although Nintendo will survive and live on if this game hardly sells 100 copies, atleast it will show that gamers do still want and love originality.

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