Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland [import]

Oct 31, 2007

Hang on, isn’t Wario supposed to be the Nintendo character who’s all about the cash? We’re only asking because having played numerous games where the fat yellow AntiMario jumps through hoops just for a sniff at a chest of treasure, it’s strange to see somebody steal his main personality flaw, and do it so extravagantly.

In the Rosy Rupeeland, Tingle is money. The rupee is the only language anyone is willing to speak, and our hero actually bleeds the stuff whenever he gets hurt in a fight, which is often. It’s as though Nintendo didn’t want to tarnish Wario’s sheen of semi-respectability, and instead made poor, expendable Tingle the star of the most Warioesque game ever.

It’s easy to feel sorry for him, especially since the plot revolves around Tingle being duped by the sinister Uncle Rupee, who runs the kind of religious organisation in which godliness is second to the true believer’s willingness to part with large sums of money.

Uncle Rupee promises Tingle a tower to the heavens, which can only be built by throwing coins into a sort of wishing pond. To be fair, it does actually work as promised, but because Tingle is transformed into a being whose life blood and bank balance are one and the same thing, any loss of savings comes at a high price.