The other day I thought it’d be a good idea to import Tingle RPG. I wouldn’t be able to play it thanks to the language barrier, but the packaging media would come in handy, right? Well, it arrived this morning, so I dutifully scanned away, then returned the insert and manual back to their box, sending the recompleted package to the top of my DS pile, never to be opened again. An hour later, grasped in the mind-numbing claws of boredom, I decided that hey, what’s in a language barrier?
Well, as it turns out, not as much as you’d think. Admittedly, I’ve only managed to finish the first (and frighteningly short) dungeon, and most of my understanding as to what on earth is going on has come from this Game|Life report. Yet I’m still fairly impressed that I’ve stumbled (or staggered, or meandered) as far as I have.
The first thing I should mention is that this game is full of charm. The graphics are vivid and alive, easily making Tingle RPG the best looking 2D Zelda game yet. It dwarfs anything seen in Phantom Hourglass, in all its pixelated, boxy 3D glory. Because everything is so clear and vibrant, character oozes from both Tingle and his supporting cast. The cartoon style pioneered in The Wind Waker can only be recreated using sprites on the DS. Expression and diversity is the chef’s special, and Tingle RPG serves it up in its own fantastically bizarre style. You know a game’s special when you can recruit a green-skinned, purple-lipped bodyguard to help you through a dungeon, who whips out a colour-coordinated boom box to play that tune whenever you solve a puzzle. More than that, the game has a certain atmosphere that proves that even cold, heartless capitalism can provide a warm embrace: while listening to the birds as I walked through the seaside town, I realised that only the DS’s tinny speakers distinguished them from the happy singing outside my window.
As much as I’m falling in love with the game, there are certain things that bug me. My main point of contention is the ‘guess-my-price’ mechanic - the first thing I want to do after making out of a dungeon with exactly 1111 rupees is to run home and save my game, knowing full-well that a couple of wrong offers could decimate my balance (which doubles as Tingle’s life), but of course, my super-sized bodyguard gets stuck in the doorway on our way out. For some reason, he needs payment. His fair cut? I don’t know, but ultimately he can muster enough energy to force his way out the door. With the right offer. Somehow, he manages to siphon away failed offers, leaving me 200 rupees down, 100 short of the amount needed to make the money tower raise another level, bringing me that much closer to Rupee Paradise. I should have let the fat bugger rot - I wasn’t the one stuck in a door, and I certainly wasn’t coming back in a hurry. Another sore moment came in a room full of spikes that jut up from the ground as you walk near them. “Easy,” I thought, “just like in Zelda.” Well, in Zelda, you don’t have to contend with some truly awful collision detection, and I don’t remember bouncing between spikes, losing 8 rupees each time.
But no matter. These nit-picks are, while bloody annoying, hardly game-breaking. Like the language barrier, these quirks will be worked around because there’s so much awesome here. I’ve never understood Tingle, I don’t understand the game, I don’t understand the setting, what it’s trying to say to me, or why my guide is clearly a transvestite (but fantastic boob-job, you go girl), but I do understand that I want, nay, need to see everything there is of this game, to do all there is to do, and to eventually get Tingle into the paradise he deserves.
Viva Kooloo-limpah!
