Dampé, Hero of Hyrule

Congratulations to our favorite gravekeeper, the infamous leader of the Heart-Pounding Gravedigging Tour, Dampé, who has now officially surpassed Tingle in the number of appearances in a Zelda game! Not counting any cameos in the form of wanted posters, figurines, dolls or costumes in the later Zelda games or his appearances in any spin-off games, Tingle has "only" starred in a total of five Zelda titles:

• Majora's Mask
• Oracle of Ages
• The Wind Waker
• Four Swords Adventures
• The Minish Cap

Dampé, however, now officially appears in six games of the Zelda series:

• Ocarina of Time
• Majora's Mask
• Four Swords Adventures
• The Minish Cap
• A Link Between Worlds
• Link's Awakening

Amazing! He's now on the same level as Beedle and Impa, who have both appeared in a total of six Zelda games as well. The Wind Waker, The Minish Cap, Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild are games with Beedle, while Ocarina of Time, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds and Breath of the Wild all feature Impa. The latter was also mentioned in both the NES Classics and therefore technically plays a role in eight different Zelda games, but she never actually appears in those games in person.

Well, but Dampé is certainly the new rising star, who will have a fierce competition with Beedle from now on, who will most likely score a seventh appearance in the Breath of the Wild sequel. Both should certainly become playable characters in the next Hyrule Warriors, however!

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Tingle?

While not being as likely as Skull Kid, we can't entirely dismiss Tingle for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Now, his previous Assist Trophy is still missing, however, he already was spotted on the Great Bay stage:

But Toon Link is also still present on the Spirit Train stage, so it doesn't necessarily mean that Tingle isn't playable. Of all the remaining Zelda characters, he is probably the one, who has the most going for him, even more than Skull Kid. He appeared in a total of five Zelda games and got referenced five more. Tingle also got his own series of four different games, which were all made for the Nintendo DS, but he never appeared in the Zelda series again afterwards.

That puts him in a similar position to Wario, though far less successful and popular, where it would be interesting to see what Tingle's franchise affiliation in Super Smash Bros. would ultimately be. Does he still count as a Zelda representative or would he be his own thing? Also, which design would they chose for him? The one from Majora's Mask or from the Wind Waker? The former is already in the game, but the latter is probably more iconic, because he had his most prominent (and most hated) appearance in the Wind Waker...

This way Toon Link wouldn't be alone anymore with his art style and they could give Tingle the Pirate Ship as his "home stage". The colors of his siblings would be used as alt colors, of course.

As for moveset potential, Tingle would probably feel like a mix of Toon Link and the Villager. He could use his balloons and drop bombs. He could also use the Slingshot from Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love and maybe even summon his party members for the Final Smash.

Vanpool Planned a Tingle Horror Game

In an interview with Kotaku about Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers and the Dillon franchise, producer Kensuke Tanabe mentioned the following:

Looking back eight years ago, we were developing a horror game with Vanpool that starred Tingle as the main character, but that project was canceled due to a variety of reasons.

Based on the slingshot controls from Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, they then came up with a game about an armadillo and moved on from there. And the Tingle series is history now.

But this Tingle horror game could have been interesting. Vanpool was essentially creating a "Tingle Trilogy", where each game was placed in a different genre. The Zelda-esque Action Adventure Rosy Rupeeland with terrible gambling mechanics, the Point-and-Click Adventure Balloon Trip of Love with a quirky dating sim and finally a Tingle horror game, probably with some mechanic to calm haunting spirits or something. I would love to see this, after Balloon Trip of Love was rather disappointing.

The lack of success of the Tingle series probably was one of the main reasons, why this project was canceled. Another problem could have been the fact that Luigi's Mansion is a thing, where a Tingle horror game probably would gone in a similar direction.

Still, another Tingle game probably would have gotten more attention than Dillon. Speaking of, I could still see Dillon happening as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, even if it's just to increase the awareness about his games. But it's more likely that he will be stuck forever in Assist Trophy hell together with Tingle...

Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love Impressions

With the release of the fan-made translation patch for Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, I decided to finally give the game a try, eight and a half years after its release in Japan in August 2009. I did like the the predecessor, Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, which was also made by Vanpool, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt instead of simply ignoring or mindlessly hating it without ever giving it a try.

However, a big part of the reason, why I liked the first Tingle game in the first place was the fact that underneath the silly Tingle cover was an Action Adventure game akin to the Zelda series. The fighting was different, but otherwise it had an overworld, dungeons, a town, interactions, puzzles and most of the things that you would expect from a Zelda. Pair it with some crazy humor and you get a fairly nice game - nothing on the quality of the main Zelda series, but still enjoyable for what it was.

Now, with Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love they basically threw all of this overboard to create a Point'n'Click Adventure similar to Monkey Island, but certainly not as great. I've never been a fan of the genre, probably because I basically grew up with Zelda and need Action in my Adventure. And Balloon Trip of Love plays quite slowly, a little too slow for my taste. You have to pixel-hunt for any interactions and investigate through the various screens for how to proceed. And this requires a good amount of patience.

The game also seems to be very linear. You play this on a page-by-page basis, where every page includes a small area with multiple screens and gets divided into individual chapters... (Shouldn't this be the other way around?) There is usually only the one solution for a chapter and figuring it out sometimes may take a while. I think, later in the game you will be able to travel to previous pages, probably by balloon, but early on you just follow the given set of events through them.

Still, I did like the classic Point'n'Click Adventure style in the beginning and the humor is similar to the first game. Tingle gets accompanied by a scarecrow (Kakashi), a female robot (Buriki) and a lion (who's simply called "Lion"), which is based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Kakashi can use his straw for various things and crawl in small holes, Buriki can analyze and kick things, while the Lion has super strength and can talk to animals. You also get various other items including a Bottle and a Slingshot for additional interactions on the screen. But the Bottle seems mostly for carrying water and it's not like in the first game, where you can have up to 23 bottles with many different contents. The Slingshot can be fun, though, because it lets you shoot anything on the screen for funny reactions...

There's also a strange "hero" with a red cape, who rides on a horse, which he calls via an Ocarina and Epona's Song, and who puts obstacles into Tingle's way to meet the beautiful Princess. It's kind of funny and Tingle also got to ride his own train four months before Link could, even on the same Nintendo system:

The train brings you to Page 6 and this is where my journey currently has ended. It introduces the "love push" system, which basically brings back the worst feature of the first game: the bargaining. It's not exactly the same, but probably more annoying. Women won't talk to Tingle in this game, because he looks like (and is) a pervert. So, you have to feed them with presents until they like you... (That's racist. Ding.)

Tingle also takes notes about all women, where he doesn't discriminate. Young or old, large or small, pretty or ugly. It doesn't matter, because Tingle wants all their love, where especially the underage girls feel somewhat problematic in the sense of Pedo-Tingle. It's probably harmless, but it's still weird at first and you have to do this with seemingly all the women in the game in order to proceed, whether you want to or not...

The "love push" system itself doesn't seem as bad as the bargaining from Rupeeland on first glance, but it still involves lots of trial and error, where so far no guides for the inofficial English version exist. You have to give a woman presents and then figure out the right one from her reactions. There are at least a hundred different possible presents in the game, which you have to buy from Rupees, which you can collect in the areas by performing certain (slow) tasks like kicking trees or looking under rocks.

It does remind me of building friendships in Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball (and yes, I've played that game), but the difference is that the females here are mostly ugly and you don't get any clues what you should give them at first. I did try to find presents, which might match the person, but they usually hated me for it. But then you see, what categories they might like and you can try to find a fitting present based on that. So, it really just seems to be trial and error, where you have to grind for the necessary Rupees in order to effort all those presents. At least there isn't a time limit, at least not yet...

Anyway, I couldn't muster enough motivation to continue from there, even though I would like to see, how Tingle gets the Princess in the end. I might continue this game at a later point, but for now I had enough of it.

Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love Translated

Happy New Year!

If you're looking for something weird and crazy to start the year, how about playing one of the Tingle games? Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, specifically, because the guys over at the Tingle Translation Project have finally released their first translation patch for the game. The project started exactly five years ago, in January 2013, and they certainly put a lot of effort into it.

I did play Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland back in the day and enjoyed it for what it was, but its sequel never made it to Europe and therefore never officially was translated into English (or other languages). Also, North America never even got any of the Tingle games and probably for good reasons.

Still, I tried to play Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love a couple of years ago, in early 2012, but I didn't get far. Unlike its predecessor it doesn't really follow the Action Adventure formula of the Zelda series, it's more like a Point'n'Click Adventure. And I didn't get far due to the language barrier, because I had no clue what was going on. But with the patch available I might give it another try soon. Could be fun. Could be the most horrible game that I've ever played. Let's see.

If you're part of the .000001% of the Zelda community, which doesn't actually hate Tingle, check it out!

The Return of Macho Tingle

Breath of the Wild is getting its first DLC tomorrow with the "Master Trials" and to celebrate Nintendo published developer posts about each of the new outfits, almost as if dropping some costume pieces in treasure chests all over the map is something special. Well, at least the post about the Tingle costume made me realize that this actually marks the return of Macho Tingle, as seen in the above illustration.

Originally this was part of the intro of Color Changing Balloon Trip of Love, but Link's new costume is certainly close enough:

I guess, after they made such a big thing out of each single costume, the "Champions' Ballad" DLC will probably also have armor pieces, which are all fan service material and based on characters / things from past Zelda games.

Link's Wild Rupeeland

This post will anger some fans and amuse others. But during the presentations of Breath of the Wild I kept wondering, why the small "Get Item" sound, whenever you pick something up from the ground, felt so strangely familiar. I kept thinking about other games that I played with lots of loot and then it struck me: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland! In this game you freshly pick up tons of junk and every time it makes this two-note sound effect, which is very similar to the one in Breath of the Wild, only higher pitched. And there are quite some similarities between the two games.

The loot is just one example. You collect food, minerals and other things from the environment, as well as body parts and weapons from enemies. There are over 140 different items in the game to collect...

Some items act as keys for dungeons or are wanted by certain people, but the majority you either use for cooking or to sell them, very similar to Breath of the Wild. In Link's new game it seems like you won't find Rupees in the wilderness, but you can sell treasures to get Hyrule's currency. So, this part has seemingly become a little bit more realistic, much as the health situation.

Hopefully every consumable item is replenishable in some way. You should be able to buy all weapons and ammunition or otherwise you might run out of Fire Rods during the course of the game, which wouldn't be much fun. Like in Skyward Sword every treasure item should be farmable in some way, including the minerals. In Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland certain resources like plants, mushrooms and vegetables regrew after a while and I suppose it will be similar in Breath of the Wild.

And for example the Talus guy gave you minerals after you defeated him, where it would be possible that he respawns after a while. At first you will find plenty of minerals within the environment, but that's a finite resource, where some other way of getting would be required later in the game, if you still need more.

Anyway, besides the loot, another thing that reminded me of Rupeeland was the fact that you glide down to new areas. In Rupeeland you use Tingle's balloon from a high tower to reach new areas as well. The higher the tower gets, the further you can go on the overworld.

And there's no music on the overworld, it's all just ambient sounds, where the game has a very nice atmosphere. I suppose, this also reminded me of the game, when I saw Breath of the Wild this week. There's still music Rupeeland, where one of the most memorable and atmospheric tracks is the Deku Temple music. But you also have music inside the town or when you fight enemies.

Now, this made me want to replay Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland and I might do that later this year, as part of my 30th Anniversary Replay Tour.

Hyrule Warriors: Majora's Mask Pack – First Impressions

After the Twilight Princess DLC for Hyrule Warriors was quite disappointing, I'm enjoying the new Majora's Mask DLC a lot more.

First of all: I got Fierce Deity Link. I got my most wanted character and he turned out great. While Young Link is used as the medium, it's more like the Great Fairy, where a weapon turns out to be a character of its own. Basically you get two characters in one, though both of them are just variations of Link.

But I do like the Focus Spirit mechanic. It makes a lot of sense, since in Majora's Mask the Sword Beams of Doom were limited to magic as well. And I have to admit that it's probably better than having Fierce Deity Link as his own character, because otherwise they would have to make him a lot weaker than he was in Majora's Mask. Now Young Link gets used for the weak part and Fierce Deity Link looks a lot more impressive in this contrast. You get to wreck havoc with these crazy sword beams, which makes the Master Sword look like a toy. It's amazing and fun and they did it right.

Which makes all of this even better is the C1 mechanic, where Link plays his Ocarina, which turns your SP into Magic. In the "Rack up your KO count!" missions you can basically infinitely stay in Fierce Deity Mode because of that and in other missions you get to use Magic a lot more often than normally. It's an unique mechanic, which makes this whole moveset work really well.

It's also overpowered, as it should be... and I think that Koei found the right solution for this character, which makes me happy. There are only some minor complaints. They did miss that Fierce Deity Link is actually a lot larger, because here he just has normal size. They could have at least make him one head larger or so. And the Kokiri Sword feels also weird, since it doesn't get its upgrades. But I guess it's similar to the Knight's Sword, which Link also uses on Epona or with the Great Fairy. It's just that Young Link didn't get a real default weapon yet. However, it would have been nice to have Tatl talk for Young Link instead of Proxi. But I guess it makes sense story-wise, since he couldn't have the Fierce Deity Mask until after the events of Majora's Mask.

Also, overpowered as Fierce Deity Link is, it actually feels right to keep him as an extra. With Twili Midna I didn't really like that she didn't have any missions or collectibles, but with the Fierce Deity it kind of feels right to have him as this overpowered extra, much like the Fierce Deity's Mask was in the original. And Twili Midna, Young Link, and Fierce Deity Link are all just variations of existing characters, so I guess after all it's not so bad, how they handled the DLC characters.

It certainly also is a good thing with Tingle. If you read some of my Tingle posts on this blog, you know that I really hated him in the past, but grew to like him over the years. And his appearance in Hyrule Warriors certainly does him justice. It's absolutely hilarious and has lots of nice references like the different balloons based on his spin-off games.

But I understand when other people hate him, especially since he got in over Skull Kid. And he looks very odd in this game, mostly because the rest of the roster seems very cool and mature. Well, there already was Agitha as the oddball, but even she kind of fit in nicely. Tingle looks just out of place now... but where he came from, there are many other odd characters in the Zelda series and they probably had to start somewhere. I kind of hope that in a sequel they give Tingle his own design and make the current Majora's Mask variant a costume. He might fit in a little bit better than.

Now off to the Termina Map...

After the torture that was the Twilight Map, I'm relieved that they didn't go for the insane and frustrating damage multiplier again. Missions still can be very tough, as they should be so late in the game, but so far it doesn't seem like a tiny scratch can ruin your A-rank. (Though, I could be wrong about that. I tried missions at Great Bay and Ikana and seemed pretty awful again... the whole concept of not losing more than 10 Hearts is really what ruins the fun in this game.)

I also really enjoy the mechanic of this map. If done wrong, a map reset would have been awful, but they did it right. It's very balanced, you can basically complete the entire map without the moon crashing on you if you stay efficient. And it also gives the whole map a better sense of direction. Finally, those dungeon missions have a real purpose and you basically follow the original game's flow. And now the final level, where you fight Ganon, seems like a real goal, because it deactivates the timer. On previous maps it was just there and didn't feel like an accomplishment.

What's also really nice are the new competitive missions, that's a great idea. It reminds me even more of Unreal Tournament, which is a good thing, I like the sports. This also could be used for a multiplayer versus mode, if there ever would be one.

So, overall I'm enjoying this map quite a lot. And it's just a shame that the unlockable costumes don't seem to be worth it this time around...

I admit that they can be quite funny, but they really just took everyone's default costume and slammed a mask in their face. You don't get to use the mask with the other color variants or anything. The idea of the masks is nice, but in a sequel they need to keep it separate. So, a character can have both costumes and masks and you can combine them. This already makes a lot of sense for Cia, where they had to create three variants of all her costumes.

But... I love that at least Link also got a full Fierce Deity Link costume. I know that quite some people wanted Fierce Deity Link to be only a costume, but it's awesome to have both. They could have called this the Fierce Deity Pack.

Hyrule Warriors: Majora's Mask DLC revealed

Well, the cat is out of the bag and it's not a pretty one:

I was at least hoping that they would give Tingle a new design, if they ever add him, since he's a recurring character much like Impa or Ganondorf. Because his design from Majora's Mask is easily the ugliest and Koei Tecmo is really good at making awesome new designs for the characters. The fighting style looks funny, but the super ugly Tingle completely ruins it.

Also... this will create hate without end. Nintendo let their fans preorder the DLC without announcing the characters up front and most people probably expected Skull Kid. Especially in the US Tingle gets a lot of hate and Aonuma was actually smart enough to tell the team to keep him out in favor of a different character. But with the DLC they let many people pay for something, which they might not even want, so here it's even worse. They should have announced the characters right from the get-go. This would have saved us a lot of useless speculation, hype and frustration. The only good thing is that you can completely ignore the DLC characters, since they are not needed for missions.

I personally wanted to have Fierce Deity Link and Skull Kid battling each other, so I'm not entirely happy that they both ended up as attacks for Young Link:

Young Link seems out of place, since so far they created their own incarnations of the characters and prevented them from meeting their past versions. I would have liked to see the Hyrule Warriors Link turn into Fierce Deity, but instead they decided to use Young Link from Majora's Mask for this job.

I really hope that at least in Focus Spirit you can play as the full Fierce Deity, where you fire sword beams. This actually would even be true to the original character, where the sword beams were limited by magic and could break through boss armor. They would probably be too overpowered in Hyrule Warriors as they were, but by limiting the Fierce Deity to Focus Spirit it kind of makes sense. You also get to see the nice effect, where Link transforms into the Fierce Deity. So, they kind of stay true to the original concept with all that, if it really works with Focus Spirit. If not, it will be simply a disappointing moveset. And still all of that could and should have been done by a two handed moveset for Link. There's no reason for Young Link to be in this game.

The main appeal of Hyrule Warriors is playing characters, which you normally can't play as. And in that sense they really failed with the Majora's Mask DLC. Tingle already got multiple games of his own, where you can play as him, and Young Link is playable in multiple Zelda games. Skull Kid on the other hand didn't get playable in both Smash and Hyrule Warriors... which is really disappointing, since he would have lots of potential.

Well, let's talk about the rest:

I made several predictions for the new costumes in the Majora's Mask Pack and "the Ocarina of Time variants for Sheik and Impa" was probably the lamest one. It's still nice to finally have them for the sake of completion. At the same time, it's kind of sad that we only got recolors for Demise and Skyward Sword Impa.

Tingle should have been a costume (for Volga), instead Skull Kid was the one to be turned into a costume, which is kind of disappointing. It looks like Lana is doing the cosplay, who's probably the best fit with her Deku / Kokiri moveset. But in general there are so many nice possibilities for costumes and Koei Tecmo is usually really big with that, so I'm kind of sad that the majority is just some lazy recolors and that we didn't get any additional costume packs (yet).

The Adventure Map looks like it really is using a reset mechanic, which would be awful, if done wrong. I hope that the difficulty at least will be moderate again to compensate for the pressure. But it certainly won't take away the Heart Pieces or costume, but I guess the map will just get covered again, if you fail or so.

It seems that there are no red zones and also less costumes + 8-Bit weapons than in previous maps. I count 13 costumes and five weapons, so at least one of the original weapons is not getting an 8-Bit version (probably the Portal, since the Recorder as the Baton is just too perfect) and three characters are not getting costumes this time. This or there's like a small Moon map, which only contains red fields and the rest of the rewards. This could work also.

However, on the first field it shows only a Heart Piece for Darunia. Which probably means that each character is only getting two additional hearts again for a total of 42. Either they raise the level cap yet again or the remaining hearts will be gotten in future DLC.

Also... no sign of any new stage yet. Clocktown would have been a must.

Hyrule Warriors: Tingle Costume for Volga?

You might have seen this interview already, where Aonuma advised the Hyrule Warriors team not to include Tingle, after they had trouble implementing him.

(It's actually funny, how things bounce around the internet. I found this months old interview googling for "Hyrule Warriors Tingle" and posted it on GameFAQs to support an argument, why Tingle is not a safe bet for the Majora's Mask DLC. This got some happy reactions including one guy tweeting the interview. NintendoEverything then picked up the tweet and posted it on their recent news. And now it's on pretty much all Nintendo News sites... and people send me the interview or make new threads on GameFAQs with the interview... but so much about that. :D)

Three new costumes will be part of the Majora's Mask DLC pack and I'm actually hoping that characters, who haven't seen any original costumes yet, will get some treatment here. So, anyone but Link, Zelda, Ganondorf, Lana or Cia. And with the interview I have more hopes again that Fierce Deity Link won't just be a costume, but fully playable character. There's even lots of similarities between him and Twili Midna.

And as much as Fierce Deity Link could just be a costume, the same goes for Tingle. There could just be a Tingle costume for someone and that someone is... Volga! Take a look:

Their faces are very similar. You have the small pointed goatee at their chins and you have these black squinching eyes. And he even has this chain with a red pendant, which is very similar to how Tingle wears his clock. Volga is just a manly dragon Tingle! And maybe this design choice was even intentional by Koei. Now put him in a green costume with that clock for some lulz. It's perfect.

While I wouldn't mind Tingle as a playable character, I would love a Tingle costume for Volga!

PS: I also update my previous post, where I speculated about the MM DLC, with this idea.

Hyrule Warriors used to include Tingle

According to the hacker crediar, the game code of Hyrule Warriors references to Tingle and the Tingle Balloon as a weapon. There was also a second weapon for Midna simply called "hair":

Looking at code of #HyruleWarriors I found some disturbing text strings: action/model/C_TINGLE.bin.gz action/model/W_TINGLE_BALLOON.bin.gz
There is one more: "101_dark_tingle_00" And also there seems to be a 2nd weapon for midna: action/model/W_MIDNA_HAIR.bin.gz

We already knew from E3 that Midna was going to get a 2nd weapon, which never made it into the full game. The question is, if this is scrapped or unfinished content. If the latter applies, we are looking at the DLC here.

I cannot deny that Tingle would offer an unique moveset. I even had the same idea for him in one of my earlier speculation posts about the character roster. But with the roster getting slimmer, I was hoping that he wouldn't take a spot over Fierce Deity Link.

But I can probably give up my hopes on that. They might even use Fierce Deity Link as a selling point for the sequel... because what other super awesome badass characters would be left? They have Imbadorf here and they need something good for Hyrule Warriors 2.

And I'm not opposed to Tingle, so I wouldn't mind his inclusion, might be even a lot of fun.

The Wind Waker HD: Knuckle, Tingle Statues, Tingle Bombs and other Tingle Tuner Items

Yes, I'm making another post about this topic, because I had some new ideas and insights here. It's basically the only thing, which we don't know about The Wind Waker HD yet and it fascinates me.

To get the facts straight: the Tingle Tuner will be gone from this version (which is kind of ironic seeing how the GBA-GameCube-connection potentially inspired the Wii U GamePad), so will be five of the Triforce Charts, which leaves five islands without a treasure for now. The Tingle Tuner quests offered several awards for the main game, mainly Knuckle and the five golden Tingle Statues, all of them located on Tingle island:

Awww, this looks so great! I would be a shame, if this was missing. But I doubt it will.

We basically just have to put it all together now. The Tingle Statues were found in hidden chests in the five main dungeons. There were not shown with the Compass and you had to use a Tingle Bomb to make the appear. Since we don't have the Tingle Tuner, I think those will be regular chests. But instead of giving you the statues, you will receive "Tingle Charts", "Golden Tingle Charts", "Tingle Statue Charts", "Kooloo-Limpah Charts", "Knuckle Charts" - you name it. Those you have to bring to Tingle, because they need to be deciphered much like the Triforce-Charts. 398 Rupees each. So, you have to spent the same amount of money on Tingle, but five charts will be optional. And they will be at the places, where the five Triforce Shards used to be.

So, what should the reward be? In The Wind Waker on the GameCube you would get Rupees from Ankle for finding the statues, 50 per statue and a final 500 for collecting all of them. However, you would have to spent a lot more money on the statues than you would get back from Ankle. If they want to keep all the deciphering, that is.

And then there's Knuckle. He's actually the guy, who carved the Tingle Statues, but he doesn't appear until a certain Tingle Tuner quest on Outset Island. So, previously I thought that you would unlock Knuckle by collecting all five statues. But that's not a real reward. Maybe he will appear only after all five statues are returned, but him alone wouldn't feel like it's worth the trouble. You need something from him.

In one of my previous posts I already detected that the inventory has one free spot, that there might be one new item in the game. And I think that whatever this item is, it's the reward you get from collecting the statues. What could the item be? I speculated something like a Seagull Beetle. But it might be more obvious. The Tingle Tuner itself had a bunch of special items. Each one of them could qualify for the secret new item.

- The Tingle Bombs. Those would act like normal bombs, but they would use 10 Rupees instead of a bomb. Nice option if you ever run out of bombs.
- The Tingle Balloon. It lets you float in mid air for a second. Similar to the Hover Boots in Ocarina of Time. Might be a broken feature though.
- The Tingle Clock. It tells you the time. Pretty simple, but still interesting.


Another reward from the Tingle Statues was a respawning pot with 100 Rupees on a cliff at Outset Island. You could basically unlimited Rupees from that. Maybe it's something similar like Knuckle giving you 100 Rupees each time you visit the island.

So, yeah, that's my theory. I'm pretty sure that some of this might actually come true. It just makes too much sense.


Update:

VentureBeat confirmed that the Tingle Statues are still in the HD version!

Retro, Tingle and the Curse of Conversion

A Zelda game made by Retro Studios. That's certainly something many Zelda fans dreamt about, but was denied by Miyamoto, because he didn't want to outsource Zelda. But they can still mock the Zelda fans by letting Retro make the third Tingle game. I'm not kidding here.

Say "hello" to Kensuke Tanabe. He's the producer of all the Retro Studio and Vanpool titles. In case you don't know, Retro Studios made such great games as the Metroid Prime Trilogy (simply one of my favorites) and the latest Donkey Kong Country games, currently working on Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Vanpool are the guys, who made the Tingle games including Rupeeland. Later they had invented the Dillon franchise.

In an interview with VentureBeat Tanabe admitted his obsession with Tingle. Even though the character is hated in the West, he still thinks that this can be changed, turn the hate into love, by making yet another Tingle game. And the head of Retro Studios even jokes that they could make that game. Of course this all wasn't really serious and Tanabe explains that's just some crazy idea from himself and not Nintendo, but still I could see this happening, no matter how ludicrous it might seem.

As of late Nintendo has a problem. When some of their products gets rejected, they think it's not because the people simply didn't like it or because the product was bad, but because the people didn't understand it properly. The Wii U is great, people just don't understand it! - That's Nintendo's statement. The Wind Waker's art style was great for Zelda, people just didn't understand it. - That's Aonuma's statement and the reason, why they keep making more Toon Zelda, even though the Wind Waker received a lot of hate and Twilight Princess outsold comic-look Zelda big time. And you can certainly expect Nintendo to make Metroid: Other M 2, just because they think the first game wasn't understood properly. ... That Tanabe wants to sell more Tingle just fits the whole profile.

And maybe his vision would come true... Most likely not, but if I said it would be impossible to convert the people to like Tingle, I would be a hypocrite. Because I got converted myself. Two times actually. One time with the Wind Waker and later with Tingle.

I'm not hostile towards the Wind Waker anymore, but I used to be when the game came out. I was 16 years old, so everything had to be cool and there's no way that I would buy that weird GameCube with the kiddy Zelda. Three years later at the German army, a comrade had a GameCube with the Zelda Collector's Edition, where I helped him with Majora's Mask. Of course I was curious about the Wind Waker demo and I gave it a try. And I liked it. The game was really charming and I loved, how dark and atmospheric the Forsaken Fortress and Dragon Roost Cavern dungeons looked despite the toon style. Windfall Island was great and probably my favorite town in the series. I would later get my own GameCube with the Wind Waker that year (though Twilight Princess at the horizon was the main reason to get the system). I got converted.

With Tingle it was similar. At first I hated him. Especially in Majora's Mask. As a young lad I considered him to be the one and only flaw of the game. I wished he wasn't in there. In the Wind Waker I thought he was more funny, even though he rips you off badly, but I never had problems with collecting enough Rupees. I still hated him for the Tingle Tuner, which simply was a terribly implemented feature and gave him more attention than he should have. Then one day I would win Tingle's Rupeeland in an online quiz game. At first I didn't want to touch this abomination of a game, but when I started playing it, I noticed the similar Action Adventure gameplay and that the game had a lot of charme. While this game is far from perfect, I really liked it for what it is. It made me stop hating Tingle and appreciate the weird sense of humor surrounding him.

So, mission successful, Tanabe! I got converted. But I'm an exception. In both cases I got my hands on the games by coincident (or you could say "fate"). If you're unwilling to buy something, no marketing will change that. You can't force people to buy Tingle games, if they hate Tingle. Tingle's Rupeeland sold poorly, it didn't change much about Tingle's reception. And yet another Tingle game won't change this, especially one made by Retro - in that case you would just make the Zelda fans furious.

Also, just because I grew to like the Wind Waker and Tingle, doesn't mean I want more Wind Waker and Tingle. I learned to like them for what they are in the Zelda series, but I don't really want more. I originally rejected both for a reason and that's never going to change. Nintendo won't change this, no matter how many Toon Zelda and Tingle games they'll keep making.


This behavior on Nintendo's site is very unhealthy. They should stop chasing ghosts and focus on what the people really want from games like Zelda. Instead they try to manipulate you into liking something that you hated.

Operation Reinfall

You've probably heard about "Operation Rainfall" by now, it's a fan campaign for getting the three games The Last Story, Pandora's Tower and Xenoblade Chronicles localized and released in North America. But Nintendo just responded "no" on Facebook without giving any good reason, which understandably caused some giant pile of ruckus all over the internet.

I would join Operation Rainfall, however, I live in Europe and we're getting Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story anyway (update: Pandora's Tower will also follow). And I'm not even really interested in these games, I don't play (J)RPGs, I never liked the Final Fantasy series for example. Some Action-RPGs, that play like Zelda, like the early Mana games or Terranigma, are fine though. But from what I've seen from the three Rainfall games, I don't think that they are my thing. However, it's nice to have at least the option to buy these games in case I change my mind about them. Nintendo of Europe does a great job lately.

But to make you all feel better, I will start my own fan-campaign, which is destined to fail! I call it "Operation Reinfall" (if you don't get the pun, click here) and it's purpose is to get all three Tingle games that are currently exclusive to Japan including Tingle RPG2, also known as Color Changing: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, the Tingle Pack and Tingle's Balloon Fight localized for Europe.



They did release the first Tingle game, Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, here in Europe, so why not the second one? (Well, maybe because the first one didn't sell too well, most European Zelda fans hate Tingle and because Nintendo of Europe is too busy localizing Xenoblade Chronicles, Pandora's Tower and The Last Story...) But I somehow liked the first game and I won't give up! So, where can I preorder a game on Amazon, that probably won't ever be released here? And naturally it should accompanied by the Tingle Pack, which was a set of silly DSiWare applications, that no one needs. And members of the Japanese Club Nintendo were able get a limited Tingle version of Balloon Fight, but they should definitely re-release this as DSiWare. (Actually I think the latter would be a cool idea, Balloon Fight is a solid classic and this is basically a crossover with The Wind Waker.)

Bad Uncle Rupee's Ashen Rupeeland

This is one great game. 10/10.

No, actually that's just what you get in Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland as a vision of how Rupeeland really looks like. It's a modification of the title screen and quite a hilarious scene. It's also quite a spoiler for anyone, who hasn't played this game, but I guess most people don't care about the Tingle games anyway. I do, however, I had quite some fun with the first game and I would like to see at least Color Changing: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love to be released here in Europe as well. But I guess this game is just not worth the effort of putting up a team of translators to it. It was released two years ago in Japan and any chance that this will be released in Europe seems to be gone by now. Not that this is a great loss, there are far more interesting games, who never have been released outside of Japan...

Zelda and Multiplayer: Tingle Tuner

The history of Zelda's multiplayer is a history of failure. By now six games in the series already tried to implement a multiplayer mode, but still the Zelda series isn't known for its multiplayer experience. Let's take a closer look, how multiplayer was incorporated into Zelda and what went wrong.

I decided to split this article up into smaller parts, one part for each game.

First Part:
The Wind Waker

The first attempt for some multiplayer gameplay in the Zelda series was offered by The Wind Waker. The game doesn't have a real multiplayer mode, but a co-operative mode in form of the Tingle Tuner, which uses the GBA connection. The thought behind this was, that you often hear about people watching someone else playing Zelda. Nintendo wanted to give those the opportunity to step in the game and have some "fun" too. This idea has been later used for the "Co-Star Mode" in Super Mario Galaxy, where a second player can also use a Star Pointer. But overall the second player is taking the back seat, while the first player gets the real fun. In case of the Tingle Tuner it might even better, if the second person just keeps watching instead of using this thing. Because the only thing you can really do with it is annoying the person playing the game by constantly pressing A to call him or blowing him up with bombs, which even costs him rupees. But luckily you don't need a second player to operate the Tingle Tuner, you can easily use it by yourself. Also, the implementation of this feature was quite cheap. The graphics on the GameBoy Advance are mediocre and the Tingle Tuner deals with lots of invisible stuff in the environment, which you can't sea in the game. You only see the results, you need the Tuner to unlock Knuckle and the five Tingle Statues from the dungeons.



Well, you can definitely say that is not the way to include multiplayer into a Zelda game. The second player doesn't want to play the second fiddle, the execution of this feature was pretty cheap and more or less it's just a gimmick to advertise their great GameCube GameBoy Advance Cable. What we want, is a real multiplayer mode.

Next game: Four Swords.

Tingle: The Wario of the Zelda Franchise?

While Tingle surely is not as "badass" as Wario is, I noticed, that both characters took very similar ways in the history of their games. Wario basically was a disgusting, creepy and greedy version of Mario, while Tingle is a disgusting, creepy and greedy version of Link. Notice the similar clothing to their counterparts. And both of them got their own spin off series by now.

With Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land Wario got his own game. It's very similar to the previous Mario games, he got different hats, he shrinks when he gets hit by an enemy and dies if he gets hit afterwards. The main difference is, that Wario was more heavy and that the game focused more on finding hidden treasures. But overall it was a solid entry in the Mario series, it's even one of my favorite Jump'n'Runs. The graphics, music and sounds are very well made for a GameBoy game, it had a great atmosphere to it. However, with Wario Land II he followed his own course. He couldn't die anymore, but enemies could change his body state like flatten him or put him on fire, which was an unique but sometimes also annoying feature. Also, the game focused even more on hidden treasures and had different courses and endings. I personally didn't like it too much and luckily later the series would return to the format of the classic Wario Land. In addition Wario was the host of several minigame compilations, the Microgame$ or WarioWare.

Now with Tingle, his first own game called Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland was as close as possible for Tingle to a Zelda game. You have the exploring of an overworld, dungeons, typical sidequests, but Tingle used his bare hands and a series of bodyguards to fight instead of a sword and bargaining played an important role in the game. But overall it followed the Action Adventure formula of the Zelda series, which made it very accessible for Zelda fans. Now the sequel to that game, Color Changing: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love then went more into an own direction. It didn't follow the Action Adventure formula and became more of a Point and Click Adventure game. Tingle also can't die in this game. Additionally Tingle was the star of a series of minigames, including the current installment of the Balloon Fight series and a collection of DSiWare applications, the Tingle Pack.

See the similarities?

Color Changing Ignorance

Well, Color Changing: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love was released on August 6th in Japan and we haven't heard or seen anything specific about it yet. Over at Gametrailers there are some new gameplay videos including a 3D dungeon maze and a fight against a crow. Over at GameFAQs there are some guys, who actually have imported the game, but they only talk about puzzle solving problems. But at least someone uploaded some screenshots there.

Looks like there are still rupees in the game (not a surprise), but I hope there is no bargaining. The dungeon scene reminds of the crawling mazes in The Wind Waker, especially the one behind the prison cell, where Tingle was imprisoned and where you ran into some rats using trapdoors, if you took the wrong corner. And judging from the comments on GameFAQs the game is devided in levels, which are the chapters and pages of the faiy tale book. But you're able to visit older pages again by travelling with your balloon.

That's it, more I can't say about the game even one month after its release. But you can't blame anyone for ignoring this game, it's probably not that good and most people haven't even played the prequel yet. Well, I only care about it, because I really liked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland and because I have a large curiosity when it comes to Zelda and all things related to Zelda. But I won't import Balloon Trip of Love, I still hope it will be released in Europe at one day. I don't know any Japanese and the game is an Adventure game with a lot of text, so importing it won't do me any good. But if it will be released in Europe, I definitely will get it. Right now it's selling about as good as Rupeeland did, which isn't much but enough for a game like this, so it probably will be released in Europe too. But it took a year for the first game to be released here, so I won't hold my breath.

Color Changing Overview Trailer

Overview Trailer

I apologize for the wave of Tingle news lately, but a Japanese overview trailer for Color Changing: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love appeared yesterday. The game launches on August 6th in Japan, so expect more to come.

Well, storywise we will get a new Tingle. Much like we get a new Link in every second Zelda game. In Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland we learned, that a "Tingle" is not a single person, but a state of being. So, like we have different generations of Links and Zeldas, we have different incarnations of Tingles over the ages, too. This one, however, is trapped in this fairy tale book. To escape, he has to dance with the princess. So, that's the final goal. But I would expect some nasty story twists here, much like in the first game.

And it still looks like a Point & Click Adventure. But there are some special action sequences, much like the boss fights in the first game. Those work in a try and error fashion, so you either win or you have to start over. But it looks like, there won't be any regular fighting. The humor is great, like always, I especially liked the last scene in the trailer, it was hilarious.

Color Changing Gameplay Videos

At Gametrailers there is a series of gameplay videos of the new Tingle adventure game Color Changing: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love available:

Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love videos

It shows how the three companions work. Like I thought, they will replace the bodyguards from Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland and come in three sizes. A large lion, a medium sized female robot and a small scarecrow. All of them have special abilities to solve different puzzles.

But there's one thing, I've noticed in these videos. It totally looks like a classic Point & Click Adventure game and NOT AT ALL like an Action Adventure, which is how Zelda (and Zelda related games) should look like. I hope, there will be still fighting and dungeons and other classical Zelda elements, which made the first game "enjoyable" to begin with. If I would like to play classic Adventures like Monkey Island, I wouldn't buy Zelda games. I know, this is NOT a Zelda game, please don't kill me. But it's a spin off to the Zelda series and the main reason, why the first game was so interesting for me, was because it shared so many similarities with a Zelda game. It had action-oriented gameplay, the overworld/dungeon world layout, and so on. Just read my review. If this would be missing, then Vanpool is definitely heading into the wrong direction.