Take it for what it is! This is not a Zelda-game, people! SOLID GAME BUT FLAWS BRING THE SCORE DOWN!
Tingle's Rosy Rupee Land is by no means a Zelda game. It's not even trying to be, so take it for what it is. It tries to be an action RPG for dummies. The game succeeds in it as for the basic concept, but there are flaws that hurt the gameplay and difficulty level. The main objective really is to find as much rupees as you can and shove them in your fountain, making your tower grow. As your tower grows, you can jump down reaching further areas and get closer to "Rupee Land", your dream. All this really is an excuse for a pretty good and funny story, so really there is more to this game than the main objective. The game clearly is designed for those not familiar with rpg's. It is a game designed with the casual gamer in mind. However, where as the over all concept and simplicitiy and minimal challenge of advancing in the game are well made, paying for everything is also something I bet the casual gamer does not understand. A casual gamer's wallet is easily emptied. Also the battle system, while easy in it's ideas, requires too much effort and doesn't work that well. It is a bit sad, because now the game doesn't really belong to any category. It is too easy for the hardcore gamer and too difficult for the casual.
Collecting rupees is not as fun as it should be. You seldom get rupees from monsters. You can earn a fair amount of money cooking items at home and selling them to folks but you need to get the ingredients by killing enemies. You also need recepies unless you want to put a lot of time into figuring out recepies yourself. You rarely find any recepies. Ingredients aren't worth selling because you probably lost more rupees collecting them than what you get out of them.
You also have to pay for pretty much everything to advance in the game wether entering a village or dungeon. Entering places require a toll. You put in money until reach the full payment. Talking to characters for tips is different. You must pay the correct amount of rupees (or more) all at once, or you'll end up with only hints and not the whole tip. If you want the full explanation from the character, you must pay the whole fee no matter how much money you've already paid. There's no real way of telling how much you should pay as different characters demand different prices.
You also get to ask for rupees as rewards for tasks. Ask too much and you'll get nothing, ask too little and you've missed a chance for getting a good price. Again there is no way of telling how much you should ask. Asking 80 rupees for finding a doll is too much. Asking 400 rupees for giving a bottle of juice is too little. There is no logic. Battle system is innovative but it's flawed. When you hit an enemy a cloud of brawl appears. You can move the cloud around and try to hit as many enemies as possible. The more enemies you fight at once, the more rupees and ingredients you earn. Touching the cloud repetitively ensures even a bit more stuff. This idea is cool! However, your cloud moves slowly and monsters tend to wander away from your cloud instead of being aggressive and drawn into battle. This means that when you try to fight many enemies, they escape and you'll automatically kill your first opponent before reaching the next one. Some enemies are tougher than you'd expect. It's not logical. This game has the most bad assed cockroaches ever! One roach is tougher than a wild hog and a green rat combined!
The bodyguard feature is excellent! You find a tavern and hire someone. You get to choose from a few different bodyguard types, which is fun. It is fun to have a little muscle with you. But there are problems in the system as well. You can easily get your guard into battle with you but if you want to stay out of the battle, it is very hard to get your guard to attack monsters. Also healing your bodyguard should be easier than aiming the bottle at him or making him walk over it. The most intolerable flaw in the game involves the save and continue -feature. You can only save your game at your house. If you run out of rupees YOU NEED TO START FROM THE LAST SAVE! Basically you need to remember to save often and stack up enough rupees before entering a dungeon so you won't get killed. Sounds are pretty GBA'ish but the music is good. There is no over world music which is strange. Sand crunching under your feet gets annoying. The quality of the music elsewhere somewhat makes up for this, though. I found some of the themes, such as the town music, too dark for this type of game. On the other hand especially the jazzy melodies backed up by a female voice in your home terminal deserves a full 10 out of 10. It really is spot on and unbelievable!!! Inspite of my complains, Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland really is a fun game. It has a fun concept, nice graphics, jokes that make you laugh, innovative gameplay aspects, good music and a good story! It's just these flaws that I mentioned that spoil the game a bit. I recommend this game to anyone looking for something new but not too challenging.