In 1904, game designer, writer, reporter, Georgist and feminist Elizabeth Magie patented The Landlord's Game: a scathing review of the contemporary trends of rent and land ownership (in the form of a board game). The idea was that players could understand the complicated web of "The Rich Get Richer" from a more simplified point of view. Fairness could be instilled in children when they play this game and realize how cruel the world could be if we let it. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, this did not work out. The world is still cruel because we have let it. Even more unfortunate for her, Parker Brothers made Monopoly in 1935, a game very much like The Landlord's Game, that quickly took the world by storm and became commonplace in American homes. Monopoly probably came to be due to some perfectly legal patent loopholes, but it's clear that a piece made to criticize greed eventually became a vehicle for it.

Perhaps Monopoly took off the way it did because The Landlord's Game is from the point of view of the owners of money and land. But what if it was from the point of view of someone who has no money?

Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is a scathing indictment of greed and the acquisition of money, more ferocious and toothed than anything The Landlord's Game could conjure up. It is made to inspire the soul crushing feelings of a minimum wage 9-5 and it does it very well. Most games demand you grind to work your way up. Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland demands you grind to lift your pathetic leg up on the first rung of the ladder.
Everything, down to talking with npcs, costs money. And you, as the titular 35-year-old virgin Tingle, (who has very, very little to do with the series he originated in) have none of it. Want to look at things in a store? Want to ask someone a question? Better clock in and beat up some animals to do an imaginary coin flip to get an item so that you can sell it for a paltry sum of rupees.

Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland works so much better as a piece of critical art than The Landlord's Game because it is terrible. It is boring, it is bland, it is repetitive, it is exactly what having a job is like. And brother? i quit this job after two days.

I hate this game. I recommend it to not only Zelda fans, but anyone who enjoys art.

This is a game I feel like everyone should play at least a little bit of.

In discussion of the MOON-likes, games like Endnesia and Chulip, I'm surprised this game isn't brought up more often. Besides being made by many of the same people, it shares many similarities in terms of gameplay as well.
I bring this up because this game is also bursting with the seams with charm in a similar manner. Every location, line of dialogue, animation, and musical sting has an almost shocking amount of care put into it. It's also unafraid to be weird, which I really like.
I feel like this game is mostly known in western communities as "that wAcKy JaPaN game" in the Zelda pantheon because of its presentation (and probably the incredibly unsubtle sex scene euphemism), but I think it has much more to offer than just the goofy parts. It's a little hard to articulate exactly, but this is genuinely one of the few video games which playing through it made me feel like I was going on a journey, not just moving from objective to objective. I know how strange that sounds for a game that is so heavily focused around resource management and exploiting the world around you for monetary gain as efficiently as possible.
Unfortunately, it does fall a bit short in terms of the core gameplay. There is a noticeable amount of what can be considered tedium to some, walking around each location takes some time, and collecting some ingredients can similarly require a grind. Personally I didn't find it irritating enough to be a dealbreaker but if you haven't played this know that the most riveting action you will be seeing on the screen a good 70% of the time is a 35 year old man walking through a field.
My only real issue is with the way that you haggle, one of the central mechanics of the game, is heavily skewed out of favor of the player. In many instances if you give an NPC too low of a compensation they will refuse to take whatever action you request of them but still take your money. This can be hugely detrimental if you misjudge by only a small amount, because you will then actually need to grind to recuperate your losses. There is leeway provided when you are bartering for a reward, which I wish applied elsewhere as well. Even so, if you underestimate how much you can squeeze out of the NPCs you won't have enough rupees to progress, which again makes grinding necessary. Honestly it's difficult for me to recommend this game without using a guide, at least for the latter half of the game because over or underspending can really make or break your experience. However I do appreciate the tension that is created from these stakes, having to near constantly put your money where your mouth is really forces you to manage it wisely.
And yeah, the messaging is incredibly on the nose, but there's nothing wrong with that from time to time. I really like the way the story is delivered. I think this game will always hold a special place in my heart despite its issues, again for reasons I cannot entirely explain.

I genuinely do not know how to express my feelings towards this game. The main gameplay gimmick is that almost everything costs money, even just getting NPCs to talk to you, and you have to haggle for it (and if you give too little, they’ll take it anyways, then ask for more!) so it’s very grindy, on purpose, possibly as a joke on the player.

There’s some dungeon crawling and some actually pretty good bosses, but it truly does not care about being a Zelda game, instead creating its own goofy and ridiculous settings that I actually quite enjoy. It's almost a jumpscare every time the Zelda puzzle solved jingle plays because it reminds you that yes, this is indeed the same franchise.

Ultimately if you analyze Rupeeland as a product, it fails in a lot of areas. It's very grindy, very slow and pretty repetitive. Even some of the dungeons end up feeling too long despite their rarity. But it's a damn interesting game. The sort of thing that gets made once in a blue moon, not only a weird ass game that manages to see the light of day despite how unconventional it is, but one tied to one of the biggest gaming IPs. It's an extremely charming game and anyone with interest in it should try it, but I don't know if I'd actually recommend completing it once it's worn out its welcome.

I had no clear memory of this as I finished it in 2007. Coming back to it, it's an exquisite game. Once you find a haggle guide on the web, everything comes together and you are ready for one of your strangest experiences.

Everything feels like a Zelda title but just a little bit off. Not in a wrong way but in its own way.

The visuals are pretty stunning and unique for a DS game, the absence of an overworld soundtrack makes this game more and more emphasis on your own journey that I will not spoil here.

If you want something new without trying to reach an auteur game, this may be what you are seeking for.

(I'm also revising my last note for this game as it was too low.)

the fact that they somehow greenlit an anti-capitalist love de lic game to be in the zelda series of all things makes me incredibly happy. I can't imagine how many people bought this absolutely unknowing of its contents.

The main gimmick of this game is money. Everything is tied to money. Health is money. Talking to NPCs requires money. Progress in the game requires you to throw money into a big money tower to make it grow bigger. You get money by doing menial tasks, grinding monsters, mapping things, selling shit, that kind of thing. Most things that require giving or taking money are set behind a haggling gate where you yourself get to set your prices. Giving people too little doesn't get you your money back, so it can actually be more beneficial to overspend by a little in the long run. Regardless, in order to play this game effectively, you essentially have to take as much from people while giving as little as possible back. Turning greed into a palpable game mechanic like that is something that I've never seen before, and it's lowkey awesome. That being said though, like all love-de-lic games, you might just want to use a guide to tell you the things that the game itself doesn't.

My only problem with it is just the games length. The grind drags on for far too long and made the whole game just feel like one big grindy slog. It's probably an intentional design choice, given that the padded length of the game really makes the boring grind sink in deeper than if it was just a funny joke game, which is kinda the point of the games deeper message. But man, I already work a low-paying job, I already do the grind IRL and I already know some mfer higher up the corporate chain is taking money baths with my hard work, I don't need a game to reaffirm that for me.

In the grand scheme of things, this game wasn't that fun. But it was so unique and memorable that I can't absolutely hate it. One of those "I'm glad I played it, but I sure as hell am never going back" type beats, for sure.

this is the kind of game that im just, glad exists, the weird experimental offshoot just relishing in how it can play around with an established formula. its the kind of game that just captivates me on principle, smth thats just, DIFFERENT and that i dont
regret playing just so i can see whst the heck it even is.

freshly picked tingles rosy rupeeland is predominantly a game about greed and monetary attachment, and its interesting how it induces greed in the player just from its simple bargaining mechanic. its the purest definition of a "pay-to-win" game, EVERYTHING tingle does in this game will involve spending rupees and keeping a close eye on your rupee count as it waxes and wanes. early on in the game, i became so attached to my rupees that i avoided certain sidequests like bridge building just so i could keep a fat wallet for as long as pawssible and not come short when i inevitably had to part with a heavy sum of rupees for a scripted sequence. the primary loop induces an addiction to finding ways to make money in the player and for me, made me passionate about the sidequests. i HAD to map every landmark sell all the soups and stews, and dig up as much treasure as possible in case i accidentally undershot an important haggle. towards the end of the game though, i felt my cup runneth over with rupees and ended up having to buy all the maps i skipped out on and repairing all the bridges just so i could make all the spare cash count. eventually, i was in so deep that i felt the urge to 100% and collect every collectible, and my reward was, bizarre and not unsatisfying! it wasnt anything that necessarily changed the game, but i was more caught off guard cuz it was something i spent so much time in the game to get and it was, definitely a payoff nyahaha! it really put into perspective just how greedy this game makes the player and tingle, to the point where it straight up just ends without tingle learning his lesson about being avaricious and overindulgent.

it's honestly amazing just how straightforward of a game this is despite being centered around whats esentially a gag character. as different as the primary loop is from the rest of the zelda series, it still has a fair amount of zelda dna to it, namely with the dungeons and bosses. yet, its never enough to make it feel just like "a zelda game with a different player sprite", if anything the standard zelda dungeon crawling highlights how strange the game surrounding it is.

i can only hope my tingle doll on my shelf is proud of me for this! <3