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.