Gotta admit, after the conceptually raw but still intentionally boring and grindy adventure that was rosy rupeeland, and the fact that this is a point-and-click game made by people from development studios practically known for their obtuse design, and I wasn't really super looking forward to this game. But lo and behold, I actually had quite a bit of fun here.
They basically took the bizarre situations from rosy rupeeland and decided to base the whole game around that kind of thing. The jokes the game has on offer are really well-structured and fun. From the antagonist very clearly being a pretty-boy parody of link to the whole large chapter where tingle and the crew need to file for a passport, there's never really a dull moment and it keeps the pace going nicely. The actual plot is an extremely loose retelling of The Wizard of Oz, for some reason, as Tingle is accompanied by a lion, robot, and scarecrow as they follow a yellow brick road (and accompanying yellow train tracks) to reach an emerald city where their desires lie.
Tingle isn't off to see the Wizard of Oz though, he's off to see the BITCHES of Oz. A core element of this game revolves around courting girls by giving them presents they enjoy so that they can actually talk to you instead of being eternally creeped out by the rotund 35-year-old in green tights glaring at them. Because presents cost money, there is a bit of a grind to be able to afford everything, especially considering you have to make guesses and deduce what each girl might be potentially interested in. Don't be an idiot like me and try to buy the whole shop to be prepared for any circumstance, as later on in the game they introduce higher-level presents and all the presents I slaved over earning became yesterdays news that nobody wanted. The money grind isn't nearly as bad as it is in rosy rupeeland, as there's a specific dungeon crawling minigame that gives out assloads of rupees really quickly.
The many various puzzles in the game are surprisingly not super difficult to figure out comparative to other point-and-click adventure games. The patented Love-de-Lic cryptic unexplained nonsense is still in the game, but instead delegated to optional bonus achievements found in every chapter that don't actually progress the main story, and the actual mandatory stuff is easily manageable. There's also a spoiler man that can outright tell you what to do next should you get stuck, so this is probably one of the very few games these guys have made where I can actually say a guide is completely not necessary.
It's a solid adventure game with a good sense of humor and interesting mechanics. My only real gripe is it can feel a bit like the game is wasting your time in some parts, mostly regarding how progress going to-and-fro chapters works. I straight up lost like 2 hours of progress because I ran out of money and had to go back to an earlier chapter to do a dungeon run and had to do all the stuff I was stuck on all over again because you can only jump between the beginning of each section for each chapter, it's kinda dumb. But that all being said, if you like that particular brand of obscure-japanese-nintendo-game strangeness, this is worth giving a go.
They basically took the bizarre situations from rosy rupeeland and decided to base the whole game around that kind of thing. The jokes the game has on offer are really well-structured and fun. From the antagonist very clearly being a pretty-boy parody of link to the whole large chapter where tingle and the crew need to file for a passport, there's never really a dull moment and it keeps the pace going nicely. The actual plot is an extremely loose retelling of The Wizard of Oz, for some reason, as Tingle is accompanied by a lion, robot, and scarecrow as they follow a yellow brick road (and accompanying yellow train tracks) to reach an emerald city where their desires lie.
Tingle isn't off to see the Wizard of Oz though, he's off to see the BITCHES of Oz. A core element of this game revolves around courting girls by giving them presents they enjoy so that they can actually talk to you instead of being eternally creeped out by the rotund 35-year-old in green tights glaring at them. Because presents cost money, there is a bit of a grind to be able to afford everything, especially considering you have to make guesses and deduce what each girl might be potentially interested in. Don't be an idiot like me and try to buy the whole shop to be prepared for any circumstance, as later on in the game they introduce higher-level presents and all the presents I slaved over earning became yesterdays news that nobody wanted. The money grind isn't nearly as bad as it is in rosy rupeeland, as there's a specific dungeon crawling minigame that gives out assloads of rupees really quickly.
The many various puzzles in the game are surprisingly not super difficult to figure out comparative to other point-and-click adventure games. The patented Love-de-Lic cryptic unexplained nonsense is still in the game, but instead delegated to optional bonus achievements found in every chapter that don't actually progress the main story, and the actual mandatory stuff is easily manageable. There's also a spoiler man that can outright tell you what to do next should you get stuck, so this is probably one of the very few games these guys have made where I can actually say a guide is completely not necessary.
It's a solid adventure game with a good sense of humor and interesting mechanics. My only real gripe is it can feel a bit like the game is wasting your time in some parts, mostly regarding how progress going to-and-fro chapters works. I straight up lost like 2 hours of progress because I ran out of money and had to go back to an earlier chapter to do a dungeon run and had to do all the stuff I was stuck on all over again because you can only jump between the beginning of each section for each chapter, it's kinda dumb. But that all being said, if you like that particular brand of obscure-japanese-nintendo-game strangeness, this is worth giving a go.
DizzySkullKid19
19 days ago