Some games are lauded for messages they can’t even properly convey. Take Monopoly, for instance. Monopoly is based on The Landlord’s Game, a board game patented by Elizabeth Magie in 1904. While many have called the game dedicatedly anti-capitalist, this gives the impression that The Landlord’s Game is somehow against our beloved, inescapable world of landlords squeezing tenants for their every last dime. But that’s not true! The Landlord’s Game was meant to promote the single tax theory of Henry George, and presented two sets of rules: one with heavy taxation, and another that was significantly more forgiving of players that happened to own everything. This meant the game mutated into two forms: one that was anti-monopolist, and the other that was referred to as monopolist. The goal of the anti-monopolist version was to be the first to double your starting wealth (which wasn’t that difficult in a game where you weren’t constantly facing bankruptcy due to a bad roll), while the monopolist version valued forcing every other player out until you were the last man with a monocle standing. Guess which version became Monopoly thirty years later…
But whether you’re playing The Landlord’s Game or Monopoly, all versions have one thing in common: money is good. Money is god. Gather up every last dollar and cent, and, regardless of whether or not the game takes a half hour or entire nights of your life, you’ll be the winner if you have the most dough. Monopoly is not long and aggravating in an effort to deter capitalism, it is a game that revels in its greed. Earning dollars, purchasing property, it all feels good. And it might be awful when you’re not the 
one holding the deed to Boardwalk, but you’re still going to be elated when you’ve got a railroad or four, and some unsuspecting rube lands on your assets. If Monopoly (or its ancestor) was supposed to ever be educational regarding taxation or economic theory; that apparently fell by the wayside almost immediately, and proceeded to only ever teach one lesson: making more and more money feels good.
You want a game where capitalism is unashamedly a pain in the ass, you’re going to have to play Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland.
If you’ve lived a blessed life, you do not know the sad tale of Tingle. Tingle was originally introduced in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as one of the completely new models populating Alternate-Hyrule, Termina. He is a boy wearing a “fairy costume” that floats on a balloon and distributes maps in various areas. Wait, my bad, Tingle is no boy, he’s 35. And his father is very ashamed of him. Tingle is… not right. And, while the wannabe fairy is fairly helpful in Majora’s Mask and Oracle of Ages, Tingle’s appearance in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is simultaneously memorable and horrible. If you wanted to find the invaluable pieces of the Triforce of Courage, you needed a map interpreter, and Tingle was (literally) the only man for the job. And he’s perfectly willing to help… for a fee. A significant fee. Over and over again. In truth, this was clearly just an excuse for the directors of Wind Waker to encourage the player to explore some of the more interesting and “optional” areas of WW in pursuit of rupee caches, but Tingle still wound up inextricably tied to a situation where he was charging piles and piles of cash. From that point on, Tingle was associated with greed, featuring in games like Four Swords Adventures where he’d steal any unclaimed Force Gems, or Twilight Princess where his fashion buddy, Purlo, is always trying to squeeze an extra buck out of Link. So, by about 2005, Tingle was known for two things: he is a giant weirdo, and he’s gluttonous as hell.
So, naturally, Nintendo gave him his own spinoff game.
Hey! It worked for Wario!
On the surface, Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland is little more than a truncated Legend of Zelda adventure. There’s a large “overworld”, monsters stalk the landscape, and a village is filled with friendly NPCs that may or may not distribute minor sidequests. There are five big dungeons, a handful of “lesser” dungeons, and attendant bosses that alternate between physical challenges and “puzzle fights”. The land is vast and huge, and you better believe there is a lost wood of wise trees, a volcanic mountain, and a smattering of ruins dotting the landscape. There is Lon Lon Ranch. There are bomb flowers. There are empty bottles. And, through it all, there are rupees. Like any good Zelda game, there are prizes abound, so you can search out those treasure chests lurking in the nooks and crannies of Tingle’s world. Everybody loves finding rupees! Everyone loves a bonus!
Except… Rupees are no bonus in Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland. This game starts with “you”, a 35 year old do-nothing that lives in a shack outside of town, forsaking his name for becoming a/the Tingle, one who is going to collect rupees for Uncle Rupee, who will grant Tingle (that’s you now, forever) entry to Rupeeland. Rupeeland is a glorious place where you never have to work and lavish women will always hang out in your palatial pool, so get going, Tingle, and acquire enough rupees to earn your admission fee. As such, your rupee count literally becomes your life: Tingle has no heart containers, just a wallet. Every trap or monster depletes your rupee count, and, if it hits zero, it’s game over. But you’re never going to hit zero, are you? You need as many rupees as possible!
And that… gets difficult.
Rupees are not just a prize you might find for shoving your shovel into the right place in Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland. Rupees are everything. It is never a matter of simply providing coin for wares, you need to pay up if you want to enter a dungeon. Or engage in combat. Or even just talk to some people. Yes, the most basic task in an adventure game, talking to an NPC, often requires a fee in FPTRR. Every task that you could possibly name in your typical Zelda game, every “verb” you’ve ever seen Link do, has an attached fee in Tingle’s adventure. Want to blow up a crack in a wall, Tingle? Well, I hope you managed your resources well enough to have a bomb jar on hand. You didn’t think that secret area would be free, did you?
And, what’s more, if you’re playing the game without savestates or soft resetting, there’s very little indication on how to play the game “right”. Yes, there is a fee for Tingle’s every action, but these fees are also negotiable. You have to pay something to enter town, but what? Pay too little, and your rupees are gone, but you won’t even get a taste of what you were trying to buy. Pay too much, and you might have earned your prize, but you’ll never know that you blew an extra thousand rupees that could have been spent elsewhere. And is there ever any indication on what you’re supposed to be paying? Some mini-game or alternate NPC that offers suggestions on “the going rate”? 
Nope! It’s just guess work, and you could be trading Tingle’s literal and figurative lifeblood away for nothing. Yes, extra rupees are going to make your next toll-taker happy, but when Tingle dies penniless in a dungeon thanks to an errant spike-trap, you’ll be regretting giving away even one extra cent. By the time you reach the end of Tingle’s quest, you’ll have had to make so many aggravating decisions based on perceived values, you’ll never want to see another rupee again.
And, considering the finale of Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, that is entirely deliberate.
Tingle is fighting for those rupees at the behest of Uncle Rupee. However, when Tingle restores the life essence (or something ) of the local Grand Fairy, he learns a terrible secret: Uncle Rupee is a demon. What’s more, he is a demon that feeds on rupees, and his goal is to trap every last man, woman, and dog in an endless loop of acquiring more and more rupees. There is no “rosy” Rupeeland, there is only a Rupeeland where mindless slaves trade rupees all day in an effort to please a malevolent, all-powerful Uncle Rupee. 
Your ultimate goal shifts from earning enough rupees to placate Uncle Rupee to earning enough rupees to murder Uncle Rupee, because, of course, the only way to win is to challenge Uncle Rupee through a shoot ‘em up on the moon fueled entirely by rupee bullets (where have I seen that before?). If you win, you will be rewarded with one of two endings. In one, Uncle Rupee is obliterated, and his rupee-remains rain down on the world. Adults, including Tingle, go literally crazy trying to secure this bounty from the heavens, and the local children lament the voracity of their parents. But a better ending is possible! If you go the extra mile and find every last collectible in the world, Tingle will be able to free Pinkle, his scantily-clad assistant. Pinkle is actually the daughter of the Grand Fairy, and had been imprisoned by Uncle Rupee. Who knew? Regardless, her freedom will grant you the best ending wherein… Tingle takes over Uncle Rupee’s position. The “good ending” sees Tingle in Rupeeland, now the new boss that demands people accrue rupees, and The-Fairy-Previously-Known-As-Pinkle literally states that Tingle is no better than Uncle Rupee. This is the best Tingle is going to get! The only reward for a life dedicated to rupee acquisition is unconstrained, unquenchable greed.
Thanks for playing!
Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland is not shy about its moral: greed is bad, and “money” just makes everything worse. When people won’t talk without being paid, it is annoying to have so much as a conversation. When citizens won’t help each other without a clear reward, everyone gets unnecessarily hurt. When you spend your life in pursuit of mammon, you will not have a happy ending. The best anyone can hope for is Tingle incidentally doing some good along the way… even if the ultimate reason he’s doing anything at all is he just really wants to go for a ride in that limo. Doing anything in FPTRR is bothersome, and it’s all rupees’ fault. It’s all greed’s fault. If everyone simply lived in a happy little Hyrule that wasn’t so materialistic, Tingle’s life would be so much easier. This adventure could be so much better. This game could be so much more fun.
But it isn’t.
Because of rupees.
Because of capitalism.
Eat it, Monopoly, Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland is the best game out there deriding an economic system.
FGC #535 Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland
- System: Nintendo DS exclusive. It also wasn’t released in America, but you can pick up a European version if you need to hear the Queen’s English.
- Number of players: Tingle is alone (you can’t even control Barkle the Dog!).
- So, do you own it? Yep!
Gotta import that Tingle, baby. - Is it all bad? To be clear, there are some very fun moments in FPTRR. The boss fights in particular are varied and interesting, complete with a pastiche of Punch-Out involving a skeleton pirate. Practically every word in that sentence makes me happy. So, yes, there is a lot of fun in FPTRR, just every time you have to stop and consider exactly how many rupees some jungle adventurer should be paid for his services, you’re reminded that the world sucks. Uh… I’m talking about Tingle’s world… I think…
- Favorite Bodyguard: Tingle isn’t much of a fighter, so he has to hire a series of bodyguards across the adventure. And I think we can all agree that Steroido…
Is just My Hero Academia’s All Might slumming it for a few rupees. Poor dude really needed the cash… - Mystery Solved: This Tingle adventure may not be absolute Zelda canon, but it does reveal the scientific genius behind the invention of Link’s favorite tool: the empty jar:
Presumably, Dr. Bean isn’t alive by the time of Breath of the Wild, and that’s why that game felt so incomplete. - What’s in a name: The Zelda Wiki posits that Uncle Rupee should be more properly translated as “Old Man Rupee” from the original ルピじい. However, localization is important, and drawing a line between Uncle Rupee and Rich Uncle Pennybags (or even Uncle Scrooge) is worthwhile.
- For the Sequel: There’s a sequel to this game, Ripened Tingle’s Balloon Trip of Love, and it’s basically Tingle in The Wizard of Oz. Or it’s a game about Tingle getting his groove back. Regardless, it never made it out of Japan. I hear tell there is a translation poking around some corners of the internet, though…
Did you know? Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland was developed by Vanpool, the company responsible for Dillon’s Rolling Western and the minigames of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. And, not coincidentally, Vanpool involves a few employees formally of Love-de-Lic, the minds behind Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (currently available on Switch). If I wanted to be popular, I’d be reviewing that game, but, man, I can’t just ignore Tingle. - Would I play again: Nope. This game is amazingly clever, and the character design is superb… but I’d rather just play a Zelda game. And that might be the point! But that doesn’t mean I’m any more likely to grind ingredients for Tingle anytime soon. You can have Rupee Land, dude.
What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Super Mario Bros. 35! I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that I’ve been playing the game continuously for the last few days. And now you can share in the fun! Please look forward to it!
This just cannot be good
Adventure was released in 1980, and many claim it was the origin of what is considered to be gaming today. Without Adventure, we wouldn’t have a template for games that feature inventory juggling, dragon-slaying, or 
Adventure’s most hated foe was no dragon or daunting maze, it was the aggravating bat. Just when you thought you had acquired that valuable key or chalice, the bat would come swooping in, pinch it right from your paws, and leave for parts unknown. Would you ever reclaim your lost item? Only that winged terror knows for sure.
The hero of Adventure is no swordsman (and possibly not even a man), but they don’t need to be. Sometimes a sword is all you need, and waddling over to a dragon and giving ‘em a good poke is all that’s obligatory to clear the threats out of this dungeon. The sword makes it all happen, and, while you can’t wield the sword while carrying literally anything else (you’d think a key could fit in your pocket), it is the one-size-fits-all murder weapon of choice for any and all adventurers.
Sure, other games may have had keys, but did they have color-coded keys dedicated to color-coded gates? Nope! That was all Adventure! It wasn’t enough just to find a key, you had to find the right key, and you’d never get anywhere without it. That bridge can’t save you now, you need a golden key for a golden gate, mister. No entry allowed!
Adventure was the first game to feature a full inventory of items for your adventure (oh, I just got that), and the very biggest of them all was the mobile bridge. Sure, you may need a key or sword to conquer doors or enemies, but the mobile bridge is a goddamn freakin’ bridge. You want to get across something? Anything? It doesn’t matter, you’ve got a bridge that is four times your size, so you’re going to make it. Way to save the day, bridge!
While there are other important items in Adventure, the magnet might be the absolute most useful. The other items are generally all “keys” (see!) that “unlock” specific conditions, like how a “sword” unlocks “a dead dragon”. The magnet, meanwhile, has unlimited utility. It, as one might expect, magnetizes any other item to your person. This makes the magnet simultaneously unnecessary and absolutely the most important thing in the maze. You can carry any item, sure, but you can’t carry any more than one item at a time. But if you’ve got a magnet, then the world is your oyster, and you can drag a parade of bridges and swords along for the ride. Bless you, magnet, you make 
Is there anything more important in a videogame than your field of vision? From the time Man progressed past the text adventure, Man was also encumbered by the need to see everything at all times. In Adventure, if you could see the whole of the maze from some glorious, mountaintop view, you would have no issue at all navigating its every twist and turn. But, no, you are damned to walk on the Earth, and finding your way to the sacred chalice is always a challenge. What’s more, some areas are dark, thus hampering progress with an inability to see even inches in front of your dot’s face. Oh, Dark Areas, you make simple walking a challenge.
Three dragons will stalk your hero, and, like 
It’s not enough to simply find your prize in Adventure, you have to actually shlep it home. The goal of Adventure is to uncover a magical, strobing chalice, and then take it to a specific castle that may or may not be protected by cantankerous dragons. It’s a difficult quest, as you can only really carry one thing at a time, and apparently the concept of hanging onto a sword and a cup at the same time is the sort of fiction reserved for playing cards. But make it through the danger with your charmed sippy cup, and you’ll win this Adventure soundly.
System: Originally for the Atari 2600, but also available at your local mall kiosk on one of those Chinese bootleg devices. It’s also on modern consoles in the Atari Collection, and that’s a pretty fine way to play.
This is still a huge problem thirty years after the release of Adventure, left alone in a bad future that is ruled by corporations that are clearly not crediting the creators of an army of virtual mods. But, no, it all has to be attached to a movie that is so rock stupid, it posits that no one could ever accidentally hit reverse at the start of a racing game. Bah!
Mr. Do is not a threat to anyone. He’s a clown, yes, but all he ever does is dig around in the ground looking for cherries. And he can’t even do that well! Mr. Do is menaced by creeps, monsters that are all mouth and anxious to devour poor, ineffective Mr. Do. And what piddling abilities does Mr. Do have to fend off the infinite forces of the creeps? He’s got a ball. One. Just one. And if it bounces away without hitting a single creep, it will just sit there until it’s reclaimed, leaving the generally only mostly defenseless Mr. Do wholly defenseless. But wait! Mr. Do can drop apples on his opponents by carefully digging holes and… Wait, wasn’t that 
Fyer and Falbi are not physical threats, they are simply two clowns that run a business around 
There was a joke once: Man goes to a doctor. Says he’s depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, “Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up.” Man bursts into tears. Says, “But doctor…I am Pagliacci.” So then the doctor says, “Well, have you tried punching people for money?” And that’s how Pagliacci became 
Lola Pop is still theoretically not a threat to the average person. Like Mad Clown, she is a fighter, but is only a fighter for the purpose of winning some nebulous prize. However, the escalation of danger here is plain for all to see. First of all, this is an artificially augmented clown, and anything that makes a clown more dangerous than a baseline human is cartwheeling down a slippery slope. And the other major concern? Lola Pop wants to open her own circus. That means more clowns. Nobody wants that! So Lola Pop may technically not be a direct threat to your average citizen, but she is a gateway to more super-powered clowns, and thus should be considered a danger to society.
What is with clowns and long, stretchy arms? Now we have a robot that is designed not unlike Lola Pop, but with one important difference: this is the first wholly homicidal clown on this threat meter. Yes! It’s true! There are clowns that are not trying to kill you! But there are many, many more clowns that want you dead. But all is not lost! While Clown Man can only be defeated by 
Bonker was once a good clown. Well, actually, it’s hard to label any clown as “good”, particularly thanks to Bonker, who went from homeless-clown to clay-clown to full-on evil-clown over the course of a few Clayfighters. By 
When 
Kinky Pinky is an active threat. Not content to simply sit and wait for an opponent to appear, Kinky Pinky is a clown that works for the notable criminal organization, K.R.A.K, with other malcontents such as Mr. Big, Joe Rockhead, and Sergeant Skyhigh. And, while other members of K.R.A.K primarily focus on drug production and distribution, Kinky Pinky is purely a murder clown. He kidnaps women in broad daylight, and then produces literal murder porn to distribute to other murder clowns. And he’s only threat level seven! The forces of NARC gunned down anyone matching Kinky Pinky’s description on sight, so it’s unlikely this joker survived the Eighties, but it’s possible he’s still out there, lurking about on some street corner. Beware any and all urbanites wearing white makeup! It’s for your own good!
Needles Kane, the star of the Twisted Metal franchise, is one clown you do not want to encounter for any reason. Clowns are generally to be feared for their innate murderous tendencies, but they are also loners. Give or take a circus or two, most clowns work alone, ultimately because they don’t like to be crammed into little cars. And while Kinky Pinky may have been a member of a criminal organization, at least he was nowhere near a leadership role. Needles Kane, meanwhile, is a murder clown with an army. Not content to simply destroy everyone and everything from Sweet Tooth, his fully-equipped ice cream truck, Needles also leads The Clowns, a cult that worships him as a king. And, to prove their devotion, The Clowns have constructed Sweet Tooth’s Carnival of Carnage, a humongous, metal circus tent on wheels. This is maximum silly slaughter here, as not only can the clown murder whole cities worth of people, but he’s also infecting others with the need for some laughs. And they built that tank thing, which is probably not going to do anything good for local real estate values, either.
Needles may be worshipped like a god by his unholy legions, but Kefka actually becomes a god. Absorbing the power of the sacred trilogy of Final Fantasy 6’s world, Kefka is a clown that conquers the world and twists and contorts the whole of the planet into his own twisted image. Does he have followers? Of course. Does he have an army before he even gets started? Yep, they’re there and literally licking his boots. And is he responsible for death? You know it! He’s murderous on a nearly cosmic level, and is responsible for genociding complete towns. And he does it all with a smile on his face and a laugh in his heart. This is it, folks, the ultimate clown threat level, there’s no topping… Wait? There’s a Level 10?
System: Super Nintendo for this particular version, but Mr. Do! has appeared on various systems going back to the arcade in 1982. If you’re hankering for some Do action, you can hit the Gameboy Color, Gameboy, Commodore 64, ColecoVision, or even Atari 2600. It’s one of those ubiquitous old games.
Said it before, and I’ll say it again: disappointment of the year does not under any circumstances mean that a game is bad. In fact, in this situation, I am talking about a game that is extremely good. I played a lot of Super Mario Maker 2 when it was initially released, as its new “story mode” and Nintendo officially created nonsense was like sweet honey to the bee that is me. However, after earning all the new doodads and slopes and blocks I could ever ask for, I fell off Super Mario Maker 2 hard. Maybe the “amateur” Mario Maker stages designed by others didn’t compare to the official challenges. Maybe all the Super Hard Mode level creators had already cut their teeth on the previous Mario Maker, and the toughest of the toughies were just too tough from literally day one. Or maybe it was a simple matter of I had already created all the Mario stages I ever wanted to create with the previous Mario Maker, and adding an angry sun or floating goomba wasn’t going to make enough of a difference in my design philosophies. Whatever the case, I lost interest in Mario Maker 2 within about a month of its release, and never really got on that horse again. And that sucks! I played 
This will surprise absolutely no one, but I’m still playing 
There’s usually a rerelease of Mega Man in this slot, but I can’t say no to Simon Belmont once in a while (and maybe, one year, there will be a Kid Icarus collection to laud, Captain N). This compilation couldn’t go too wrong, as it already includes at least three of my favorite games (Castlevania 2, Super Castlevania IV, and the venerable Castlevania 3), but it goes the extra mile by preserving 
I feel like 
First of all, fun fact, if I had gotten off my duff and written this “year in a review” for 2018, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would have won game of the year. It may have only been released in December, but, man, what a December of only playing one game over and over again because, dang, here’s everything I ever wanted from a videogame. But it’s not 2018 anymore! Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is old news, and now we’re all expected to move on with our 
Can I just link to my reasoning for this from 
Since the site’s inception, I was very consistently updating the FGC three times a week. This was doable because, as of about two months in, I would write one or two articles a week, but then I would throw in the occasionally “easy” article (like something that was mainly picture based or involved a videogame I could blather on about for literally years), and, Bob’s your uncle, I had a significant backlog and “collection” of articles ready to go. This came to a close around March/April of 2018, when some professional and social opportunities started popping up at the same time, and I simply didn’t have a second to, on top of everything else, slice up screenshots and write about three videogames a week. My backlog of available articles diminished, and, eventually, I just plain had to take a break to figure out my new normal. I returned to one article a week in October… but I fell off that trolley again in December when the previously mentioned Super Smash Bros. Ultimate was released. I literally did not want to play or think about any other videogames, thank you. Please have a nice day.
And even more than that, it’s messy. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate might be a perfect game, but I can’t shake the feeling that that is entirely by some kind of insidious design. SSBU operates almost exactly like a free-to-play mobile game: there is a steady drip of content and rewards that keeps you playing just when you think it’s time to put down the controller. And, while SSBU isn’t selling you anything in particular (other than a season pass), it’s very easy to believe that this was meticulously designed to keep the player playing through every spirit and challenge block. Kingdom Hearts 3? There’s a game where, for reasons that will forever elude me, your hero stands around and watches the most famous three minutes from Disney’s most famous recent release, and literally nothing of any consequence happens. Did you want to watch your hero react to a Frozen music video? Of course you didn’t. No one did. But here it is, it’s happening, so sit back and watch, because it’s not like you can quit in the middle of a cutscene.
And then