u/joeplork

Hi, I posted this in the normal Zelda reddit and (not too surprisingly) got no replies. I understand it's a real shot in the dark but maybe this is the better place to try, so here goes...! I know anything about Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is already niche. In fact, the reason I'm asking about this is because googling and searching youtube has turned up nothing. Hoping one of the handful of people who played and remember this game might have some insight. Please strap in for some lengthy context.

Sooo, there's this minigame called Joy Joy Land that shows up in Rosy Rupeeland twice (or at least twice so far--I haven't finished the game yet) where Tingle can hit balls shot out by Octoroks at targets with a bat. The minigame shows up once in Deku Forest and then again with different target patterns in Gooey Swamp.

Far as I can tell from reading wikis and walkthroughs, you don't get any items (e.g., a jar--most of the items in this game are jars) from doing well in these minigames aside from some rupees (although as this whole game is about collecting rupees, that's still a decent reward). However, you do definitely get more rupees and a unique message from the guy running the minigame if you hit every target and get a perfect game.

Now the thing is, in the iteration of the game on Gooey Swamp (which the minigame guy says is "Joy Joy Land, Shop Number One"), there's the option to play a Normal version of the game or an Expert version. In the Normal version, Tingle can move up, down, left, and right and always swings his bat straight ahead. The ability to move up and down gives you a lot of freedom with timing your hits. Add to this the fact that it's pretty easy to ensure a straight hit with Tingle always facing forward, and it means that scoring a perfect game isn't all that hard, with some practice.

However, in Expert mode, everything gets much more horrible. Tingle can now ONLY move left and right, making the timing window much narrower. Furthermore, Tingle now faces sideways, like a real-life batter. This means how close you are to the balls, plus the direction you come at them from, affects the trajectory in lots of tiny ways. There's all kinds of minute, fancy physics stuff involved and I personally find it extremely difficult to time and angle my balls exactly how I want to consistently.

A near-perfect game requires just hitting every target within the time limit. The last target is a bear who advances slowly toward you down the center of the screen and then shoots out one last ball you must hit straight back at it. The game has, I think, three point tiers that count as wins, each one giving you more rupees and a unique message from the minigame guy. The first tier is getting above 100 points. I don't know exactly what the second tier is but it's probably however many points you get from hitting every regular target. However, there is the potential for a third, truly perfect game.

There's a bell on the left side of the arena. If you hit this, a UFO comes out and circles around the arena three times before flying off. If you hit this UFO you get a bunch of points at once (I think maybe 50?). So a TRULY perfect game means hitting every regular target as well as also hitting the bell and then the UFO. You only have one chance to hit the UFO each time you play the minigame. If you hit the bell again, the UFO does not reappear.

I managed to get a TRULY perfect game on Normal mode (both in the Deku Forest minigame--which doesn't have an Expert mode--and in the Gooey Swamp minigame). I haven't kept track of how many rupees and point totals there are for everything because it's not a real concern to me. The real concern, because I'm nuts, is that it feels a bit like I haven't 100%'d the game for real-real if I haven't gotten a truly perfect score in every iteration of the minigame. And I cannot, for the life of me, get a truly perfect game on Expert mode. The physics and timing are insane and unwieldy and the stupid little target jerks constantly get in the way of me hitting their friends.

One time I actually hit the UFO and hit every single target... then the final bear came out. I attempted to hit the ball straight back at him and it instead went careening off to the side. I still got a unique message and more rupees than I did for the first winning tier, but, based on how things work in Normal mode, I feel pretty certain there will be a different message and reward (of course, I imagine it's just even more rupees) if I hit literally everything. I've tried to do this without success for maybe like 3 weeks straight while on my commute to work. Yes, I am an insane idiot! As of right now, however, I've given up. I can't do it to myself anymore.

Still, I am really curious, even though I have every reason to believe it'll be completely anticlimactic, what actually happens if you get a truly perfect score in Expert mode on the Gooey Swamp, Joy Joy Land, Shop Number One minigame. I would try to cheat my way to success with save states but I'm actually playing this on a real New 3DS and I have no such luxury! I would suggest maybe someone try it on an emulator to find out, but of note is that you can't access this minigame until quite late into the game. Gooey Swamp is the second level in the second area of the game (and the 7th level overall), but you can't actually access the minigame until you get a little bit into the first level of the final area (Mount Desma, Level 9), at which point you are made to return to Gooey Swamp to do another dungeon and then, once that's done, you are gifted a boat which allows you to travel to a tiny island where you drop down a hole and that's where the minigame is located. So, in other words, unless you're someone who already happens to have a Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland saved game/saved state that's well into the game, you have to play nearly the entire game just to get to this minigame!

There's so little coverage and discussion of Rosy Rupeeland that I cannot seem to find much info about this minigame or any footage of someone perfecting it (it could be buried in someone's playthrough somewhere but it's hard to track that down--and I assume few people have been bonkers enough to try and do the minigame perfectly). It's certainly possible there are Japanese gamers out there who managed it and that if I knew what to search for in Japanese I could track it down, but I don't!

I know this is a crazy, niche ask for a crazy, niche Zelda game, but I banged my head against this minigame like a psycho for ages and still came out empty-handed (well.. I did get enough points to earn a bunch of rupees so I guess that's not entirely true, but still). It's possible this would be much easier for someone who plays baseball games, for all I know! Maybe the physics make perfect sense to the average sports gamer, but I find it extraordinarily fidgety and impossible!

So yes, this stupid minigame in Tingle's stupid game is my white whale!! If anyone can help track down a video or screenshot (a video would be more satisfying of course) or feels brave enough to actually play this minigame and try to get a perfect, I'd be very interested to see it! I could finally relax and stop obsessing over something so silly... that or I'd instead feel like I still have to do it myself and I'd go back to attempting the minigame again and again for the rest of my life--either is possible!! Even more terrifying to consider is the possibility there's yet another Joy Joy Land later in the game with yet another Expert mode. The Deku Forest minigame is called Shop Number Zero and the Gooey Swamp one is Shop Number One, so another iteration of this minigame certainly isn't impossible! If so, I shall never know peace!

Incidentally, all this said, I actually quite like Rosy Rupeeland on the whole and have been enjoying it... This minigame put my playthrough to a frustrating standstill for a while, but everything else I think has been a fun, weird take on Zelda. I like how it's like a farming sim mashed up with the Zelda formula, a concept I feel nearly positive an indie dev must've tried by now--pretty cool that Tingle was already doing it back in 2006!

That's all! Thank you for reading this foolhardy diatribe if you got this far! And thank you in advance for all your Tingle help! Kooloo-Limpah and so on and so forth!

Hi, so I know anything about Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is already niche. In fact, the reason I'm asking about this is because googling and searching youtube has turned up nothing. So I feel this is a real shot in the dark but I dunno where else to turn! Hoping one of the handful of people who played and remember this game might have some insight. Please strap in for some lengthy context.

Sooo, there's this minigame called Joy Joy Land that shows up in Rosy Rupeeland twice (or at least twice so far--I haven't finished the game yet) where Tingle can hit balls shot out by Octoroks at targets with a bat. The minigame shows up once in Deku Forest and then again with different target patterns in Gooey Swamp.

Far as I can tell from reading wikis and walkthroughs, you don't get any items (e.g., a jar--most of the items in this game are jars) from doing well in these minigames aside from some rupees (although as this whole game is about collecting rupees, that's still a decent reward). However, you do definitely get more rupees and a unique message from the guy running the minigame if you hit every target and get a perfect game.

Now the thing is, in the iteration of the game on Gooey Swamp (which the minigame guy says is "Joy Joy Land, Shop Number One"), there's the option to play a Normal version of the game or an Expert version. In the Normal version, Tingle can move up, down, left, and right and always swings his bat straight ahead. The ability to move up and down gives you a lot of freedom with timing your hits. Add to this the fact that it's pretty easy to ensure a straight hit with Tingle always facing forward, and it means that scoring a perfect game isn't all that hard, with some practice.

However, in Expert mode, everything gets much more horrible. Tingle can now ONLY move left and right, making the timing window much narrower. Furthermore, Tingle now faces sideways, like a real-life batter. This means how close you are to the balls, plus the direction you come at them from, affects the trajectory in lots of tiny ways. There's all kinds of minute, fancy physics stuff involved and I personally find it extremely difficult to time and angle my balls exactly how I want to consistently.

A near-perfect game requires just hitting every target within the time limit. The last target is a bear who advances slowly toward you down the center of the screen and then shoots out one last ball you must hit straight back at it. The game DOES seem to have, I think, three point tiers that count as wins, each one giving you more rupees and a unique message from the minigame guy. The first tier is getting above 100 points. I don't know exactly what the second tier is but it's probably however many points you get from hitting every regular target. However, there is the potential for a third, truly perfect game.

There's a bell on the left side of the arena. If you hit this, a UFO comes out and circles around the arena three times before flying off. If you hit this UFO you get a bunch of points at once (I think maybe 50?). So a TRULY perfect game means hitting every regular target as well as also hitting the bell and then the UFO. You only have one chance to hit the UFO each time you play the minigame. If you hit the bell again, the UFO does not reappear.

I managed to get a TRULY perfect game on Normal mode (both in the Deku Forest minigame--which doesn't have an Expert mode--and in the Gooey Swamp minigame). I haven't kept track of how many rupees and point totals there are for everything because it's not a real concern to me. The real concern, because I'm nuts, is that it feels a bit like I haven't 100%'d the game for real-real if I haven't gotten a truly perfect score in every iteration of the minigame. And I cannot, for the life of me, get a truly perfect game on Expert mode. The physics and timing are insane and unwieldy and the stupid little target jerks constantly get in the way of me hitting their friends.

One time I actually hit the UFO and hit every single target... then the final bear came out. I attempted to hit the ball straight back at him and it instead went careening off to the side. I still got a unique message and more rupees than I did for getting just above 100 points, but, based on how things work in Normal mode, I feel pretty certain there will be a different message and reward (of course, I imagine it's just even more rupees) if I hit literally everything. I've tried to do this without success for maybe like 3 weeks straight while on my commute to work. Yes, I am an insane idiot! As of right now, however, I've given up. I can't do it to myself anymore.

Still, I am really curious, even though I have every reason to believe it'll be completely anticlimactic, what actually happens if you get a truly perfect score in Expert mode on the Gooey Swamp, Joy Joy Land, Shop Number One minigame. I would try to cheat my way to success with save states but I'm actually playing this on a real New 3DS and I have no such luxury! I would suggest maybe someone try it on an emulator to find out, but of note is that you can't access this minigame until quite late into the game. Gooey Swamp is the second level in the second area of the game (and the 7th level overall), but you can't actually access the minigame until you get a little bit into the first level of the final area (Mount Desma, Level 9), at which point you are made to return to Gooey Swamp to do another dungeon and then, once that's done, you are gifted a boat which allows you to travel to a tiny island where you drop down a hole and that's where the minigame is located. So, in other words, unless you're someone who already happens to have a Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland saved game/saved state that's well into the game, you have to play nearly the entire game just to get to this minigame!

There's so little coverage and discussion of Rosy Rupeeland that I cannot seem to find much info about this minigame or any footage of someone perfecting it (it could be buried in someone's playthrough somewhere but it's hard to track that down--and I assume few people have been bonkers enough to try and do the minigame perfectly). It's certainly possible there are Japanese gamers out there who managed it and that if I knew what to search for in Japanese I could track it down, but I don't!

I know this is a crazy, niche ask for a crazy, niche Zelda game, but I banged my head against this minigame like a psycho for ages and still came out empty-handed (well.. I did get enough points to earn a bunch of rupees so I guess that's not entirely true, but still). It's possible this would be much easier for someone who plays baseball games, for all I know! Maybe the physics make perfect sense to the average sports gamer, but I find it extraordinarily fidgety and impossible!

So yes, this stupid minigame in Tingle's stupid game is my white whale!! If anyone can help track down a video or screenshot (a video would be more satisfying of course) or feels brave enough to actually play this minigame and try to get a perfect, I'd be very interested to see it! I could finally relax and stop obsessing over something so silly... that or I'd instead feel like I still have to do it myself and I'd go back to attempting the minigame again and again for the rest of my life--either is possible!! Even more terrifying to consider is the possibility there's yet another Joy Joy Land later in the game with yet another Expert mode. The Deku Forest minigame is called Shop Number Zero and the Gooey Swamp one is Shop Number One, so another iteration of this minigame certainly isn't impossible! If so, I shall never know peace!

Incidentally, all this said, I actually quite like Rosy Rupeeland on the whole and have been enjoying it... This minigame put my playthrough to a frustrating standstill for a while, but everything else I think has been a fun, weird take on Zelda. I like how it's like a farming sim mashed up with the Zelda formula, a concept I feel nearly positive an indie dev must've tried by now--pretty cool that Tingle was already doing it back in 2006!

That's all! Thank you for reading this foolhardy diatribe if you got this far! And thank you in advance for all your Tingle help! Kooloo-Limpah and so on and so forth!