Tingle's Freshly Picked Rosy Rupeeland Rocket Slime Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Yeah Yeahs Hey Jude (srsly dudes, what?)

MAYBE you fastidious readers of the outrageous world of the DS have heard of the probably-not-ever coming to America game devoted to all's least favorite, Tingle of "Zelda" fame. In what appears to be a growing DS trend, it's got a ridic wicked long name: 'Freshly Picked: Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland.' If people are mad hating on a video game character, if it's so weird and, er, 'fey' that its company decides to ignore an entire continent, then is my curiosity ever piqued.

I wanted to play the thing! Japan has it, in a language I can't speak, and about a year ago, it got shipped to the home of Stephen Fry and cross-dressing Pythons: thee U.K. If you are easily charmed by their old-fashioned manner of adding an extra letter 'u' to all kinds of words, well, then you'll be easily charmed here.

So, now I'm playing it, and it is downright exhausting. It's got all the wacky that's associated with "Japan" in content, humor, originality of premise, etc. One of the NPCs, a construction worker, is clearly supposed to be (non-leather) Hard Gay, Japanese TV guy and internet sensation who I do not find amusing. (sorry?) So that's all cool, all fun.

What is not cool and fun? The game is largely a bunch of frustrating drudgery. Tingle's sole focus is Rupees, and so is everyone else's, and that's kind of all there is to the game. Want to see what a shop has to offer? You have to pay the NPCs an unspecified amount of rupees to even talk to them (beyond terse comments like, "No money? Go away!"). You make an offer: if they don't like it because it's too low, they laugh at you and then keep your money. At which point you up the ante, and they laugh at you for paying too much, and they keep the rest of your apparently exorbitant offer.

The battle system, too, is a wicked, passive shame. You press the stylus on a baddie, Tingle attacks the baddie, rupees flow from your savings, and items pop up. That's right, you watch the battle. And that's it.

In sum, this game is maddening. Anyone who says otherwise is succumbing to the sunk costs fallacy, especially any U.S.er (or Canadian, etc.) who got this thing on import. Caveat emptor!