If you're reading this, you're definitely not American. Or European, either.
Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love is the Japan-only sequel to Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland. Like in that game, Tingle starts as your average everyday 35-year old until he orders a special book, which he gets sucked into after opening it. Inside, he winds up in a story that loosely follows The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. His ultimate objective is to dance with the princess that lives in the book while winning the hearts of other women throughout the story. To further the similarities to Oz, Tingle is accompanied by analogues to the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion in the form of Kakashi, Buriki, and Lion.Rather than being an overhead adventure game, Balloon Trip of Love plays like an Point-and-Click adventure game, keeping the quirkiness of Freshly-Picked while expanding on it. It was originally released in 2009 and would not be available in English until almost nine years later when a fan-translation
was released.
This game contains the following tropes:
- Abstract Eater: To stay youthful forever (and keep her powers), the Big Bad Majiyo/Wytch consumes "feropon"/"pheromoans", a magical energy extracted from the delusions of a man in love. As a thirty-five-year-old bachelor, Tingle is the ideal victim to extract the pheromoans from.
- Art Shift: All over the place, as expected from a bizarre game such as this. One notable instance is when you beat a dungeon and get treated to a dancing Tingle, who now resembles a paper doll made from a screenshot of his The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask model.
- Big Good: The "Aunties" who appear through out the story, paralleling the good witches of the north and south. Rather than being based around directions however, they are based around card suits. Averted for their fellow sister Wytch, the Big Bad.
- Big Bad: Prince Segale, who attempts to stop Tingle from reaching the city because he thinks Tingle is disgusting and a pervert. And the true big bad, his mother Wytch, who is not only responsible for sucking Tingle into the story, but also attempts to take over the Emerald City and make herself young forever...Even if it means poisoning and tricking people along the way.
- Black Comedy Burst: Tingle helps a bunch of overworked zombie miners finally clear a tunnel that they've been digging for ages. When the tunnel clears, the zombies celebrate...then the sunlight seeps in and they all burn to ashes. Lion is so shocked that he freezes in a horrified expression and won't move until you talk to him again.
- Butt-Monkey: Multiple characters are on the receiving end of at least one or two Amusing Injuries, but Tingle gets the worst of it by far.
- Continuity Nod: Several minor characters from Rosy Rupeeland make minor appearances. Yaminori can be found once again hiding in various locations, and one of the skeletal pirates can be seen at the docks during your first visit. You can also buy Pinkle's costume as a Love Push gift late in the game. Baron returns as a secret boss yet again.
- Cool Train: The Tingliner, a train that resembles Tingle's face.
- Denser and Wackier: This game manages to be even sillier than Rosy Rupeeland, partially due to its frequent Art and Gameplay shifts.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Two of Tingle's companions are named after their species. Kakashi's name is Japanese for "Scarecrow", while Lion is English for "Lion". The Big Bad, Majiyo, has a name spelled nearly identically to majo, the Japanese word for "witch". The fan translation outright names her "Wytch".
- A Lizard Named "Liz": The name of the third companion, "Buriki", is a Japanese loanword from the Dutch "Blik", which translates to "tinplate".
- The Dreaded: Tingle, by default, is this to every female character apart from Buriki, who either refuse to talk to him, hide, or run away on the spot. Only when he gains access to the Love Push command starting form Page 6 will he be able to give them gifts and earn their trust.
- Genre-Busting: It's a point-and-click adventure game, but with minor Dating Sim elements, and a Time Travel subplot. Chapter 7 introduces a very profitable Dungeon Crawling minigame. A large portion of Page 9 is spent playing like an isometric puzzle game, and the first half of Page 11 plays like a turn-based RPG. And that's not even counting the individual minigames...
- Jerkass:
- Prince Segale, who only wants to stop Tingle from reaching the city because he's ugly, even if it interferes with his mother Wytch's plan. While this starts with just hampering his progress, this soon escalates to kidnapping Kakashi, masquerading as Tingle and his friends to defame him and eventually trying to kill him.
- Baron Nimistoy, thanks to his snobbish behavior along with constantly flaunting his status and wealth.
- Lighter and Softer: Rupeeland was a comedic game, but it was set in a money-obsessed Crapsack World where Tingle was little better than his antagonists and almost all relationships were based on money. Balloon Trip has far less systemic greed, and the game has Tingle finding actual companions and getting women to like him (though the latter is still heavily based on giving gifts).
- Money Sink: Collecting enough gifts to woo every single girl on the planet is not a cheap task, and gets more expensive as later girls require the level 2 and level 3 love push items.
- Nonstandard Game Over: There are parts of the game where Tingle can be killed, leading to an immediate Game Over. One example is in Page 10, during the rat crook-hunting mission. Shoot the wrong boss rat, and Tingle is knocked out cold by the undercover ice cream clown agent.
- Opaque Nerd Glasses: Asuza, the train fanatic, sports these.
- Opposite Day: The Liar Village is full of people who say the exact opposite of what they mean, and a bunch of Mind Screwey puzzles are the result.
- Shout-Out: Aside from the obvious Whole-Plot Reference to Wizard of Oz, there are a few shout-outs to other games.
- If Tingle decides to drink from a musty old bottle that he found in an abandoned house, he'll suddenly clutch his stomach and run offscreen while the invincibility jingle from Super Mario Bros. plays.
- The character select screen for the vegetable-picking minigame is an obvious reference to that of Super Mario Bros. 2, complete with similar music.
- Loveya's costume is remarkably similar to Pit's, specifically his Super Smash Bros. Brawl incarnation. His theme music is also
very clearly based on the main theme of Kid Icarus. - When Buriki interrupts Tingle's kiss with the fake princess, she curls into a Morph Ball. The "item found" jingle from Metroid even plays when she returns to her regular form.
- Tsundere: Just about every female Tingle meets is either angered by or afraid of him upon first meeting. They warm up to him after they spend some time with him— and he gives them a lot of gifts. Special mentions go to Iona and Lia.
- Womb Level: The unlockable "Orange Fortress" dungeon stage in Dun and Jon's dungeon shop is implied to be one, with fleshy pulsating red walls and the label of the cartridge that unlocks said dungeon depicting a spaceship entering the mouth of a large orange head.
