Everyone Wants to be Part of a Club
Sure, Club Nintendo was never meant to be this specialty points shop with extraordinary goodies for only the most diehard Ninten-dorks. You were always meant to browse the shop every couple of months to a year to see what you could get after spending hundreds of dollars on games. Still, it does hurt that you had to buy hundreds of dollars worth of games for the privilege of a calendar made out of unpainted cardboard with Mario on it.
Of course, these problems didn’t only exist in the North American version of the club. They were even worse across the Pacific and Atlantic. Those Euro-poors were stuck with physical games, apparel, and metal trophies. Don’t get me started on the destitute Japanese who were offered measly CD soundtracks and complete display boxes for the Famicom GBA games.
But honestly, the worst thing the Japanese were subjected to was this:
I kid, of course. The Japanese and European versions blew the North American one well out of the water, and Tingle’s Balloon Fight is not a bad game. But it is emblematic of all the problems the club had.
When You Mix Tingle…
In fact, less than a year before Balloon Fight’s release, he even got his own video game, Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, for Europe and Japan only. (Will they ever catch a break?) There have been several Tingle video games, but Tingle’s Balloon Fight was the first released in Japan only. It is the most interesting because it was only distributed through Club Nintendo. Besides, the only other Tingle game that could be considered a remake is Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love since it's a retelling of The Wizard of Oz. But that one wasn't tied up in a loyalty program, so it's not nearly worth talking about.
On his way to steal your girl.
…With Balloon Fight…
Balloon Fight was a simple arcade game where you try to pop the balloons of beaked creatures called balloon fighters before they pop yours. This game was never an exceptional part of the Nintendo Entertainment System line-up.It's a bit of a shame as these Black Box games, common nomer for early NES titles, are actually a lot of fun. Most of them are from that era where video games were still transitioning from the arcade to the home. These games a lovable arcade-style romps that tended to be the start of a fan's collection. But Nintendo only uses them in use-cases when they need to dig something out of the vault to make some extra dough.
Well, this was one such case. Instead of putting in the effort to make a brand new game out of their stagnant IP, Nintendo decided to just mash it together with something that they knew would sell the game by the thousands: Tingle. It makes some sense. After all, his backpack-balloon looks kind of like the ones in the original game. What could go wrong?
…You Get This
The game was released in 2007 as a Platinum Reward for Club Nintendo of Japan members. The Platinum and Gold tier of rewards were only given to customers who met certain thresholds of coins every year. It was a physical game that was free and shipped out to all members who ordered within a window of time. The game is not too rare, but it is still costly to buy a packaged version from second hand vendors.There is a reason why the box art is Tingle awkwardly taped to the Famicom copy of Balloon Fight. Because that is essentially what the game is.
Remaking The Classic
The game is the same as Balloon Fight, but Tingle is now here. There are three modes, like the predecessor, that are best split into two.There is something else unique to this version of Balloon Fight. The dual-screen feature of the DS means that levels are more vertical than they were initially. The level layout is the same, it's just longer. It feels a little strange, but I think it actually works and makes the game a little more difficult than the original.
The other unique mode is Mode C or Balloon Trip. Tingle tries to catch as many balloons as he can while avoiding electric sparks. Catching a balloon in this mode stops the sparks from moving temporarily. Every level ends with a small island that Tingle can rest on before moving on. Again, this is something the original had, so Tingle isn’t breaking down any barriers in the balloon-fighting genre.
Mode B is the multiplayer, but it’s the same levels as the single-player. In Balloon Fight, players could play a Two-Player Mode where they both compete in the single-player levels. However, Tingle’s variation actually brings something new to the table. Now the multiplayer is two to four players, with the other players using their own Nintendo DS. Not only that, but the secondary players get to play as some rare characters in the Tingle lore. There is Ankle, Tingle’s brother; Knuckle, Tingle’s other brother; and David Jr, a man that was kidnapped and forced into slavery. They all look the same but with unique colors to their fairy outfits.
Over all, it is just another version of Balloon Fight. The game doesn't use the fact that Tingle uses a balloon to travel in any interesting way beyond
The soundtrack is new, but these are ultimately the same songs but composed for a system with better audio capabilities. You're not getting anything uniquely Zelda about the music.
It's a shame that there is nothing else about the game that makes it "Zelda" for lack of a better term. This was developed in house. Nothing would have stopped Nintendo from making the Cheap-cheap a Zora or making the balloon fighters Ritos. This had the potential to do more than a reskin, but failed. If there is anything most disappointing about this game, it's this.
They could have made the Moon the one from Majora's Mask
A Museum to Tingle’s Beauty
At the bottom-right of the title screen is an options button. The only options are to change the soundtrack to the original or to change how many lives the player has at the start. However, a secret third option opens up a gallery of unlockable artwork of the man himself. Most of these are just digital paintings, and none of them are concept art for the game. They were clearly made to be rewards for playing the game. However, that doesn't stop some of them from being funny. There is twenty total.
You get to see Tingle dressing himself, riding in a hot air balloon of his head, and even going on a night on the town. My favorite one is this one where Tingle realizes that he was actually on Earth in the future and not a planet of apes.
Most can be unlocked very easily. By progressing through the levels, you will get the majority of them. Getting perfect scores at the bonus stage, playing multiplayer once, and playing a certain number of rounds will unlock the rest.
You maniacs! You blew it up! Hylia damn you all to Hell!
Where Credit is Due
I want to talk a little about who made each game I write about in this series because I believe that the developer's side of the story deserves some recognition. In the last episode I used an interview with the programmer as evidence in the article despite Street Fighter II' not crediting the staff. I couldn't do it with this game, however. Tingle's Balloon Fight doesn’t have any credits to it. Seriously, I checked everywhere for some information on the developers. There wasn’t anything in the game itself, MobyGames had no information, and even the manual came up dry. As such, I realized that whoever worked on this game never received any acknowledgment.The most likely people to develop this game were those who worked on Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland, as they were released less than a year apart and featured the same art style. Even if they weren’t the same team, most likely a few members worked on both. Kensuke Tanabe has produced not only Rupeeland but several other games in the Zelda franchise, especially side games, and is a big part of Nintendo in his own right. The art was done by Kazuyuki Kurashima, a prolific art director and designer whose catalog includes games like moon: The AntiRPG, LIVE A LIVE, and even Pokémon. Of course, these are not the only people who worked on it, but they are the only ones I feel certain of. Both Rupeeland and Balloon Trip were developed by Vanpool, Inc. I doubt that Nintendo would have them specifically work on a minor game like this, but I wouldn't be surprised.
This is a little out of the way of the subject matter for the article. But I believe that highlighting the devs shows that they can do more than just so-so or bad games and can contribute to the wider culture in positive ways. It's disheartening that Nintendo decided to let their work go uncredited.
Nobody Wants to be Part of a Boring Club
The game is derivative. All it’s doing is taking a product that already existed, Balloon Fight, and slapping a Nintendo character on it. Any fun that could be gained is done within a couple minutes. Nintendo made this the Platinum Reward, it was meant to be a big deal. But it just wasn't worth the hundreds of coins needed to become a Platinum member.In a way, that is how most Club Nintendo rewards were. These weren’t notable beyond novelties with some stock art of the characters. It was meant to be secondary, but you couldn’t help but feel scammed. Coins were costly, with a full-priced game only netting you 50. So when you went to the website and bought Animal Crossing playing cards for 600, you didn’t think you spent coins for a treat. You felt like you spent hundreds for something worth about $5.
This swindled feeling is probably why the club never took off. The rewards were never significant beyond the yearly Platinum and Gold Rewards. Very rarely was the site updated with anything new. Eventually, the club closed its doors in 2015. The North American club got digital copies of common Wii U and 3DS games for the last Platinum Rewards. Gold Rewards were just virtual console games.
Old habits die hard.
Because, again, old habits die hard.
Back to Tingle
The game is good. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Sure, it’s just Balloon Fight. But Balloon Fight is great. It’s an enjoyable arcade classic. Sure, I dogged Nintendo for never respecting it more than as a ‘So Retro!’ key to jingle. Yet, there is a reason it and the rest of its NES Black Box brethren get referenced and released a lot. People buy and rebuy these games. They are not just classic but fun. Nintendo has released little to no remakes or sequels to these games, yet they stand the test of time and continue to make money to this day.Plus the new features are rather nice. The verticality doubles the size of every level, and Nintendo accounted for it. The gallery isn’t anything significant. But I liked going back to it after every round of play to see what I unlocked. It isn’t hard to play despite being Japanese only, as most of the menus are in English. Besides, everyone knows that love for Tingle has no linguistic boundaries.
He stole your girl.
If there is anything to conclude with, the game is fun. It might not have been worth the coins needed to earn it, but you can now easily play the game with emulation. I’ve even heard of a certain repo having the game available. But you didn’t hear that from me. I suggest it to anyone who liked the original and wanted a remixed spin on the gameplay. It won't wow you, but it will help kill an afternoon.
If there is a second thing to conclude with, it’s that being European is far cooler than North American because it means you could have gotten this sick The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess statue.
For only 15,000 stars (Euro equivalent to coins) this guy could have been yours.
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