Tingle Gets Two on DS

Good news if you happen to be a member of that most elusive of fan clubs celebrating Nintendo's Zelda series mascot, Tingle. The character will be starring in not one, but two new games. In fact, for our friends over in Japan, one of the games is already out!

In case you haven't been keeping up with the latest on Tingle, Nintendo has been staging an uncharacteristic teaser ad campaign in Japan these past couple of weeks, hinting at what appeared to be a new game starring the character. Today, we learned that the new game is actually two titles, one for DS and one for DSi Ware.

The DSi Ware game, titled "Dekisugi Tingle Pack," is a collection of five "tools": a tarot card fortune teller that predicts your love and financial fortune, a timer featuring alerts from a robot Tingle, a calculator which can be used to split the bill unevenly (in case you want to play gentleman or boss), a music program where a marionette Tingle dances to music in front of your DSi pictures, and a coin game that's playable by up to 20. Priced at 500 DSi Points, Tingle Pack made a surprise appearance on the Japanese DSi Ware service today.

The other game is titled Color Changing Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, and it looks like a far more substantial offering -- a proper sequel to Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland (not released in America). Whereas the original was themed around money, this one is themed around girls.

The new adventure begins when 35-year-old Tingle sees a certain product in an infomercial. The identity of the product and the nature of Tingle's quest are currently unclear. Also unclear is a release date. Famitsu, which shared first info on the game in its latest issue lists the title's date as TBA.

We'll also note that the fate of these new Tingle games outside of Japan is also cloudy. Nintendo hasn't announced either for release outside its home territory, but we'll let you know if we hear anything.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/997/997495p1.html