Certain other people in the town will pay for particular items, although getting them can sometimes be problematic. The best stuff is hidden in dungeons, and the further the game progresses, the more impossibly tough the enemies become.

That’s where Tingle’s sidekicks come in. There are around 30 secondary characters who can be bribed to be temporary Tinglefriends, and even the most inept of them (a drunken old man who keeps falling asleep) is a better fighter than Tingle. Finding all of them will take a lot of dedication, but the game world is weird and wonderful enough to encourage exploration.

The bartering screen is the main hinge of the gameplay. When negotiations commence, the faces of the two characters change slightly, according to how far apart they are in their demands. The problem is that you’ll never know whether what you’re offering is way too low, in which case you risk losing the money, or way too high.