Tiny Cartridge 3DS

We can now play Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love in English ⊟ 

God bless fan translators, who have worked to bring us Vanpool’s Japan-only Nintendo DS game from 2009, adding to the handful of English games in which we can play as this weirdo from The Legend of Zelda series.

According to this FAQ, he Wizard of Oz-themed adventure transports Tingle into a book’s fantasy setting, where he has to team up with Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion equivalents to win the heart of a princess and waltz with her “during the great Dance Party in order to return to his own world”.

You will need a copy of the original game to apply the fan translation patch (the patch is available here). Thanks to Ollie for the heads up!

► BUY Tingle DS import games from Amazon

Chibi-Robo: Zip Lash is winning me over ⊟ 

I’m inclined to love everything Chibi-Robo, and I want an excuse to own the Chibi amiibo, but I’m still not sure about the non-cleaning-based gameplay.

But! The weird corner-grappling in this looks like my absolute jam. This is out October 9.

BUY Chibi-Robo games

Tingle RPG 2 for $11! I was browsing AmiAmi, as I tend to do, and I noticed that Irozuki Tingle no Koi no Balloon Trip (Color-Changing Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love), the second DS adventure starring the Zelda series joke character, has been discounted heavily, to just 980 yen ($10.83). If you can deal with the Japanese or use a FAQ, that's a killer price for what I assume will be some weirdness!

The Tingle games, like pretty much all interesting Japanese games, have a Love-de-Lic connection: developer Vanpool employed character artist (and Little King's Story monster designer) Kazuyuki Kurashima and UFO designer Taro Kudou.

[Image: "Tingle Riding a Cat" by Asuki Namoko. Hell yes, Tingle is riding a cat.]