love the concept of rupoors. imagine if you had enough money for a grocery run and the cashier’s looking through your stuff and checking it all out but then they see you have a -$5 bill and they’re like “oh sorry man you cant afford all this”
I feel like it could be explained one of 2 ways, both being supernatural in nature. 1. it changes the color and devalues the rupees already in your wallet 2. it works like a black hole that sucks away rupees of a set amount
I actually never minded the Link to the Past greens with numbers by them. It made it feel like you found ALOT of treasure. Like if you open a briefcase and instead of finding a single $100 bill you found 100 $1 bills
The rupee has definitely suffered from inflation over the years. In the first game, the most expensive item you could buy was 250 rupees (which is why the developers probably felt safe using a one-byte variable for your rupee count that capped it at 255), but there would later be individual rupees worth more than that. In Tears of the Kingdom, the Flamebreaker Helm costs 1400 rupees by itself.
@@HylianKirbo However, unlike normal currency that relies on ideas of labor storage, Rupees have an absolute value set by faries and great fairies who use it as a power source
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 It's often used to power things, anyway. They're magical. Link can use them to revive himself in some games, use it to power Magic Armor, a wacky level of damage transfer, etc.
"Rupoor" has to be one of the best names ever conceived, it blends two well-known concepts harmoniously in one small word and it's also funny because it makes you poor.
Another correction about the orange rupees from OoT and MM: They're not orange. Those are just what gold rupees looked like as drops with the graphical limitations of the system. If you'll notice, all of your footage of gold rupees from OoT are from chests while the orange rupees in MM are actual drops from enemies. The 3DS upgrades didn't change them; they just corrected the drop version to be consistent with the in-chest versions. There is no such thing as an orange rupee in either of those games.
Plus! If you run a randomizer, and have the takkuri drop randomized, the takkuri drop upscales the item to match. The big orange rupee isn't actuall big, and if you find it somewhere else in the word it's about the same size as the rupee trio. But the randomizer does keep in it looking orange when you find it if it's not the takkuri drop. A giant skultulla or giant stray fairy but in like, their jar form and not their fairy form, is kinda funny looking. Same with a giant note for a song.
@@algotkristoffersson15 if you’ve got a bunch of rupees lying on the ground, you don’t want a high detail, high poly model, cause it’ll lag the game, and the rupees are all on the ground anyway, nobody is looking at them closely. However, if you’ve got one from a chest, the typical “you got the thing” cutscene plays, you want the rupee to look nice, since it is the focus. So, you have a low poly model for your in-world drops from enemies, and your high poly one for chest items that the player actually looks at closely.
You actually missed a rupee type in Wind Waker. When you get all 5 tingle statues you are given a rupee worth 500, I am colorblind so I cannot say what color it is unfortunately.
In vanilla, it's shockingly enough a red rupee for the 500 MidniteAndBeyond had footage of the reward at the very end, if you search "wind waker tingle statue reward"
It would be cool to see a follow up video to this by looking at what rupees actually get you. Like are arrows always 5 rupees or do their value fluctuate depending on the game
Not only on the game, but sometimes, where and when in the game you buy them. For example, Twilight Princess. For anything you can buy in a shop, including if that "shop" only sells one item, like the Zora who sells Water Bombs outside Lakebed Temple, the cost per unit is always the same -- that is, you might only be able to buy arrows in 10s here and 20s there, but the cost per arrow is the same -- with three exceptions. (I'm also counting Trill's shop as having the standard prices, it's just that you have the option to pay less than the suggested price, or just walk away without paying with much less severe consequences as in Link's Awakening.) First, that posh shop in Castle Town, where you cannot buy even the least expensive item even if you were allowed in with a full wallet. (You need to pay for your shoes to be shined, or they won't let you in.) Second, the shop -- counting the three Gorons within as one shop -- across the south road from it, where they employ "regional pricing" to justify a markup on the standard price of items sold within, albeit one you can actually still afford. Third, the shop at the same location as the posh shop after you help Malo buy it; now, prices are at a significant markDOWN, and you don't need your shoes shined to come in. Another example, the Wind Waker. The Bombs on Windfall Island are too expensive for you when you first get there (not that you have a place to put them), but after a story event, they become affordable.
I can say in BotW and TotK, depending on the vendors you buy them from, arrows and some other items are worth different prices at varying locations, like Gerudo Town, Zora’s Domain, Tarrey Town, etc. And then traveling merchants on roads offer a discount when it’s raining; I think it’s like 50%.
I'd love to see the inflation rate. Compile a standard "basket of goods" - 20 arrows, 10 bombs, and whatever other common items repeat across the franchize and average the buying power of the rupee, to see where the rupee is worth the most and where the least.
Playing WW so much as a kid, I always assumed that the yellow being worth 10 was as standard as the rest, and never noticed how actually unusual it is!
I second the comment about making a follow up with prices for things like arrows. Maybe track to see if they go up or down? See if the values inflate much? You could also include stuff like the maximum wallet size potentially, and and see how it correlates with the frequency of rupee drops and prices of items If you want to go beyond this rupee idea, maybe explore things like hearts and enemy damage? See how much damage early enemies do in games? Or maybe the final boss, and match it up to the max hearts to see which bosses do the most damage as a percentage of your health?
I was kind of hoping he'd put the values on the official timeline, and we could see how Hyrule's money policy was affected by the whole kingdom getting flooded
i’ve always imagines rupees were like a bank account and you only kept one on you that you would charge with the other ones, so the rupoor would drain some of the charge, makes sense with the magic armour and stuff too draining the charge instead of just throwing away actual gems
My head cannon is that Rupees each have an amount of energy to them, the amount of energy being treated as it's value. The Wallets would convert Rupees into the pure energy allowing for lots to be carried without weighing a bunch. Then when you go take Rupees out the magic of the wallets would reform the Rupees from the energy within. This also explains how you can pick up a red (20) then spend 5 rupees since the wallet would dissolve the 20 then later form a 5. Great Fairies and the Magic Armour are capable of actually using the energy of the rupees.
@Tik71 well, spending 5 rupees from a 20 wouldn't even need magic, just change from whoever you're doing business with. Same as going to a store and paying for something that cost 5€ with a 20€ bill, as long as the cashier has change on hand they can give you 15€ back. ...that said, the BOTW Great Fairies need rupees to regain their strength so they could help Link... there's gotta be some sort of magical element to rupees.
Interesting video. Informative and sits comfortably in my taste for "weirdly specific topic you'd never think about but now that it's here you're curious" videos.
This is a genre I also enjoy, though I never described it quite that way before. Explains my love of speedrunning videos about games I've never played in my life and possibly have no interest in playing.
@@Sh1ranu1 I think it's also notable that the Oracle games take place outside of Hyrule. So maybe the economy is different. Although most likely it is just a technical limit with the Gameboy color
@@midovodella1702 My idea: maybe Labrynna and Holodrum actually examine the quality of the rupees. Maybe most rupees have imperfections, but every now and then you find a really high quality rupee and it's worth a lot more.
Thanks for watching this admittedly pretty different style of video! *EDIT 1*: The orange 200 rupee is also present in Ocarina of Time and appears when you defeat a skull kid in the Lost Woods. Thanks to Zach Hansen in the comments for the correction. I knew I was bound to miss something! *EDIT 2*: Thanks for all the love on the video everyone. I've decided I'm going to do a follow-up video to talk about the things you have all mentioned in the comments. I hope you look forward to it, and subscribe so you don't miss it when it drops! Thanks again! And don't forget to check out the link to the data yourself! 💎 public.tableau.com/app/profile/stabilize.yt/viz/TheLegendofZeldaRupeeValues/ValuebyGame 💎
I think the gold rupee and the orange rupee from OoT might be intended to be the same rupee. Unlike all of the other rupees that are referred to by their color when obtained out of a chest, the gold rupee is called a "huge rupee" instead; meanwhile, the orange rupee that drops from skull kids, worth the same amount, is notably much bigger than most other rupee types. This does throw a wrench in the color-based graph, though, since this rupee isn't defined by any one color, but JUST by a size. There's no other game with a "huge rupee," just "big [color] rupees."
Also the gold rupee exists in Majora's Mask when you sell gold dust, so the gold rupee still exists in that game too. Therefore, the remake should not have its own separate entry
I clicked on this thinking it was gonna be a goofy satirical video about the location of EVERY SINGLE RUPEE in the series, but I was met with an AMAZING video instead
You would not believe the problems I've been having for the last few days trying to watch this video. I'm literally on my phone just because I can't watch it on PC. Definitely worth it
This video blows my mind. The topic itself is interesting, but I've apparently gaslit myself into thinking of the yellow rupee as being more of a staple than it actually is alongside the green, blue, and red rupees. For some reason I have distinct memories of it being in OoT and MM onward, but seeing it show up first in WW and then so little after that is melting my brain lol
The concept of the "rupoor" always made me chuckle You're telling me that there's an object in this world that is worth a negative amount of money? You're telling me that, by picking this thing up, my assets become less valuable? My guy, Link, just put the rupoor back in the box! (I know it's an abstraction or magical or something but it just reminds me of the $-12 bill from Gravity Falls. "It's *less* than worthless, my boy!")
Random, but I love the WW rupees the most. I love the way they look, how shiny they are, the sound they make when you collect them, the sound that’s made when you open a rupee chest. It’s so satisfying to me lol
I believe the Rupoor is a major part of the fan theory that rupees aren't gemstones but energy of some kind which is why you always seem to have exact change no matter what ruppees you pick up
The One Ruppie in Zelda NES is suposed to look green. Flashed between *Yellow and *blue. WHICH gives green when mixed together. Most of the game is already green so it was a way to make a second green on the NES. Then it didnt work and they just called it Yellow.
I persoanlly was working on making something about all the differnt ruppies and thier differnt values but i probably would never finish and publish it. Glad to see someone else finnaly make it.
Original Majora's Mask dialogue literally calls that "Orange" rupee a "Gold Rupee". And that orange looking model is in OoT as well when defeating Skull Kids.
This is one of this video ideas you think “oh I’ve seen this before” but your research is so thorough and excellent, this is super enjoyable to watch! ❤️
I didn't think a half hour video all about rupees was gonna be very interesting, even to a long time and dedicated Zelda fan like myself. Man I've never been more happy to be wrong! You did a great job on this and the charts at the end just made it really fun to visualize everything. Ill definitely be looking out for more of your stuff now.
The rupoor is interesting. There’s a theory about rupees that they are some form of crystalline magical energy. evidence for this being that they are often used to use magical items like the magic armor and they are given to great fairies in some games to presumedly give them energy and they are also used as arrows in the very first Zelda game in lieu of purchasing them. it would make sense for them to be like anti-rupees with the rupoor being attracted to your Rupees energy and sort of cancel each other out.
That, and we also have Tingle that has been cursed to his Rupee count being his life force and forced to give huge amounts of Rupees to some kind of Rupee God to strengthen him.
I love these kind of videos where some nerd compiles tons of data about some obscure aspect of a videogame and charts it out in a video that no one ever asked for or even knew they wanted. Thanks for the hard work! :)
The inconsistency of the Oracle games is likely due to the limited colors of the GBC, so the rupee colors were chosen to provide the most contrast with their background.
Trust me. Ever since covid, commentary videos have been torture to sit through. There are only about 3 channels (including yours) that I can actually sit through and ENJOY. People just try to be funny and end up coming off as obnoxious. The editing here is perfect, no distracting memes, or anything. Your explanations are perfect.
I really want to interpret that the "variable" rupees in the Oracle games are either: Stacks of rupees, each worth 1 Different grades of gem, which would be worth only one of their values as a cut/polished currency
The red rupee is probably my favourite. They're just rare enough to evoke delight when they appear, but also common enough, and with enough value, that they're reliable. The red rupee is always welcome.
I hate math but i love Zelda so much that i was genuinely interested in this video to the point that it felt shorter than it actually is (you know like enjoyable things tend to do)
As a fact, the orange rupee in Majora's mask and ocarina of time is meant to be the golden rupee from chests, just that the overworld counterpart looks like orange
@@algotkristoffersson15 because of console limitations, the 3d chest rupee has a lot more geometry than its overworld counterpart because a lot of those detailed rupees moving around would take too much power
I think it would be fun to compare the value of the rupee in each game by comparing how much you can buy with your rupees. Like which game can you buy the most arrows or potions. Like what would be the exchange rate between each game.
For a moment from the title i thought this would be a convoluted attempt to provide an in lore explanation for how rupees end up where they do before you collect them across the games
If you use the Light Arrows on Enemies in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, you can get a Huge Pink Rupee. Killing the Dodongos in Majora's Mask also gives you the Huge Pink Rupee. There are some Grottos that have a Huge Dodongo that you can Fight that will Drop the Huge Pink Rupee.
Man this is the exact type of stuff I love to do. I love collecting data on stuff like this and making graphs and charts and all that. My friends call me a huge nerd but it's so nice
Honestly, they should bring back the yellow rupee at 10 and the orange at 200, along with the -10 rupoor, so we can finally have the complete rupee selection. What? Big Rupees? Never heard of them.
YESSSS THANK YOUUUU I've always wanted to look into this and figure their values out but never had the time!!!! The title of this video has me excited... I just started watching OvO
In defense of the Oracles games and the small red being worth two large reds, consider that a dime is considerably smaller than a nickel but worth two nickels in buying power (because one _used to be_ made of a more precious metal, silver, and legally retains its buying power despite now being copper with a nickel plating).
In the oracle games when you open a chest with a rupee and a random value, I assume it’s meant as a chest with a few rupees rather than one singular rupee
They only exist in certain dungeons in seasons in specific. Ages does not have them at all. You are given a hint at the first one for free in Snake's remains given they point a literal arrow made out of blocks at where to bomb the wall but for the rest you just need to try your sword against a wall and see where it sounds different and the clink effect sprite looks different.
i dont wanna be that guy but in zelda 1 for NES you can get 10, 30 and 100 rupies in some secret rooms. i think they all look like the yellow rupie, but still
In German rupees are called "Rubine" which translates to Rubies. Seeing that they are called the same in the English manual for Zelda 1 it's very likely that the German translation was based of the English one. But unlike the English games they never corrected this in Germany and the wrong name is still used today.
It's the same in French, they're "Rubis" which is also just Rubies in all the games Makes it awkward when Breath of the Wild has ruby as a type of ore you can find
@@sandorrclegane2307 Ruby ore is called "Rubis Brut" which means Raw Ruby/Rough Ruby to differentiate both but it kinda makes it sound like Ruby is an unpolished version of Rupees
So in Japan, there is an interesting quirk with green lights, they can sometimes be blue due to the quirk of language. Wonder if the same thing affected the early rupees
It would be really interesting to then take a look at the real economic value of rupees throughout the franchise. For instance what percent of an arrow or bomb or similar item a rupee will buy across each game. Obviously not every game has every item, and games that do might not have them available for sale, so you would have to get pretty into the weeds to map out where certain games fall in terms of rupee inflation.
Another fun fact about Rupees is they hold magical power as fairies often use them in some way to regain magic and your magic armor can use rupees as a power source
I think you should have given the CDi games (Wand and Faces) a brief mention since their rupees (or rubies) have their own quirks. You have the trio, but their values are scuffed. Red is 1, green is 5, and blue is 10. Also neat to see that the yellow rupee had history before Wind Waker. I thought that was its first official appearance and had an unofficial appearance in Zelda's Adventure, the third CDi game.
This is a great video! Really liked how you used Tableau to visualize the data. Also, thank you for making the file publicly available! I've been playing a lot of Diablo IV lately, so here's what I think the sytstem would look like if the economy/gameplay of Zelda were a little more like that: Green: 1 Blue: 5 Yellow: 10 Red: 20 Purple: 50 Orange: 100 Silver: 200 Gold: 300 Big Green: 500 Big Blue: 1000 Big Red: 2000 Big Silver: No Value Big Gold: 5000 (Only found by collecting 4 Big Silver Rupees) Black: -10 (random chance to drop as a reward from World Events/Roaming Elites) Big Black: -100 (occasionally found in Dungeon Chests) This system obviously assumes more inflated gear prices than BotW/TotK account for, as well as more frequent Rupoors than previous Zelda titles. (Obviously Diablo has much more insane inflation than this, but my goal was to keep it truer to the original Rupee values)
I read a fanfiction once where the author had rupees fuse together to explain how Link can hold so many gems in his wallet. Like if you had five green rupees, they combine together into a single blue. I thought that was a neat idea, and the rupee shards in Four Swords kind of support it.
I could be wrong here but I believe the orange rupee in the 2 N64 games are meant to be the gold ones as the rupees have a lower quality ground item model when compared to the chest item model. Not to mention orange rupees being absent in both 3ds remakes as ground item and chest items share the same model and they both become gold.
Another thing that may not be relevant but the oot pc port has an option to replace the low poly models with their high poly model which makes the orange become gold so they might be the same object internally.
i have this strange memory of a giant purpleish rupee in the kokiri forest in OOT from N64. I don't remember anything at all, or what it did when you collected it. The thing is, navi said something like "that's a suspicious looking rupee, link. you shouldn't approach it". does anyone know something about it or am I just going crazy?
I always knew Purple Rupees where my favorite for more than their prestigious color, more than their value. It was their consistency. Never change Purple Rupee. Never change. But please, Yellow Rupee, come back. I miss you.
great video! i really love niche analysis of videogames like this. your editing and production quality was also great, you definitely deserve more subscribers and will inevitably acquire them if you keep making great content like this!
I feel like the orange rupee was largely used in MM because the golden huge rupee only really looks good when being held up in a chest animation because of the sorta weird wispy aura. In the 3d versions the gold rupee fits in better with the rest of the family because it lacks the aura.
There was a strategy guide back in the 90s for LTTP (a pdf can be googled) that had a ton of world building, including defining what the 100 and 300 rupees looked like in game. Both were red. 100 was more octogonal than the normal 20 rupee (a “small red”, if you will) and the 300 looked like two 100s stacked on one another (a “long red”). Not sure if canon but felt like adding
Spirit Tracks does actually have Big Green and Big Red Rupees, they're usually found in dungeons. For example, there's a Big Green in the Forest Temple in a combat challenge as a reward
I like to think Hyrule just had an absolutely awful Economy with gem mines opening and closing and gem cutters quitting or getting killed so the rupee economy was just spinning around wildly
I really like the idea for this video. I don't know if data analysis is something you want to continue doing for content, but I would love to see statistics and changes for items across a series. Like healing items in pokemon, frequencies of power ups given in mario games per world, and back to Zelda with how many key items show up between games. Although I think the key item one was done by someone else a while ago. But definitely not with your fun stats and graphs.
Great video! It's funny the things I never noticed before, when I was playing the Oracle games I never noticed how janky the rupee system was, I think I just noticed the 'rupee trio' wasn't in place and didn't pay too much attention. I also love the yellow rupee at 10 and I'm shocked to see that it only actually appears in two games. :( Not a coincidence that those are two of the first games I played I suppose!
something dumb i was curious about but i went to the data page he made to find out is the value of rupee to appear the most amount of time is 5 with 23 times that value has appeared with the runner ups being 1 appearing 21 times and 20 appearing 19 times
I really enjoyed the data visualizations and explanations at the end! Reminds me of college stats class (in a good way! We also used tableau and my prof was really cool, he would've appreciated something like this in a project)
love the concept of rupoors. imagine if you had enough money for a grocery run and the cashier’s looking through your stuff and checking it all out but then they see you have a -$5 bill and they’re like “oh sorry man you cant afford all this”
I feel like it could be explained one of 2 ways, both being supernatural in nature.
1. it changes the color and devalues the rupees already in your wallet
2. it works like a black hole that sucks away rupees of a set amount
@@LinkinMark1994 or it discolors certain rupees you may have, so for example, you could have a red rupee turn green in it's presence
@@LinkinMark1994 They're clearly made of anti-matter and instantly annihilate with their counterpart in your wallet.
@@JamesTDG hate to break it to you but thats what the guy said in option 1
@@LinkinMark1994 no it’s just a $-20
I actually never minded the Link to the Past greens with numbers by them. It made it feel like you found ALOT of treasure. Like if you open a briefcase and instead of finding a single $100 bill you found 100 $1 bills
The rupee has definitely suffered from inflation over the years. In the first game, the most expensive item you could buy was 250 rupees (which is why the developers probably felt safe using a one-byte variable for your rupee count that capped it at 255), but there would later be individual rupees worth more than that. In Tears of the Kingdom, the Flamebreaker Helm costs 1400 rupees by itself.
in breath of the wild the 4th fairy's fountain costed 10,000 rupees
To credit, that's inflation over the course of over 60,000 years at minimum.
With such small inflation, that's actually really impressive.
@@HylianKirbo
However, unlike normal currency that relies on ideas of labor storage, Rupees have an absolute value set by faries and great fairies who use it as a power source
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 It's often used to power things, anyway. They're magical.
Link can use them to revive himself in some games, use it to power Magic Armor, a wacky level of damage transfer, etc.
Probably because of the 100s of duped diamonds I sold and exaggerated the inflation haha
One correction: The big orange rupee is also in Ocarina of Time at the 200 value. It’s primarily obtained by defeating a skull kid in the lost woods
yeah I honestly just always considered the orange and huge rupees to be the same thing and chalked it up to the N64's rendering.
And inside a box in gerudo fortress
In the 3DS remake those ones the skull kids drop are also yellow so I guess they retconned it?
I thought I was crazy for CLEARLY remembering an orange rupee in Ocarina and it not showing up in the video 😂😂
HUGO
"Rupoor" has to be one of the best names ever conceived, it blends two well-known concepts harmoniously in one small word and it's also funny because it makes you poor.
Imagine having like a negative dollar or something
@@lightdarksoul2097 that's called credit :(
@@Scarabola oof
It also implies that the opposite of poor is pee
@@RedHeadedRage or maybe its just oor and ee
Watching a half-hour data analysis on rupee pricing was not on my plans for today but I'm glad it ended up happening.
Another correction about the orange rupees from OoT and MM: They're not orange. Those are just what gold rupees looked like as drops with the graphical limitations of the system. If you'll notice, all of your footage of gold rupees from OoT are from chests while the orange rupees in MM are actual drops from enemies. The 3DS upgrades didn't change them; they just corrected the drop version to be consistent with the in-chest versions. There is no such thing as an orange rupee in either of those games.
Plus! If you run a randomizer, and have the takkuri drop randomized, the takkuri drop upscales the item to match. The big orange rupee isn't actuall big, and if you find it somewhere else in the word it's about the same size as the rupee trio. But the randomizer does keep in it looking orange when you find it if it's not the takkuri drop. A giant skultulla or giant stray fairy but in like, their jar form and not their fairy form, is kinda funny looking. Same with a giant note for a song.
Why do they even have diferent models for these situations in the first place?
@Algot Kristoffersson limitations? Don't know limitations but limitations
@@algotkristoffersson15 if you’ve got a bunch of rupees lying on the ground, you don’t want a high detail, high poly model, cause it’ll lag the game, and the rupees are all on the ground anyway, nobody is looking at them closely. However, if you’ve got one from a chest, the typical “you got the thing” cutscene plays, you want the rupee to look nice, since it is the focus. So, you have a low poly model for your in-world drops from enemies, and your high poly one for chest items that the player actually looks at closely.
I was wondering that too! During his rant I kept thinking, "…Maybe that's just supposed to be gold?"
You actually missed a rupee type in Wind Waker. When you get all 5 tingle statues you are given a rupee worth 500, I am colorblind so I cannot say what color it is unfortunately.
It's rainbow I think
At least it is in the randomizer, it could just be a generic green rupee pickup in the actual game just being worth 500
In vanilla, it's shockingly enough a red rupee for the 500
MidniteAndBeyond had footage of the reward at the very end, if you search "wind waker tingle statue reward"
@@ellioteel maybe it’s signed by tingle which obviously makes it limited edition and more valuable
I'm a bit disappointed they missed it. :(
Tingle statues? I can't remember them from the gc original, and since the remakes were ignored that is probably the reason.
It would be cool to see a follow up video to this by looking at what rupees actually get you. Like are arrows always 5 rupees or do their value fluctuate depending on the game
I would also really enjoy a video like this!
Not only on the game, but sometimes, where and when in the game you buy them.
For example, Twilight Princess. For anything you can buy in a shop, including if that "shop" only sells one item, like the Zora who sells Water Bombs outside Lakebed Temple, the cost per unit is always the same -- that is, you might only be able to buy arrows in 10s here and 20s there, but the cost per arrow is the same -- with three exceptions. (I'm also counting Trill's shop as having the standard prices, it's just that you have the option to pay less than the suggested price, or just walk away without paying with much less severe consequences as in Link's Awakening.)
First, that posh shop in Castle Town, where you cannot buy even the least expensive item even if you were allowed in with a full wallet. (You need to pay for your shoes to be shined, or they won't let you in.)
Second, the shop -- counting the three Gorons within as one shop -- across the south road from it, where they employ "regional pricing" to justify a markup on the standard price of items sold within, albeit one you can actually still afford.
Third, the shop at the same location as the posh shop after you help Malo buy it; now, prices are at a significant markDOWN, and you don't need your shoes shined to come in.
Another example, the Wind Waker. The Bombs on Windfall Island are too expensive for you when you first get there (not that you have a place to put them), but after a story event, they become affordable.
I can say in BotW and TotK, depending on the vendors you buy them from, arrows and some other items are worth different prices at varying locations, like Gerudo Town, Zora’s Domain, Tarrey Town, etc.
And then traveling merchants on roads offer a discount when it’s raining; I think it’s like 50%.
A video on Zelda inflation
So like a hylian economics lesson?
I'd love to see the inflation rate. Compile a standard "basket of goods" - 20 arrows, 10 bombs, and whatever other common items repeat across the franchize and average the buying power of the rupee, to see where the rupee is worth the most and where the least.
Playing WW so much as a kid, I always assumed that the yellow being worth 10 was as standard as the rest, and never noticed how actually unusual it is!
Only WW and TP use yellow for 10, which I think is weird because having a 10 rupee makes so much sense to me
I second the comment about making a follow up with prices for things like arrows. Maybe track to see if they go up or down? See if the values inflate much?
You could also include stuff like the maximum wallet size potentially, and and see how it correlates with the frequency of rupee drops and prices of items
If you want to go beyond this rupee idea, maybe explore things like hearts and enemy damage? See how much damage early enemies do in games? Or maybe the final boss, and match it up to the max hearts to see which bosses do the most damage as a percentage of your health?
I was kind of hoping he'd put the values on the official timeline, and we could see how Hyrule's money policy was affected by the whole kingdom getting flooded
i’ve always imagines rupees were like a bank account and you only kept one on you that you would charge with the other ones, so the rupoor would drain some of the charge, makes sense with the magic armour and stuff too draining the charge instead of just throwing away actual gems
My head cannon is that Rupees each have an amount of energy to them, the amount of energy being treated as it's value. The Wallets would convert Rupees into the pure energy allowing for lots to be carried without weighing a bunch. Then when you go take Rupees out the magic of the wallets would reform the Rupees from the energy within. This also explains how you can pick up a red (20) then spend 5 rupees since the wallet would dissolve the 20 then later form a 5. Great Fairies and the Magic Armour are capable of actually using the energy of the rupees.
@Tik71 well, spending 5 rupees from a 20 wouldn't even need magic, just change from whoever you're doing business with. Same as going to a store and paying for something that cost 5€ with a 20€ bill, as long as the cashier has change on hand they can give you 15€ back.
...that said, the BOTW Great Fairies need rupees to regain their strength so they could help Link... there's gotta be some sort of magical element to rupees.
That's a good theory.
Interesting video. Informative and sits comfortably in my taste for "weirdly specific topic you'd never think about but now that it's here you're curious" videos.
Sounds like I hit exactly what I was going for! Thanks a lot!
When I saw the title, I imagined exactly something like your post. Thanks for put this in words.
@@StabilizeYT I also like that I can hear you being slowly driven mad by all the exceptions. Excellent.
This is a genre I also enjoy, though I never described it quite that way before. Explains my love of speedrunning videos about games I've never played in my life and possibly have no interest in playing.
Thank you for covering tears of the kingdom as well and not making the video outdated on release, you deserve a like for that
The Oracle games are some of my favorites and somehow knowing they flip a complete middle finger to the rupee system makes me love them even more
Very turbulent economy
@@Sh1ranu1 I think it's also notable that the Oracle games take place outside of Hyrule. So maybe the economy is different.
Although most likely it is just a technical limit with the Gameboy color
@@midovodella1702 My idea: maybe Labrynna and Holodrum actually examine the quality of the rupees. Maybe most rupees have imperfections, but every now and then you find a really high quality rupee and it's worth a lot more.
Clearly Holodrum and Labrynna use a different monetary system than Hyrule *sage nod*
19:11 spirit tracks actually has at least 1 big green rupee you can get by talking to the forest sage at some point way later in the game.
Thanks for watching this admittedly pretty different style of video!
*EDIT 1*: The orange 200 rupee is also present in Ocarina of Time and appears when you defeat a skull kid in the Lost Woods. Thanks to Zach Hansen in the comments for the correction. I knew I was bound to miss something!
*EDIT 2*: Thanks for all the love on the video everyone. I've decided I'm going to do a follow-up video to talk about the things you have all mentioned in the comments. I hope you look forward to it, and subscribe so you don't miss it when it drops! Thanks again!
And don't forget to check out the link to the data yourself!
💎 public.tableau.com/app/profile/stabilize.yt/viz/TheLegendofZeldaRupeeValues/ValuebyGame 💎
man i was just about to catch you on that orange ruppee too
Thought something felt off there, but awesome video! Great data visualizations
I think the gold rupee and the orange rupee from OoT might be intended to be the same rupee. Unlike all of the other rupees that are referred to by their color when obtained out of a chest, the gold rupee is called a "huge rupee" instead; meanwhile, the orange rupee that drops from skull kids, worth the same amount, is notably much bigger than most other rupee types.
This does throw a wrench in the color-based graph, though, since this rupee isn't defined by any one color, but JUST by a size. There's no other game with a "huge rupee," just "big [color] rupees."
Also the gold rupee exists in Majora's Mask when you sell gold dust, so the gold rupee still exists in that game too. Therefore, the remake should not have its own separate entry
There is big Green in Spirit Tracks at 100
I clicked on this thinking it was gonna be a goofy satirical video about the location of EVERY SINGLE RUPEE in the series, but I was met with an AMAZING video instead
You would not believe the problems I've been having for the last few days trying to watch this video. I'm literally on my phone just because I can't watch it on PC. Definitely worth it
THANK YOU for 1st making this chart publicly available 2nd making this a CC licensed video and 3rd for your amazing hard work. Earned a sub!
Wow. I just watched a half-hour long advertisement for Tableau. And it was a banger video!
You basically just gave us a lesson on the Economic Crisis of the Zelda Universe
I just watched a 30 min advertisement for Tableau... brilliant.
This video blows my mind. The topic itself is interesting, but I've apparently gaslit myself into thinking of the yellow rupee as being more of a staple than it actually is alongside the green, blue, and red rupees. For some reason I have distinct memories of it being in OoT and MM onward, but seeing it show up first in WW and then so little after that is melting my brain lol
The concept of the "rupoor" always made me chuckle
You're telling me that there's an object in this world that is worth a negative amount of money? You're telling me that, by picking this thing up, my assets become less valuable?
My guy, Link, just put the rupoor back in the box!
(I know it's an abstraction or magical or something but it just reminds me of the $-12 bill from Gravity Falls. "It's *less* than worthless, my boy!")
Random, but I love the WW rupees the most. I love the way they look, how shiny they are, the sound they make when you collect them, the sound that’s made when you open a rupee chest. It’s so satisfying to me lol
I believe the Rupoor is a major part of the fan theory that rupees aren't gemstones but energy of some kind which is why you always seem to have exact change no matter what ruppees you pick up
The One Ruppie in Zelda NES is suposed to look green. Flashed between *Yellow and *blue. WHICH gives green when mixed together. Most of the game is already green so it was a way to make a second green on the NES.
Then it didnt work and they just called it Yellow.
I persoanlly was working on making something about all the differnt ruppies and thier differnt values but i probably would never finish and publish it. Glad to see someone else finnaly make it.
Original Majora's Mask dialogue literally calls that "Orange" rupee a "Gold Rupee". And that orange looking model is in OoT as well when defeating Skull Kids.
This is one of this video ideas you think “oh I’ve seen this before” but your research is so thorough and excellent, this is super enjoyable to watch! ❤️
The ad I got for this vid was about finances or some shit but it was the perfect warmup for learning about the rupee economy.
I didn't think a half hour video all about rupees was gonna be very interesting, even to a long time and dedicated Zelda fan like myself. Man I've never been more happy to be wrong! You did a great job on this and the charts at the end just made it really fun to visualize everything. Ill definitely be looking out for more of your stuff now.
The rupoor is interesting. There’s a theory about rupees that they are some form of crystalline magical energy. evidence for this being that they are often used to use magical items like the magic armor and they are given to great fairies in some games to presumedly give them energy and they are also used as arrows in the very first Zelda game in lieu of purchasing them. it would make sense for them to be like anti-rupees with the rupoor being attracted to your Rupees energy and sort of cancel each other out.
That, and we also have Tingle that has been cursed to his Rupee count being his life force and forced to give huge amounts of Rupees to some kind of Rupee God to strengthen him.
I love these kind of videos where some nerd compiles tons of data about some obscure aspect of a videogame and charts it out in a video that no one ever asked for or even knew they wanted. Thanks for the hard work! :)
The inconsistency of the Oracle games is likely due to the limited colors of the GBC, so the rupee colors were chosen to provide the most contrast with their background.
Trust me. Ever since covid, commentary videos have been torture to sit through. There are only about 3 channels (including yours) that I can actually sit through and ENJOY. People just try to be funny and end up coming off as obnoxious.
The editing here is perfect, no distracting memes, or anything. Your explanations are perfect.
I really want to interpret that the "variable" rupees in the Oracle games are either:
Stacks of rupees, each worth 1
Different grades of gem, which would be worth only one of their values as a cut/polished currency
Finally, SOMEONE fucking looks at the rupee and goes "yeah, we need a video on this." Thank you.
The idea of a coin that destroys all the money in your pocket when you touch it is so funny to me
Just here to say I saw your reel on insta and I instantly closed that and looked up your video. Your cross promotion works
Thank you for your service 🫡🫡🫡
XD me too! :)
The red rupee is probably my favourite. They're just rare enough to evoke delight when they appear, but also common enough, and with enough value, that they're reliable. The red rupee is always welcome.
I hate math but i love Zelda so much that i was genuinely interested in this video to the point that it felt shorter than it actually is (you know like enjoyable things tend to do)
As a fact, the orange rupee in Majora's mask and ocarina of time is meant to be the golden rupee from chests, just that the overworld counterpart looks like orange
But why does it need a counterpart? Can’t they just take the one from the chests and put it in the overworld
@@algotkristoffersson15 because of console limitations, the 3d chest rupee has a lot more geometry than its overworld counterpart because a lot of those detailed rupees moving around would take too much power
I didn't know I needed a mini-documentary about the history of rupees throughout LoZ until I saw this pop up in my feed. What a neat video
I cried and screamed when the orange rupee died
I haven’t even watched this yet but this is on some “beat mario 64 with 0.5 A button presses” type shit
I’m officially the only person with a Phd in Rupees 💎🔥
Very in depth data wise. Im gonna need more videos in this style with this way of showing the data. Could do it for zelda enemies? Would be cool
I think it would be fun to compare the value of the rupee in each game by comparing how much you can buy with your rupees. Like which game can you buy the most arrows or potions. Like what would be the exchange rate between each game.
For a moment from the title i thought this would be a convoluted attempt to provide an in lore explanation for how rupees end up where they do before you collect them across the games
This is a video I've been wanting for literally years. Thank you very much
If you use the Light Arrows on Enemies in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, you can get a Huge Pink Rupee. Killing the Dodongos in Majora's Mask also gives you the Huge Pink Rupee. There are some Grottos that have a Huge Dodongo that you can Fight that will Drop the Huge Pink Rupee.
Man this is the exact type of stuff I love to do. I love collecting data on stuff like this and making graphs and charts and all that. My friends call me a huge nerd but it's so nice
7:50 I’ve played spirit tracks so many times, I started looking for which way the trees were pointing when this music came up
In the CDI games the Red ruppee is 1, and green is 5. So that's awesome
Honestly, they should bring back the yellow rupee at 10 and the orange at 200, along with the -10 rupoor, so we can finally have the complete rupee selection. What? Big Rupees? Never heard of them.
YESSSS THANK YOUUUU I've always wanted to look into this and figure their values out but never had the time!!!! The title of this video has me excited... I just started watching OvO
In defense of the Oracles games and the small red being worth two large reds, consider that a dime is considerably smaller than a nickel but worth two nickels in buying power (because one _used to be_ made of a more precious metal, silver, and legally retains its buying power despite now being copper with a nickel plating).
In the oracle games when you open a chest with a rupee and a random value, I assume it’s meant as a chest with a few rupees rather than one singular rupee
Honestly having one single rupee in a chest is weird.
I have finished the Oracle Games multiple times.
I have beaten Ganon multiple times.
I had no idea the secret random rupee hell rooms existed.
They only exist in certain dungeons in seasons in specific. Ages does not have them at all. You are given a hint at the first one for free in Snake's remains given they point a literal arrow made out of blocks at where to bomb the wall but for the rest you just need to try your sword against a wall and see where it sounds different and the clink effect sprite looks different.
I might be wrong, but majors mask has pink Rupees (that’s a dope color btw) at 80 after you kill big dadangos in the winter area outside of clocktown
Great job on the video btw
i dont wanna be that guy but in zelda 1 for NES you can get 10, 30 and 100 rupies in some secret rooms. i think they all look like the yellow rupie, but still
In German rupees are called "Rubine" which translates to Rubies.
Seeing that they are called the same in the English manual for Zelda 1 it's very likely that the German translation was based of the English one.
But unlike the English games they never corrected this in Germany and the wrong name is still used today.
It's the same in French, they're "Rubis" which is also just Rubies in all the games
Makes it awkward when Breath of the Wild has ruby as a type of ore you can find
@@gerardprodigieux-ju5tg oh, how is that resolved? Are both just called "rubi"?
@@sandorrclegane2307 Ruby ore is called "Rubis Brut" which means Raw Ruby/Rough Ruby to differentiate both but it kinda makes it sound like Ruby is an unpolished version of Rupees
So in Japan, there is an interesting quirk with green lights, they can sometimes be blue due to the quirk of language. Wonder if the same thing affected the early rupees
It would be really interesting to then take a look at the real economic value of rupees throughout the franchise. For instance what percent of an arrow or bomb or similar item a rupee will buy across each game. Obviously not every game has every item, and games that do might not have them available for sale, so you would have to get pretty into the weeds to map out where certain games fall in terms of rupee inflation.
Can’t believe spirit tracks took away my beloved rupoor :(
Another fun fact about Rupees is they hold magical power as fairies often use them in some way to regain magic and your magic armor can use rupees as a power source
This video must’ve taken some insane effort to catalogue all of this! I’m definitely subbing! This is awesome!
This is such an analytics slay I really enjoyed myself
I think the Orange Rupee should come back as the 10. Yellow is a bit too similar to Gold if we don't want to do the size thing anymore.
im just now realizing that the silver stars in Mario 64 DS are the silver rupies from OoT
I think you should have given the CDi games (Wand and Faces) a brief mention since their rupees (or rubies) have their own quirks. You have the trio, but their values are scuffed. Red is 1, green is 5, and blue is 10.
Also neat to see that the yellow rupee had history before Wind Waker. I thought that was its first official appearance and had an unofficial appearance in Zelda's Adventure, the third CDi game.
This is a great video! Really liked how you used Tableau to visualize the data. Also, thank you for making the file publicly available!
I've been playing a lot of Diablo IV lately, so here's what I think the sytstem would look like if the economy/gameplay of Zelda were a little more like that:
Green: 1
Blue: 5
Yellow: 10
Red: 20
Purple: 50
Orange: 100
Silver: 200
Gold: 300
Big Green: 500
Big Blue: 1000
Big Red: 2000
Big Silver: No Value
Big Gold: 5000 (Only found by collecting 4 Big Silver Rupees)
Black: -10 (random chance to drop as a reward from World Events/Roaming Elites)
Big Black: -100 (occasionally found in Dungeon Chests)
This system obviously assumes more inflated gear prices than BotW/TotK account for, as well as more frequent Rupoors than previous Zelda titles. (Obviously Diablo has much more insane inflation than this, but my goal was to keep it truer to the original Rupee values)
No mention of my favorite rupee :( Tingle's rainbow rupee from Wind Waker
I read a fanfiction once where the author had rupees fuse together to explain how Link can hold so many gems in his wallet. Like if you had five green rupees, they combine together into a single blue. I thought that was a neat idea, and the rupee shards in Four Swords kind of support it.
The research must've taken HOURS! I'm very impressed, it's a very well done video and I loved watching it.
Killer video, just the thought of collecting every rupee in the Oracle games has me sweating
I could be wrong here but I believe the orange rupee in the 2 N64 games are meant to be the gold ones as the rupees have a lower quality ground item model when compared to the chest item model. Not to mention orange rupees being absent in both 3ds remakes as ground item and chest items share the same model and they both become gold.
Another thing that may not be relevant but the oot pc port has an option to replace the low poly models with their high poly model which makes the orange become gold so they might be the same object internally.
i have this strange memory of a giant purpleish rupee in the kokiri forest in OOT from N64. I don't remember anything at all, or what it did when you collected it. The thing is, navi said something like "that's a suspicious looking rupee, link. you shouldn't approach it". does anyone know something about it or am I just going crazy?
Didn't it lead to a trap or fight ?
I always knew Purple Rupees where my favorite for more than their prestigious color, more than their value.
It was their consistency. Never change Purple Rupee. Never change.
But please, Yellow Rupee, come back. I miss you.
great video! i really love niche analysis of videogames like this. your editing and production quality was also great, you definitely deserve more subscribers and will inevitably acquire them if you keep making great content like this!
My favourite think about the Rupoor in Phantom Hourglass is the jingle coupled with Link's facial expression 😂 Its literally the 😬 emoticon
Time can’t keep the continuity in a direct sequel so imagine the economic system.
I feel like the orange rupee was largely used in MM because the golden huge rupee only really looks good when being held up in a chest animation because of the sorta weird wispy aura. In the 3d versions the gold rupee fits in better with the rest of the family because it lacks the aura.
I can't believe i just watvhed a half hour video about video game currency and enjoyed the entire thing lol
There was a strategy guide back in the 90s for LTTP (a pdf can be googled) that had a ton of world building, including defining what the 100 and 300 rupees looked like in game. Both were red. 100 was more octogonal than the normal 20 rupee (a “small red”, if you will) and the 300 looked like two 100s stacked on one another (a “long red”). Not sure if canon but felt like adding
Spirit Tracks does actually have Big Green and Big Red Rupees, they're usually found in dungeons. For example, there's a Big Green in the Forest Temple in a combat challenge as a reward
What a delightfully niche and well made video. Really dig the visualizations
Welp. You're a video game stats guy now. The algorithm has spoken. You may join my subscriptions right next to Any Austin.
I like to think Hyrule just had an absolutely awful Economy with gem mines opening and closing and gem cutters quitting or getting killed so the rupee economy was just spinning around wildly
This video is awesome I’m studying data analysis and this was such a cool way to see it in action
19:41
This is actually because toon link is very smol
I really like the idea for this video. I don't know if data analysis is something you want to continue doing for content, but I would love to see statistics and changes for items across a series. Like healing items in pokemon, frequencies of power ups given in mario games per world, and back to Zelda with how many key items show up between games. Although I think the key item one was done by someone else a while ago. But definitely not with your fun stats and graphs.
Great video! It's funny the things I never noticed before, when I was playing the Oracle games I never noticed how janky the rupee system was, I think I just noticed the 'rupee trio' wasn't in place and didn't pay too much attention.
I also love the yellow rupee at 10 and I'm shocked to see that it only actually appears in two games. :( Not a coincidence that those are two of the first games I played I suppose!
saw the insta reel and SPRINTED to youtube to watch the whole vid
something dumb i was curious about but i went to the data page he made to find out is the value of rupee to appear the most amount of time is 5 with 23 times that value has appeared with the runner ups being 1 appearing 21 times and 20 appearing 19 times
14:50 I think it's because the gold rupee only had the fancy chest model and they needed a regular model to drop out of the enemy
I really enjoyed the data visualizations and explanations at the end! Reminds me of college stats class (in a good way! We also used tableau and my prof was really cool, he would've appreciated something like this in a project)
I was literally thinking about this the other day and arguing with my sister how rupee values haven’t always been the same, thank you