Daily Debate: Are Rupees Important Anymore?

Since the very first game, rupees have served as Link‘s currency of choice. Our hero makes a living out of cutting through shrubbery, the spoils of which he uses to purchase potions or other such items from shops. Scattered across Hyrule are treasure chests full of rupees, and a larger wallet seems to always be waiting for Link to find. It goes without saying that rupees are an iconic part of the Zelda series, but iconic does not always necessarily mean important or useful.

Is the series has progressed, I’ve noticed more and more how little I rely on rupees. Sure, I may need to buy a couple bombchus now and again, but in a standard Zelda quest, I actually end up spending very little rupees. Despite me never making any significant uses of this shiny currency, the games never fail to provide me with thousands upon thousands of rupees. I’m sure every Zelda fan has found rupees in a chest that he or she will never need or go back for. Even if I need to raise up my funds to purchase something, rupees are never hard to come by in a field or cave. Any player can easily chop a few bushes and get a handful of rupees to spend. So I ask: do we really need a rupee system in Zelda games anymore?

A Link Between Worlds did offer an interesting layer to rupee system, as players would need to re-buy items from Ravio if they fell in battle. If Zelda games were to retain rupees as a viable currency, perhaps this is the direction they should move towards. A solution I could see for the diminishing importance of rupees would be to make these stones harder to come by. If there were less rupees in the world — if they were at a steep premium — then maybe players would have more incentive to save and value the rupees they find.

Then after limiting the amount of rupees, the items Link can buy should be found only in shops. In my mind, a problem arises with rupees because anything worth buying (bombs, fairies, etc) can be easily found in the overworld. How many people actually bought a bottled fairy from a shop in Ocarina of Time? If these types of items were available only in shops, rupees would once again have meaningful use.

Let your voice be heard. Do you think rupees are still important? If not, what changes would you make to the system to make rupees more useful? Join the Daily Debate!

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