As I am playing through Tingle's Love Balloon Trip and a) probably no one else here will play it and b) there's very little information about it on the internet, I'm going to provide a running synopsis of the game for anyone who's interested. Please allow for the fact that I can't understand a word of Japanese and some of my assumptions might be off.

We begin with a 35 year old bachelor living in a run-down apartment with his little dog Barkle. An ad on the TV sparks his interest; a woman in ruby glasses is selling a book that can change a man's life, making him a mighty hero and lady killer. The bum is quick to order a copy and, after signing for it (I put his name as "Link", of course) and opening it up, is sucked into its pages by a magical whirlwind.

Page 001

The man awakens in a small farmhouse and meets his "mother", who dubs him Tingle and gives him the green tights to wear. Tingle's "father" is in the backyard working on a giant machine and needs Tingle's help to fix it. After dealing with an especially violent chicken (birds seem to hate Tingle in general), Tingle finds the key to his toolbox, picks up a screwdriver, and keeps the machine from falling apart. He jumps in to test the device out; it's actually a cannon, and the couple use it to launch Tingle off their farm.

Page 002

Tingle's flight is interrupted as he crashes into a UFO and lands near a cottage in the woods. After cleaning himself off at a nearby fountain statue (it's shaped like a woman and hates Tingle), he enters to meet three fairies (they look like ladybugs with round, human heads) and a fortune teller (I want to call her Glinda). Glinda reads Tingle's fortune and explains that to escape the story he must dance with the princess in Emerald City, but grows faint before she can finish the prediction. The fairies ask Tingle to collect flowers so they can make her some tea.

Tingle meets a scarecrow at the garden and collects the flowers he needs, as well as some water from the fountain. After the tea, Glinda finishes her prediction by saying that Tingle will gather three companions: a lion, a tin man, and her own scarecrow. Tingle goes to get him, but finds him being harassed by a crow. The crow leaves after seeing Tingle's pathetic attempts to fend it off and Scarecrow joins him--he can crawl into small holes, or use a piece of his straw to fish for things (not actual fish, but worms and such). Glinda sends them off down the yellow brick road.

Page 003

The yellow brick road dead ends within a corn field; it looks like they haven't finished building it yet. Scarecrow rescues a tiny man from a stream, who repays them by providing hints over the course of the game. At the farm house, Tingle finds an injured farmer saying goodbye to his daughter, Sensei. When Tingle tries to pass her a bag she dropped, drooling as he does so, she slaps him in horror and runs away. They learn from the farmer that he was injured when a UFO crashed into his tractor and go to investigate.

The UFO turns out to be the one Tingle crashed into earlier. A robotic tin woman is lying nearby and being attacked by crows. Scarecrow chases them away, but they escape with her batteries. After picking up a slingshot at the farm house, Tingle claims the batteries and reactivates the Tin Woman. She recognizes him and is immediately hostile, but Scarecrow stops her from killing him and she marches off into the field. They try to cut her off and talk to her, but she turns back toward her ship. When she tries to climb inside, she rusts in place and asks Tingle for help.

Tingle gets a bottle of oil from the farmer, but he drops it and it rolls into a hole. Scarecrow is mysteriously absent, so Tingle heads back to the crow's nest. The crow is holding Scarecrow hostage; Tingle attacks it with the slingshot and it flies off, releasing Scarecrow. He grabs the oil and the two of them use it to fix the Tin Woman. She tries to leave in her ship, but it explodes right after take-off. The farmer repays Tingle for his help by giving him, Scarecrow, and the reluctant Tin Woman a ride to the next part of the road.

Page 004

The farmer drops Tingle off at a dark forest; the Tin Woman promptly wanders off, refusing to work with him. He and Scarecrow follow her and come to a bridge spanning a deep ravine. Before Tingle can cross, a hooded man appears on the other side, cuts the bridge down, summons his horse (by playing Epona's Song), and rides away. They walk through the forest until ending up back at the start, where the Tin Woman agrees to join Tingle's group--she can give a sharp kick or scan an object to give a hint on how it's used.

The three venture back into the forest and find that a path that was blocked by a giant bell is now clear. They discover a small shack with matches and a horror novel hidden in the ceiling. Upon returning to the main path, they find that the bell has moved again and blocks their way. A giant lion is hiding inside and refuses to move, so Tingle reads the horror novel to him until he runs away in fright. Tingle and co. chase Lion around the forest and force him out of a number of hiding spots in an attempt to get his help, but each time leaves him more afraid.

The chase ends with Tingle setting fire to a pile of leaves to smoke Lion out of a tree; Lion falls and catches his tail on fire, then accidentally runs off the cliff while trying to put himself out. Tingle and Scarecrow throw him a rope, but they're unable to pull him up until Tingle convinces the Tin Woman to help. After Lion is saved, he agrees to help Tingle--he can speak to other animals or move things with his strength. Lion knocks down a tree near the cliff so that they can cross the ravine, but is too afraid to do so himself until Tingle starts reading the novel again.

Page 005

The group arrives at an abandoned train station after leaving the forest. The yellow brick road has become a yellow railroad and is covered in debris. Lion clears it and finds a mole underneath, who tells him about the train in the garage. They go to see the train and run into a girl named Azusa, who is trying to take pictures of it. When Tingle tries to pass her the hat she dropped, drooling as he does so, she slaps him in horror and runs away. Lion starts to open the garage door, but spots a pair of hands under the door and runs off.

The hands turn out to just be a pair of gloves. The Tin Woman drags Lion back to finish the job. They inspect the train once inside and discover that its circuits are alive; all but one of them run off, so Tingle must go around the station and round them back up. After placing the circuits back in their compartment in the requested order, the train transforms itself to resemble Tingle's head. Lion moves it outside and they take off down the tracks, but, unbeknownst to them, the hooded figure had already sabotaged their new ride.

I read this on a whim, not expecting to be interested in reading about a silly Tingle adventure game. This is pretty amusing stuff, though, and I'm looking forward to more.

Thanks for your interest! This next part confused me a bit, but it introduces the two main aspects of the game--Love Push (getting women to talk to you via presents) and Balloon Trip (traveling to previous pages with your balloon).

Page 006

Tingle realizes that the train is leaking fuel and pulls over at the next station. He and Scarecrow set out to explore the area, which is home to a tropical village, and run into a native named Iona. When Tingle tries to pass her a berry she dropped, drooling as he does so, she shoves it down his throat in horror and runs away. The rest of the women in the village avoid Tingle as well; as he turns back toward the train, he's stopped by Loveya (an old man dressed like cupid) who offers to help by teaching him how to do a Love Push and giving him some gifts to try it out.

Tingle uses the Love Push to win over most of the ladies, but Iona continues to hide from him and he needs her help to get fuel for the train. The fruit stall owner offers to reintroduce Tingle to her if he can catch an eel for her friend. To get a fishing pole from an old fisherman, Tingle must first take his dentures back from a thieving monkey--he uses bananas as a lure and an angry dog to knock the teeth out. He also has Scarecrow collect worms to use as bait during a turnip-plucking minigame (which is a direct reference to Doki Doki Panic, including the player select screen).

Page 007

Continuing from Page 006, Tingle uses the Love Push to win over Iona (the game implies that you can use it on her two more times to become even closer, but she doesn't accept the presents you currently have). Iona asks for Tingle's help in growing an appleline tree--to start, he must rent a patch of land for growing. The ground needs to be fertilized by a special butterfly, so Tingle gets help from a bug catcher. The bug catcher has lost his straw hat; Tingle enlists the help of the monkey from before to get it down from a tree and trades it for the insect.

With the land prepared, Iona takes Tingle to a nearby temple to find the seeds hidden within. The temple is actually home to an underground nerd hobby/gaming shop; the two owners have converted its depths into a virtual reality simulator resembling a first person dungeon RPG. Tingle braves the simulator and collects the seeds, but when he returns to plant them he finds that the plot was bought out by a visiting aristocrat. The man has planted flowers to woo Iona with, but she slaps him in a rage and storms off.

Tingle shows one of the flowers to a nearby fairy, who recognizes that the story wasn't supposed to turn out this way. He calls Glinda's sister (a flower shop owner) over, who straps a balloon to Tingle's back and sends him flying back to Page 002. Glinda is surprised to see Tingle again, but realizes that he's just gone on a Balloon Trip and explains the skill in more detail. Tingle uses the Balloon Trip to return to Page 007 prior to the aristocrat buying the plot and gets Iona's tree planted first.

Page 008

That night, Tingle, Iona, and his team go to see the tree. It had fully grown during the day and is ripe with fruit; when Tingle climbs up to grab one, the tree comes to life and closes its leaves. It bursts out of the ground, attached to some sort of plant tank, and sends the group flying. Tingle gathers his three companions from around the village and takes them back to kill the tree, which leaves its crop behind. The train is refueled with juice from the applelines the next day. Tingle and Iona say their goodbyes as he sets off down the yellow railroad once more.

Page 009

The hooded figure watches as Tingle takes off again and reveals himself to be Segare the prince. He sets up a ramp in front of Tingle's train that forces him to jump onto an old mining rail. The group must proceed by flipping giant switches to turn the tracks' junction points, but the switch that will let them get back on the yellow railroad is in a locked cage. They find an abandoned mining office with a dated picture of the crew, but there's no key in sight.

Further down the rails they come upon a tunnel and discover the crew inside, having all died but continued on in their work as zombies. The foreman asks Tingle to collect dynamite for him in exchange for the key, though he must first get a freight car by wooing the female technician. With the explosives gathered, the zombies blast a hole in the tunnel wall and are exposed to sunlight; they disintegrate on contact. Outside they find an old man, who directs them to a distant port. They continue on, lamenting the workers' (now permanent) deaths as they do.

Page 010

The train arrives at the port, where dozens of other trains are boarding a massive boat. Tingle is refused passage as he lacks a passport, so he heads to the registration office. The receptionist is unable to give him one, as the boat is reserved for a group of workers. After Tingle charms her, she hooks him up with a secret agent who can get him the necessary work certificates. Tingle meets with the agent, who suggests dock work for the Tin Woman and Lion and espionage for Tingle and Scarecrow.

Tingle performs a series of tests from the agent to prove himself. After passing, he is taken to a warehouse to bust a family of criminal rats. He receives the certificates and trades them for the passport, but a child steals a medal from Scarecrow that he had received from Glinda. They trade him a toy robot to get it back. While returning to the train and boarding the boat, a guard sees the medal and points out that they could have just shown that to get passage to Emerald City, since it meant they were working for Glinda. Scarecrow gets the "Medal" command.

Page 011

After crossing the ocean, Tingle arrives at the gate to Emerald City. The gatekeeper takes his break just as Tingle walks up to his booth, so Scarecrow flashes the medal at him. The gatekeeper opens back up, but Scarecrow is kidnapped by Segare (who was disguised as a clown) and taken out into the desert. Tingle and Lion give chase and immediately pass out from the heat; the Tin Woman drags them to safety and they meet with a nearby survival guide to get a canteen.

The trio set back out into the desert, engaging in random encounters with mummies, cacti, and snake charmers, until they reach the underground village of the Usotami people. The Usotami are all compulsive liars and force Tingle to solve their backwards riddles before he can move further. Tingle discovers the village chief speaking with his daughter, Liar. She accidentally pushes him into a herd of goats and he is trampled, drooling over her despite, until she runs away in horror.

Tingle follows Liar and uses Love Push to win her over. He gains an audience with the chief and learns that Scarecrow was taken into a cave that is home to the Usotami god. Tingle enters the cave with a skin of goat milk (as a sacrifice) and finds his companion tied up. Segare appears and tries to strand them, but he awakens the god and it sends him flying. The god possesses the Tin Woman and forces Tingle to answer a quiz as an Usotami would (if he fails, he's turned into a goat). After passing the quiz, they return to the train and ride into the city.

Page 012

In Emerald City, Tingle finds that several of the women he's met have also come to attend the Princess's ball. He tries to go straight to the castle, but the guard asks him to wait a day while they prepare and rents him a room at the inn (I may have had to become famous by speaking to a journalist on Page 008 first). The room next to Tingle's is occupied by a man who's spying on the Princess with a telescope; Tingle shamelessly joins him, but when he looks again that night he sees the Princess being poisoned by a mysterious figure.

The city is grim the next day and the ball is cancelled due to the Princess's condition. Tingle meets a blonde-haired woman in the bar (he doesn't recognize her, but she was the one selling the storybook at the beginning) who gives him a list of ingredients he'll need to make an antidote. He uses Balloon Trip to go back and collect the items (note that back on Page 001, Tingle's "parents" are also poisoned), then gives them to the woman. She gives him a pass into the castle and directions to the Princess's quarters.

Tingle meets the woman again outside the bedchambers and she gives him the antidote. He enters and meets the king, then uses the medicine on the Princess to immediate effect. She sees Tingle standing by her bed, drooling over her as he does so, and hides under the sheets in horror. After winning her over with a Love Push, the Princess agrees to reschedule the ball for the next night and invites Tingle to join her. Spying on them from outside, the blonde woman is thrilled.

Page 013

Tingle awakens the next day to find that the city has been vandalized by pumpkins and the people are terrified of him. He finds Segare and some thugs posing as him and his friends; they beat up the guards and run, leaving the real Tingle to take the fall. Locked in the castle dungeon, Tingle tries to escape by speaking to a lady guard, but she rejects him. He travels to Page 012 and charms her in the bar, then returns to Page 013 and convinces her to let him out. He and his friends decide to sneak into the ball anyway, since Tingle still needs to have his dance.

Segare confronts the quartet in the castle courtyard and attacks them with a mecha. They work together to dismantle it and run for the door, but Segare uses a rocket launcher to knock a massive slab of stone from the castle wall onto them. Lion remembers something from his past, gathers his courage, and catches the rock; he holds it long enough for the others to get inside, then kicks the door shut behind him as Segare prepares another rocket. Tingle and Scarecrow stop to lament, but the Tin Woman presses them on.

The trio sneak past the guards, but several routes are impassable and they're forced to hide in a cellar. They find an elevator up to a tower, but it is short on power. Tingle finds an ill catfish nearby and cures it, then coaxes it to generate the electricity they need. The surge is too strong, however, and causes a wire to pop. The Tin Woman volunteers to stay behind and uses herself as a conduit for the wire. Her systems fried, she flashes on a hologram of her creator before shutting down.

In the tower, Tingle and Scarecrow knock out a guard and end up on a balcony. While Tingle tries to throw a rope across to another tower, Scarecrow comes up with the idea to tie the rope around himself and have Tingle throw him. He catches a ledge and holds on until Tingle can walk across. When Tingle goes to pull him up, he sees the guard trying to follow. Scarecrow lets go and drops, taking the guard with him. Haunted by the loss of his friends, Tingle arrives at the ballroom and is caught, but the Princess sees him and grants him a pardon.

Page 014

At the Princess's ball, Tingle meets another of Glinda's sisters. He gets a drink, joins in the toast, and the dancing begins. Tingle must find and dance with Iona, Liar, Azusa, and Sensei (he must go back and Love Push with the latter two to dance with them), which means first having a dance-off against the aristocrat from Iona's village to see who should get the privilege. After dancing with all four women, the Princess calls Tingle to the stage. She announces that she will take him as her husband, to Tingle's delight and the king's horror.

Tingle goes in for a kiss despite the king's misgivings, but the Tin Woman drops in front of him (in Morph Ball mode) and declares the Princess an imposter. Lion and Scarecrow, having also survived, arrive with Segare and the real Princess respectively. The imposter reveals herself to be the blonde woman from before, who is actually the wicked Majiyo. She brought Tingle into the storybook so that he would fall in love with the Princess and she could feed off that love; Tingle's friends stand in her way, so she poisons the king and kidnaps the Princess instead.

Lion, the Tin Woman, and Scarecrow chase Majiyo into another dimension; Glinda's sister upgrades Tingle's slingshot before he follows. The four defeat Majiyo in a high-speed battle and rescue the Princess. Segare appears before Tingle can finish Majiyo off, revealing that she is his mother and that he wanted to be with the Princess. They return to the city and cure the king, who offers them a reward: Lion wants courage, the Tin Woman wants a heart, and Scarecrow wants a brain, but the king tells them that they already have those.

Before Tingle can name his reward, he begins to fade. Glinda arrives and tells him that the story is ending without him, then sends him and his companions back to Page 001. Outside the farm, Glinda asks Tingle which of the five women (the Princess and the four from the ball) he will have his last dance with. If he chooses someone that he's not close to, he is sent home by a magic whirlwind and shown dancing wistfully around the storybook after the credits. If he dances with someone he is close to, he can choose to stay instead.

The credits show that the five women have returned to their everyday lives, Majiyo and Segare are banished to the forest, Lion is captain of the Emerald City guard, the Tin Woman builds a memorial to the workers from Page 009, and Scarecrow teaches other scarecrows how to fend off birds with Tingle's slingshot. The final scenes are a picture of Tingle holding the girl he chose after the dance, while his friends cheer for him in the background, and Barkle alone in Tingle's old apartment.