Rupee (Legend of Zelda)

Rupees from Zelda 1 and 3

In the fictional land of Hyrule in the Legend of Zelda videogame series, rupees are the unit of currency, acquired primarily by defeating enemies or from treasure chests and used primarily to purchase items in shops.

Rupees are otherwise identical gems of various colors, each color marking a specific denomination. The association between colors and values varies somewhat from game to game, but in all of the games a blue rupee is worth 5 rupees. Several recent games include a few colors that did not occur in older ones, such as silver, gold, orange, purple, and yellow, typically worth a large number of rupees.

In the original game, The Legend of Zelda, players were limited to carrying 255 rupees, the maximum value an unsigned 8-bit value can hold. In , this limit extended to 999. In , , and , the rupee limit began low but could be increased by acquiring special items.

Although later games have been more consistent, the manual for The Legend of Zelda referred to the gems as "rubies", while the scrolling screen in the game itself called them "rupies" (singular "rupy"). The spellings "rupees" and "rupies" are often used interchangeably.

Although rupees are used most often to buy items in shops, occasionally they have other uses. In Link to the Past, if enough rupees were thrown into a certain fairy fountain, a fairy would appear and increase Link's carrying capacity for bombs or arrows, at the player's choice. In The Ocarina of Time, collecting all the Silver Rupees in a particular dungeon room unlocks the locked doors.

Rupees are important in every Zelda game but are central to the gameplay in the multiplayer Zelda game . As such, this game adds black rupees, which causes your rupees to scatter across the ground, and rupee shards, which when collected can add up to a rupee of great value.