Rupee

Rupees are the unit of currency in the Legend of Zelda series, obtained primarily by defeating enemies, by cutting tall grasses or bushes, or from Treasure Chests. They are used primarily to purchase items from shops, but are also used for admission to certain minigames.

Variations
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 the standard has green Rupees being worth one Rupee, blue Rupees worth five, red Rupees worth 20, and purple Rupees worth 50. Other less common colors include yellow (worth 10 in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess), orange, silver, and gold (worth 100, 200, and 300, respectively, but different entries in the series switch which color corresponds to which amount). In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, silver Rupees found in certain dungeons that are used to open doors are worth only 5 Rupees. In The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, black Rupees (known as Rupoors) actually have negative value and will cause Link to lose Rupees. A Big Rupoor causes Link to lose 50 Rupees, and an average Rupoor causes Link to lose 5, 10, or maybe even 20 Rupees, depending on where they are found.

Carrying 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 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, this limit was extended to 999. BS Zelda no Densetsu, despite being a remake of the original The Legend of Zelda, also featured the 999 limit, as did The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Rupee limit began low (99, 99, and 200 respectively) but could be increased by acquiring larger wallets (to 200 and then 500 in the N64 games and 1000, then 5000 in The Wind Waker). The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap had wallet upgrading, but even after getting all the wallets the maximum was still the classic 999.

While not regarded as canon, Kodai no Sekiban, featured an incredible maximum of 99,999 Rupees, far more than any other Zelda game, but strict time limits made this nearly impossible to attain at the time of the original release.

The Legend of Zelda featured a hidden area with an apparently Hylian-sympathetic Moblin who will give Link a random number of Rupees. (His cryptic warning declared, "It's a secret to everybody.") In the same game is a man who operates the so-called Money Making Game, in which Link can choose one of three Rupees. He will then randomly either lose or win Rupees. Later titles featured mini-games where Rupees could be lost or won, often based on proficiency with an item. In Twilight Princess, once Link finds a Rupee of value greater than the green (which is worth 1), a cutscene is shown to inform of its worth. But if the game is restarted, (saved or unsaved) it will once again show the cutscene if Link finds a Rupee other than green. After a non-green Rupee is found, the cutscene will not trigger for Rupees of that colour until the game is restarted. This is different from other titles that show the cutscene once if at all. Another interesting thing to note is if Link finds a Rupee that "won't fit in his wallet", he will not obtain it. If Link opens a chest containing Rupees, and it turns out that the Rupee won't fit in his wallet (such as finding 50 Rupees when his wallet contains 951), he will put it back and leave it there until it fits. This holds true only for Rupees found in chests, not for those found in the field or those being dropped by enemies. The Rupees that do not fit in his wallet pertain only to those higher than 10 Rupees, though.

In Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks, due to the high prices of certain items, Link can hold a maximum of 9,999 Rupees throughout the whole game.

Uses
Although Rupees are used most often to buy items in shops, occasionally they have other uses. In the original Legend of Zelda, one Rupee is used up every time Link shoots an arrow. In A Link to the Past, if a set amount of 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 Ocarina of Time, collecting all the Silver Rupees in a particular dungeon room unlocks the locked doors. In the magic-absent Twilight Princess, Rupees were used to fuel the Magic Armor. In Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Tingle has to gather hundreds of Rupees and throw them in a pool to gain access to Rupeeland. He also has to shoot them at the final boss, Uncle Rupee in order to beat him.

In Majora's Mask, Rupees are one of the items that cannot be taken back in time with Link; however, there was a bank at which Rupees could be deposited, and the player retains their bank balance throughout the game.

Rupees are important in every Zelda game, but are central to the gameplay in the multiplayer The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. As such, this game adds Black Rupees (Black Rupees appeared again in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass with the name Rupoors), which causes Link's Rupees to scatter across the ground; and Rupee Shards, which when collected can add up to a Rupee of great value but are useless until then.

The only titles to feature monetary systems other than Rupees are The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, where the Subrosians would accept only Ore Chunks as currency, and The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, where the players collect and use Force Gems rather than Rupees. Rupees were also absent in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which had no currency system.

In Spirit Tracks, there is an item known as an Ancient Gold Piece, which is a gold coin with a Triforce symbol and Hylian writing inscribed on it. The in-game description states that holding it brings back memories of the "old days", which could mean that these coins could have been used as currency in the early times of New Hyrule until Rupees were rediscovered and reintroduced as the land's main currency.

Differences in denominations
Note: Due to the monochrome graphics of the Game Boy, the original version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening'' features Rupees that are identical in appearance, regardless of their value. However, confusion is usually avoided by the fact that all Rupees found "lying around" are worth one Rupee, and larger denominations appear only in chests – in which case the player is directly told how much they are worth anyway. In the original version of the game, the Rupees were in black and white, but in the DX version they are all blue.''

Etymology
Although later games have been more consistent, the manual for the original Legend of Zelda referred to the gems as rubies, while the scrolling screen in the game itself called them rupies (singular rupy). Thus, the origin of this word is likely a misinterpretation of the word ruby rather than an intentional reference to the real-life Indian currency, the Rupees. This is supported by the similarity between the び (bi) and ぴ (pi) characters in Japanese. The spellings Rupees and rupies are often used interchangeably, although the former prevails in all recent games.