Rupees from Zelda 1 and 3

Rupees are the unit of currency in the fictional land of Hyrule in the Legend of Zelda series of video games, acquired primarily by defeating enemies, by cutting tall grasses or bushes, 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 the standard has green rupees being worth 1 rupee, blue rupees worth 5, red rupees worth 20, and purple rupees worth 50. Other less common colors include yellow (worth 10 in The Wind Waker), and silver and orange (worth 100 and 200, but different entries in the series switch which color corresponds to which amount.) The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords also added black rupees, which had no monetary value at all, and instead served a very undesirable purpose. If a player was foolish enough to collect one it made them drop some of their rupees, giving the other players a chance to grab them!

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 (see power of two). In A Link to the Past, this limit was extended to 999. BS Zelda, despite being a remake of the original The Legend of Zelda, also featured the 999 limit. In Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and The Wind Waker, the rupee limit began low (99, 99 and 200 respectively) but could be increased by acquiring larger wallets (to 500 in the N64 games and 5000 in The Wind Waker). The Minish Cap had wallet upgrading,but even after getting all the wallets the maximum was still the classic 999. Kodai no Sekiban still holds the pure greed award, featured an incredible maximum of 99,999 rupees! No other Zelda game has even come close to allowing as many as it did.

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). The spellings rupees and rupies are often used interchangeably. Thus, the origin of this word is likely a misinterpretation of the word ruby rather than an intentional reference to the actual currency, the Rupee.

Although rupees are used most often to buy items in shops, occasionally they have other uses. 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.

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, which causes your rupees to scatter across the ground; and rupee shards, which when collected can add up to a rupee of great value.