Link's Crossbow Training Review

[Zera]

Greetings, folks. This is a review of Link's Crossbow Training, a spin-off of The Legend of Zelda series, released in 2007 as part of a bundle with the Wii Zapper. Although it originally cost $20, it can be bought used without the Wii Zapper for about $0.50 nowadays. I recommend reading about the development of this game on Iwata Asks, which I found very interesting - http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/wii/crossbow/0/0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wICdRgyOM4s

Presentation: 90% of the graphics and sound in this game are ripped straight from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. While this sounds lazy, I for one love the world of Twilight Princess and found that its unique setting, music, and enemies made the game far more enjoyable. Of course, if you (somehow) hate Twilight Princess with a burning passion, the opposite may be true.

Gameplay: Although this seems like a very simple game - point with the Wii Remote, fire with the B Button - there's a surprising amount of depth. Your combo acts as your multiplier, and as you hit targets consecutively your score rises exponentially. Missing a single shot can easily cut your maximum score by tens of thousands of points, so it's better to not shoot at all than to miss. Accuracy is valued above all else, in direct contrast to a game like Sin and Punishment, which values the destruction itself. Each stage follows one of three gameplay styles -

In Target Shooting stages you destroy targets in three different 20 second rounds. Red and gold targets are worth 10 and 50 points respectively and award three times as much for a bullseye. Usually these stages take place from fixed perspectives and have no enemies.

In Defense stages you can't move and must fight waves of enemies for 60 seconds. If an enemy hits Link, you'll lose 100 points and break your combo. Enemies can award 20 to 300 points depending on their size and difficulty. These stages often feature glowing green enemies that give Link 100 automatic shots when destroyed. You can still fire manual shots, but holding the B Button will make Link's crossbow fire like a machine gun. This is great for wiping out enemies quickly, but it's very dangerous for your combo. Usually these stages let you rotate the camera 360° by pointing at the edge of the screen.

In Ranger stages you control Link with the control stick and must hunt down every enemy of a specific type within 90 seconds.

In addition to targets and enemies, there are many other ways to obtain points. Objects like jars, crates, barrels, etc. can be destroyed for a few points, and sometimes these will contain a gold rupee that can be shot for 1000 points - but its value decreases over time if you don't shoot it immediately. Every level also contains a scarecrow. After shooting its torso at least eight times, its head will inflate and can be destroyed for 1000 points (Note: Some Target Shooting stages have a second scarecrow that only appears if you properly destroy the first. If you destroy the second in the same way, the third round of the stage will take place in a different area with many gold targets!) Finally, each stage has a Triforce piece obtained in a specific way, like destroying every last target, eliminating a certain amount of enemies, or defeating a boss. The Triforce piece is worth 500 points and uses your remaining time as a multiplier instead of your combo.

By holding the B Button after firing, you can charge a bomb arrow, which ignores enemy defenses and can wipe out many enemies at once. However, you cannot fire consecutive bomb arrows because you'll always fire a regular shot every time you press the B Button. Some enemies can block attacks or take multiple hits unless you headshot them or something, but these hits can still increase your multiplier.

One of my favorite things about this game is how it successfully uses the enemies from Twilight Princess to provide gameplay variety. Tektites hop erratically, making them tricky foes. Keese are small and difficult to hit. Skull Kid's puppets make sudden, jerky movements that must be taken into account when building a combo. Leevers appear in groups and spin around you. A Chilfos can toss a long range spear, but can't block attacks until it generates a new one. It's amazing that these enemies can provide so much variety even though they all behave exactly as they did originally.

Link's Crossbow Training contains three modes -

Score Attack has nine levels, each composed of three stages. At the end of a level, you'll be ranked on your total score as follows:

20,000 - Bronze
40,000 - Silver
60,000 - Gold
80,000 - Platinum

Although platinum seemed challenging at first, I found that with practice I could earn over 100,000 points on each level. As such, I believe the following rankings would have been much more appropriate:

25,000 - Bronze
50,000 - Silver
75,000 - Gold
100,000 - Platinum

Practice lets you play individual stages and keeps the high scores for each stage, but it doesn't include high scores obtained from stages in Score Attack. Multiplayer lets players take turns playing a stage to see who can get the highest score, but it doesn't let multiple players play simultaneously. This mode is somewhat redundant since Practice keeps high scores anyway.

Length: This is a very, very short game. Counting the number of seconds for each stage, this game has exactly 31 minutes of pure, unadulterated shooting action. The stages are short, tightly designed, and varied, so they have a lot of replay value. This game originally released at a budget price, and can currently be bought even cheaper, so the length shouldn't be a big issue.

Conclusion: Link's Crossbow Training was made to show off the potential of the Wii Zapper. Did it succeed? Personally, I don't care, because I believe it achieved something much greater - it successfully married arcade-style score-based shooting-action with the Legend of Zelda series. I had no idea these things could go so well together - it's the combination I never knew I wanted. There are some things I would have done differently, such as carrying high scores from Score Attack to Practice, and having simultaneous multiplayer, but my only real complaint is the fact that Nintendo hasn't made this into a full game. I'm dead serious - the Ranger stages alone have enough depth that they could hold up a whole game by themselves. And if Nintendo were to combine this with classic Zelda elements like an explorable overworld and dungeons, it could be truly spectacular.

Do-It-Yourself Rating

In order to lessen the effect of my bias and make this more fun, use the following modifier statements to create your own rating:

I like fun. (+7)
I like shooting stuff for points. (+1)
I LOVE The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess! (+1)
I have uncontrollably shaky hands. (-1)
I HATE The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess! (-1)

But this is my review, so my rating is...

9/10 Awesome!

Edited June 14, 2017 by Zera

[Sentacotus]

I always did enjoy this game. Those poor Gorons though.

[Misses Elise-chan!]

I agree with your rating. I bought this game just because it was a Zelda game, and it was more than I expected it to be.

[EricaofRenais]

I agree with your rating. The first game I ever played was Duck Hunt, so this game brought back memories of me playing Duck Hunt as a 5 year old with my dad. Plus Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game, so of course I liked the game.