Will Tears of the Kingdom Feature This Item?
Tears of the Kingdom will bring players back to the familiar land of Hyrule that has been previously seen, but will feature some alterations. Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild brought many new things to gamers that were not previously seen in different Zelda titles. One of these new features was that the weapons Link uses can be destroyed after using them, causing the player to pick up different weapons to bring into battle. This feature was used on Links melee weapons as well as his bow.
There were many different types of weapons link could pick up such as the Falcon Bow which are used great at long range and the Duplex Bow which is a double shot bow. There are many other bows that offer greater damage, speed, and accuracy. With each of these bows Link can equip special elemental arrows causing more damage and effects on enemies and the terrain. The bow and arrow is one of Links most used items as well as one of the most popular. Link has many different iterations of his trusty bow. The Hero of Time uses the Fairy Bow, while Young Link in Majora’s Mask and the Hero of Twilight use the Hero’s bow, but there has been one bow that Link has used that gets often forgotten about and never mentioned, which is the Crossbow. In 2007 Nintendo released Link’s Crossbow Training for the Wii. This game didn’t offer much to the table when it came to Zelda lore, sales, and content. Link’s Crossbow Training was offered in a bundle for free with purchase of the Wii Zapper.
Link’s Crossbow Training follows the Hero of Twilight through eight levels which have three stages in each. The stages have the player complete tasks by shooting enemies, targets, and other objects scattered around as well as a boss battle here and there throughout the game. The run time fore this game is roughly 90 minutes long but offers replay ability due to its arcadic gameplay approach, through obtaining high scores, secrets, and even multiple, which is something that has only been seen in few installments. Overall Link’s Crossbow Training gets forgotten because of low sales and the complicated motion controls of the time, but introduced a new weapon to the Zelda lore, that being the Crossbow.
The Crossbow that Link uses in Link’s Crossbow training had a beautiful design that combined ancient design with futurist technology. The crossbow allowed Link to shoot targets much quicker than the Hero’s Bow as well as any other bow that Link comes across in other games. Upon the speed of the bow bomb arrows can be used to shoot multiple enemies as well as boulders an obstacles just like in Twilight Princess. The final thing that the crossbow offers is an auto fire ability that can be acquired throughout the stages.
Following the release of Link’s Crossbow Training the Crossbow soon disappeared and has yet to make a return in a main line Zelda title. The Crossbow however made a return in 2014 with Koei Tecmo’s release of Hyrule Warriors. This ack and slash, action adventure, strategy battle game brought brought many familiar characters from prior installments as well as new ones who are all playable. At times this game feels like a Dynasty Warriors installment with a Zelda skin on it. Each character has there own weapon that they take into battle; Darunia wields a hammer, while Zelda uses a rapier which leads me to the Crossbow. In this title there is a new Hero that is introduced through DLC or via the Definitive Edition on Switch, and that character is Linkle. This character is the great hero Link reincarnated as a female and she is the wielder of the Crossbow. This crossbow is different than the Hylian Crossbow used in Link’s Crossbow Training that being different colors, Linkle has two of them and the designs are differnt. But these crossbows share similiar shape builds.
The Crossbow has been a unique weapon in the Legend of Zelda and often gets overlooked by players and forgotten about by developers. The Two games it is featured are not mainline Zelda titles and Hyrule Warriors was developed by a third party making it not canon in Zelda Lore. This would make it the perfect reason to place in Tears of the Kingdom because there needs Breath of the Wild was all about bringing other items through the Amiibos. Each Link Amiibo had its own items to use in the game such as outfits or even wolf link. Not having the crossbow was a missed opportunity in Breath of the Wild, but it could still be placed in Tears of the Kingdom through enemies using them and Link picking them up. Tears of the Kingdom will be released on May 12, 2023 with a new adventure and opportunities, we will just have to wait and see if the Crossbow or any other items will make a resurgence.
