Link's Crossbow Training

Link's Crossbow Training was created as a companion title for the Wii Zapper peripheral, a gun-shaped holder into which the Wii Remote and Nunchuk were inserted so the player would feel like they were holding a real weapon. The game uses the environments and models from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, but mechanically it's a pure shooting-gallery experience — the player aims the crossbow directly at the screen and works through a series of short levels split into categories such as classic target shooting, riding the horse Epona while aiming on the move, defense missions, or boss fights taken directly from Twilight Princess. Each mission has a time limit and a medal-based scoring system that motivates replaying and gradually improving your own scores, and some levels unlock further, harder variants of the same mission with more enemies and a faster pace.

As a technical showcase for the capabilities of the Wii Remote pointer, the game was very accurate, and the response to hand movement was surprisingly fast, which made it a popular choice for demonstrating the console to new players in stores and at home with friends. In terms of content it's a matter of a few hours — it's not a full campaign with a story, but rather a collection of arcade challenges that could also be played by two players using a second Zapper, competing for the best results. Reviews at the time praised the precise controls and the fun factor for casual audiences including children and family players, although some critics objected to the low amount of playable content, the lack of a story, and the fact that it was more of a technical demo than a full game with progression and character development. The game was also sold bundled directly with the Wii Zapper peripheral, which made it, for many households, their very first introduction to precise shooting-gallery controls on the Wii.

Today Link's Crossbow Training mainly comes across as an interesting historical footnote — an illustration of how heavily Nintendo relied on pointer controls as the console's main selling point during the Wii's early years, wrapped in the familiar, beloved Zelda coating that set the game apart from an ordinary arcade shooting-gallery title.