Nick Adams Games Blog

Over Christmas I was given Links Crossbow training for the Nintendo Wii as a present from my brother.

I remember this game being controversial amongst Nintendo fanboys as it was the first ever fully fledged Zelda spinoff title. Its a lightgun arcade game made mostly from recycled assets from Zelda: Twilight Princess.

To be honest, as long as its done in an imaginitive way, I think its reasonable for developers to recycle bits from their previous games. It was a famous USP of Warioware’s initial Gameboy Advance release as it borrowed familiar pieces from Nintendo’s previous games.

Even Smilebit’s ‘The Typing of the Dead’ mostly recycled ‘The House of the Dead 2′ (complete with dodgy voice acting and cheesy music). It was extremely tongue in cheek and made for a really fun, entertaining game. The most important thing is that it offered something new.

In this respect, Link’s Crossbow training is a dazzling success. Its a really satisfying on rails shooter with lots of different missions, destructible environments and hidden bonuses. The Nunchuk’s analogue stick means that for the first time in a lightgun game, you get free movement of your character on some challenges.

I enjoyed the game so much that I went back again and again to achieve gold medals on all of the challenges. I thought being a Nintendo game there may be some unlockable secret level or a new mode of playing the game. But there was nothing. Not even a message to acknowledge that I’d got all gold medals.

Nintendo have a long history of offering rewards and unlockable goodies. That was their thing: their games may have mostly looked like their aimed at children but they would offer some tough challenges if you searched for them.

Thats how Nintendo previously kept their hardcore gamers happy. Link’s Crossbow Training and its refusal to acknowledge enthusastic gamers who play it through to the end could be the start of a worrying trend from Nintendo.