I have never been very good at playing The Legend of Zelda series. Now, I understand the confusion: If I’m not good at the games, then why would I want to write about them? The simple answer is that I love the series — the characters, the story, the lore, the world, the puzzles, all of it! Even though I might not make the best Link out there, I’m still going to enjoy every last attempt to defeat Ganon alongside Zelda herself.
Despite my general ineptitude (my main strategies involve holding up the shield and auto-targeting, stockpiling fairies, and running away from things until I can figure out how to fight them), there has always been one aspect of the 3D games I have been great at: namely, using the bow.
Now, I’m not going to call myself an expert with the bow. I’ve certainly never done anything truly spectacular, like shooting an arrow at a moving target from about an entire town away. I just enjoy using the item and am confident in my ability to hit things from really far away.
Generally, when I obtain my favorite item, I explore the silly things I can try to take aim at from far away. I have even documented exploring the Sandship in Skyward Sword HD in a “shoot things with arrows, try to figure out the dungeon later” sort of way. Most of the time, my efforts in this have gone unrewarded, and in fact, they have backfired on occasion. How am I ever supposed to know not to hit switches from super far away before I need to? Once, just once, in the first Zelda game I ever completed on my own, my goofy efforts were rewarded, and in rather spectacular fashion.
The game was Twilight Princess, played on the GameCube because I had not yet found a Wii in any stores. I had just completed the Goron Mines and not wanting to progress the story just yet due to fear and a love of sidequests, I decided to take my new bow and arrows out for a spin, so to speak. Wouldn’t you know it, Kakariko Village was right there, full of potential targets.
There I was, just moving my way through the village, firing arrows at random objects and searching for fun quests of the “side” variety, when I stumbled onto the archery minigame run by Talo and Malo: a minigame which concluded by having the player attempt to hit a pole very high up from very far away. It was an objective which, coincidentally, I had already achieved while bopping around town.
I was floored. Nintendo, in all their wisdom, had seen fit to reward the player for doing something the game would not have ordinarily ever required them to do. Such rewards, too! Not only a Piece of Heart but also an item that would allow them to shoot arrows from even further away!
In a series full of struggles for the “swing sword wildly and hope to not die” level of player, having such an obscure skill be rewarded so handsomely is a memory I’ll cherish. It is one of the many reasons why, even though I’m not good at playing them, I’ll always come back to the Zelda series with a smile on my face and a fairy in my back pocket!
