I’m just going to come right out and say it: The Hookshot is the best item in the Zelda franchise. Sure, the Master Sword is iconic (rightly so), and Link wouldn’t quite be complete without his trusty bow, which remains my favorite weapon to this day, but nothing compares to the item which is both a way of moving and a method of fighting and looks just awesome while doing both.
You likely remember the first game you obtained the Hookshot in. There have been many incarnations, each as game-and-world-opening as the next. My first Hookshot was in Ocarina of Time, and once I had finally won it after many attempts, it immediately became so useful and so fun that I didn’t mind the difficulty I’d had in winning that race.
Heck, the Hookshot was so good in Ocarina that the Water Temple’s main item was just a longer chain for it which only made it better! Now Link could zoom about entire dungeons or across rooftops in Kakariko Village for hours on end, trying to find the most ridiculous spot, or…whatever he was supposed to be doing. Something about fighting Morpha?
When Majora’s Mask came around, the Hookshot looked different but had the same length as the Longshot had, and it seemed as though the peak of Link shooting things with a chain that then pulled him to whatever he’d shot had been reached. I certainly believed so because what could be better than a Hookshot with Longshot reach right away?
And then…well, the title of this article rather gives it away. But Twilight Princess came a-calling, and changed the grabbing-things-with-a-chain game forever. In the Water Temple, harkening back to Ocarina of Time, Link opens a chest to find not the Hookshot, which I was certainly expecting and looking forward to from the first Hookshot-able target I’d noticed, but instead, the Clawshot.
At first, I reacted with scorn. “How dare they change the look and name of this amazing item?!” I cried out, surprising my dog who was unaware that such atrocities were taking place. I then immediately tried it out, because playing video games is fun, and my worries turned into celebration. THIS item, this Clawshot, could not only do everything the Hookshot could do, including Longshot-length, it could also let Link change his height while using it and stay gripped on walls or ceilings. It was as if they had combined the incredible usefulness of the Hookshot with all the best parts of the Grappling Hook and added a Spider-Man feature for good measure. And it. Was. Awesome.
As I said right at the start, the Hookshot was, to that point, the best item in the Zelda franchise. So for the Clawshot to so thoroughly outclass it was incredible. Add to that the second Clawshot you obtained much later in the game, and the fact that having two allows you to do even more with them (fighting a dragon, for example), just made it even better. The fact that the Double Clawshots showed up again, with both given to you at the same time, in Skyward Sword, just solidified the Clawshot as the true future of items Link uses to shoot things and drag himself with.
The future, that is, until they come up with something even better, and unlike the past version of me, I will not question that even the best items can be improved upon. Or just give me a third Clawshot, that works too.
