History Main / TheStraightAndArrowPath

* In ''NinjaGaiden'', Ryu's main ranged weapons are either shurikens or a bow and yet he can still kill mooks armed with machine guns, though it's better trying to use your speed to close the distance and attack them in close quarters than it is to try and shoot them with your bow.

* The Sniper of ''TeamFortress2'' can use a bow and arrow instead of his SniperRifle. It fires in an arc and there's a definite delay between the arrow leaving the bow and landing on the target, so using it successfully is seen as a matter of luck rather than skill. The "arrows from nowhere" bit is averted, as he can only carry about half as many arrows as sniper rifle rounds.

** It may have been that they used bows because celestial bronze (much more effective on monsters than normal iron) bullets might not have even existed [[spoiler: until the end of the third book. Even then only [[BadAssNormal one of the Annabelle's mortal father]] who was a bit of a MadScientist used them.]] That and there wasn't a god of guns just those of archery.

* ''Every {{Turok}} game ever''.

* In ''Chrono Trigger'', Marle uses a bow and Lucca a gun. Somewhat justified in that Lucca's an inventor, but then there's the fact that every shop seems to sell guns for Lucca, the party time travel to the future where guns are common, and it's not particularly likely that archery is a part of Marle's princess training.

Up until the AmericanCivilWar, the trope had some accuracy. The crossbow replaced the longbow, and the musket, the crossbow, because while the replacement weapon was inferior, it was also much easier to train people to use it. (The rule for creating a longbowman is: Start with his grandfather.) However, the breech-loading repeating rifles invented during the American Civil War matched the longbow in range, accuracy, and rate of fire.

* Inara, in the final fight sequence of ''{{Serenity}}'' was to have used a bow and arrow, but it didn't look right in the final cut, so was digitally replaced with a sort of bolt gun. Which explains the apparently weird firing mechanism of that gun. They only did the replacement on the close-ups, though, so she's still got the bow in long shots.

* The Sniper of ''TeamFortress2'' can use a bow and arrow instead of his SniperRifle. It fires in an arc and there's a definite delay between the arrow leaving the bow and landing on the target, so using it successfully is seen as a matter of luck rather than skill.

* Marvel's Hawkeye and his DC equivalent, GreenArrow (or is it the other way around?) are probably the Ur-Examples of this trope.

Examples:

'''Examples:'''

* In ''PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', this is Madoka's weapon.

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* Inara, in the final fight sequence of ''{{Serenity}}'' was to have used a bow and arrow, but it didn't look right in the final cut, so was digitally replaced with a sort of bolt gun. Which explains the apparently weird firing mechanism of that gun.
** Weird. In this troper's (admittedly sometimes hazy) memory, she definitely still has a bow on my DVD.

* Signum of ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha''. In a world where others use blasters, guns, rifles, and {{Wave Motion Gun}}s, she, as an [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld old knight]], prefers to use a bow and arrow that packs enough explosive whallop to destroy a HumongousMecha's DeflectorShields when going long-range.

* The Sniper of TeamFortress2 can use a bow and arrow instead of his SniperRifle. It fires in an arc and there's a definite delay between the arrow leaving the bow and landing on the target, so using it successfully is seen as a matter of luck rather than skill.

* Archer-class servants in ''FateStayNight''... At least in theory. In practice, neither Archers seen in the {{Nasuverse}} have a bow for a [[IconicItem Noble Phantasm]]. Archer from the fifth war ''has'' a bow and is skilled in its use, but it's not par[[HyperspaceArsenal stashed around somewhere]], but it probably wouldn't do much [[StormOfBlades considering his normal combat style]].

* Archer-class servants in ''FateStayNight''... At least in theory. In practice, neither Archers seen in the {{Nasuverse}} have a bow for a Noble Phantasm.
** While Gilgamesh doesn't seem to have one, Archer [[spoiler:aka Future Shiro]] has one and uses it a few times.

* GoldenAge hero the Arrow was the first superhero to use archery as his primary gimmick. First appearing in 1938, he was actually one of the first superheroes. Now in the public domain he currently appears in the ''ProjectSuperpowers'' series from Dynamite Entertainment.

* Even RobLiefeld had to get in on the act-- his series ''Youngblood'' had Shaft (''[[DarkAgeOfSupernames snicker]]''), who used a high-tech gravity-catapult longbow because he thought it [[RuleOfCool looked cooler]] than a gun. In later series, he's not above using guns depending on the situation, but still strongly prefers the bow because he considers it to be irrevocably his "thing".