Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have tried to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.