Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new problems, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.