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

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to load some locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.