Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have tried to complete the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He can't always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.