Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete the game using only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.