Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load 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 game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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