Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with only a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation 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 fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

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

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.