Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting 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, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to complete the game using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows 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 gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.