Streaming Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive 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 main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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