Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to complete the game using just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.