Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have attempted to complete the game using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.