Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have tried to complete the game using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, however. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.