Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. Some would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

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