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

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.