Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: 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 arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working 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 simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical 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 functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.