Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.