Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would find these means reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.