Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, though. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids 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 Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.