Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <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, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, though. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

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