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

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, 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 main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

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