Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.