Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have attempted to finish the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.