Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have tried to complete the game with just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the time he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts 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.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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