Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have tried to complete the game with only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, 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 programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, 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 look painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only 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.