Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish the game with only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes new issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.