Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the world. A few would find these means reason to question the validity 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 uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the battle.

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 strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

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