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

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to clip through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.