Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <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, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the time he went through the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.