Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, like the time he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, however. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break 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 the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.