Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game using only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes new issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, 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 sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.