Streaming Star Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.