Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles look painful. 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 several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.