Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.