Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete the game using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start 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 start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also helps 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 employs a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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