Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have tried to complete the game using just a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't always duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.