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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to finish the game using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

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