Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick
One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.
PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.
The Method Behind the Madness
How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.
That causes new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.
Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges
Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.
Boss Fights and the Final Showdown
The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone items midway the battle.
Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?
In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.
