Streaming Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene 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 new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes new problems, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.