Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate 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 compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.