Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.