Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have tried to finish the game with just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.