Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, while many players have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.