Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

That causes new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. Some would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

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