Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.