Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to finish the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would find these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. 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 multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.