Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.