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

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.