Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have tried to complete the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience 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 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He can't always clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

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