Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.