Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

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 saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.