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

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to finish the game using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.