Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.