Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have attempted to complete the game using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, though. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He can't always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.