Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to finish the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.