Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch
You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have tried to finish the game using just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.
The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.
The Method Behind the Madness
How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.
That creates fresh issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.
Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges
Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak item that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would find these means reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.
Major Battles and the Final Showdown
PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.
Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?
When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.
