Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to 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 completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.