Streaming Star Spends 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.