Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, 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 automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.