Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish the game with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to always clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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