Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch
You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.
The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.
The Method Behind the Madness
How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the original two.
That creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.
Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles
Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the world. A few would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.
Major Battles and the Final Encounter
PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.
So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?
When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.
