Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to load some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.