Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, 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 over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.