Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.