Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon 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 straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.