Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.