Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, however. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity 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 sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

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